Eveline by James Joyce

Eveline by James Joyce is a short story about a girl trying to make a decision to leave her home or leave her lover. She faces the challenges of living with an abusive father or traveling to a new land and starting a new life. Eveline serves as a static character because her actions do not change at all throughout the entire story. She starts the story by thinking about her home life and how, "Now she had nobody to protect her" (Joyce 219). Then by the end of the story she decides to leave her lover and stay at her home. Eveline goes through the entire story questioning what she wanted to do that would effect her future, and she instead stayed right were she was. Eveline did not improve her situation, nor take any new actions. Allowing her fear of the unknowing to overwhelm her, Eveline does not develop mentally throughout the story. She is a passive character in the beginning of the story, and continues to act in the same passive manner when she makes her final decision.