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Buenos Aires
Towards the middle of the story, the reader learns that Eveline has a lover, Frank, who wants to marry her. Eveline is drawn to Frank in part because she finds him exotic. He introduces her to new music, new slang, and new experiences like going to the theater. Most importantly, he is a sailor who has been to many far-off lands. Joyce reveals to the reader that Frank wants Eveline to run away with him and sail to Buenos Aires where they can get married and start a new life together.
Buenos Aires, then, becomes a symbol of freedom and new beginnings. It represents an exotic break from the monotonous Dublin life that plagues Eveline. She is tired—she is tired of her difficult and boring life and she is tired of not receiving any respect from her fellow Dubliners. She romanticizes her hypothetical life in Argentina and reflects that, “in a distant unknown country, it would not be like that.” However, by the end of the short story, Eveline realizes that her fantasies about Buenos Aires are just that: a fantasy. She is ultimately unable to turn her mental escape into a real one.
The Sea
Eveline and Frank make it all the way to the station at the North Wall before Eveline starts to panic. Eveline’s prior assertion that she deserves a better life with Frank in Buenos Aires is retracted as she stares in fear at the open water that will take her away from her home, possibly forever. In her frightened state, Eveline thinks, “All the seas of the world tumbled about her heart. [Frank] was drawing her into them: he would drown her.” Water is often used in literature to indicate rebirth, but in “Eveline” it represents the exact opposite. The sea in “Eveline” reveals terror and immobility as opposed to hope and new beginnings. The sea is meant to symbolize Eveline’s fear of the unknown. She is both literally and metaphorically unable to brave the sea and find a new life in a distant country. The sea was supposed to carry her safely to a bright new future but, instead, it figuratively drowns her until she is unable to carry out the plan that she was so desperate to enact earlier in the text. She remains in Dublin where she is unhappy but comfortable, surrounded by the life that she has always known instead of embracing uncertainty and new experiences.
