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“One time there used to be a field there in which they used to play every evening with other people's children. Then a man from Belfast bought the field and built houses in it—not like their little brown houses but bright brick houses with shining roofs.”
Eveline is reflecting on her childhood in Dublin and recalls how she and the neighborhood kids used to play in a field near their houses. Eveline goes on to explain that new homes were built where the field once existed. Here, Joyce uses color to represent the dreariness of Eveline’s Dublin. The bright new neighborhood is contrasted with the “little brown houses” that Eveline is accustomed to. The use of the word “brown” is significant because Joyce uses the color brown throughout Dubliners to characterize Dublin as dull and monotonous.
“Home! She looked round the room, reviewing all its familiar objects which she had dusted once a week for so many years, wondering where on earth all the dust came from. Perhaps she would never see again those familiar objects from which she had never dreamed of being divided.”
Eveline spends the entire short story deciding whether she should leave Dublin or not. Unsurprisingly, this causes Eveline to fixate on her family home—the most important setting in the text. Eveline’s emphasis on her house and familiar household objects reveal that she is hesitant to leave the only home that she has ever known. This passage also reveals to the reader that Eveline does all the cleaning and domestic work in her family unit.
“She stood among the swaying crowd in the station at the North Wall. He held her hand and she knew that he was speaking to her, saying something about the passage over and over again. The station was full of soldiers with brown baggages. Through the wide doors of the sheds she caught a glimpse of the black mass of the boat, lying in beside the quay wall, with illumined portholes.”
This passage describes the story’s other setting: the station where Eveline ultimately decides that she cannot go with Frank to Buenos Aires at the end of the short story. Joyce’s descriptions of the station are revealing. His emphasis on the surrounding crowds and Frank’s grip on Eveline’s hand makes the atmosphere feel claustrophobic and restricting. He also refers to their boat as an unsettling “black mass” that looms threateningly overhead. Joyce describes the station in such an ominous manner in order to match Eveline’s apprehension.
