James Joyce (1914) — a young woman at a window, one suitcase packed, deciding whether a life can be left behind
Easier version available: read this lesson at A2/B1 level →
Joyce tells the whole story in about two thousand words, and almost nothing "happens" — a woman sits at a window, then stands at a quay. Read each part, pause for the discussion box, then continue. Watch how the past keeps pulling at her even as the future waits at the dock.
She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue. Her head was leaned against the window curtains, and in her nostrils was the odour of dusty cretonne. She was tired.
Few people passed. The man out of the last house passed on his way home; she heard his footsteps clacking along the concrete pavement and afterwards crunching on the cinder path before the new red houses. 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.
The children of the avenue used to play together in that field — the Devines, the Waters, the Dunns, little Keogh the cripple, she and her brothers and sisters. Her father used to hunt them in out of the field with his blackthorn stick; but usually little Keogh used to keep watch and call out when he saw her father coming. Still they seemed to have been rather happy then. Her father was not so bad then, and besides, her mother was alive.
That was a long time ago; she and her brothers and sisters were all grown up; her mother was dead. Everything changes. Now she was going to go away like the others, to leave her home.
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.
She had consented to go away, to leave her home. Was that wise? She tried to weigh each side of the question. In her home anyway she had shelter and food; she had those whom she had known all her life about her. Of course she had to work hard, both in the house and at business. What would they say of her in the Stores when they found out that she had run away with a fellow? Say she was a fool, perhaps; and her place would be filled up by advertisement.
She would not be treated as her mother had been. Even now, though she was over nineteen, she sometimes felt herself in danger of her father's temper. When they were growing up he had never gone for her, as he used to go for the others, because she was a girl; but latterly he had begun to threaten her and say what he would do to her only for her dead mother's sake. And now she had nobody to protect her.
But in her new home, in a distant unknown country, it would not be like that. Then she would be married — she, Eveline. People would treat her with respect then. She would not be treated as her mother had been.
Frank was very kind, manly, open-hearted. She was to go away with him by the night-boat to be his wife and to live with him in Buenos Aires, where he had a home waiting for her. How well she remembered the first time she had seen him; he was lodging in a house on the main road where she used to visit. He used to meet her outside the Stores every evening and see her home. He took her to see The Bohemian Girl, and she felt elated as she sat in an unaccustomed part of the theatre with him. He was awfully fond of music and sang a little. People knew that they were courting, and, when he sang about the lass that loves a sailor, she always felt pleasantly confused.
Her father had found out about the affair and had forbidden her to have anything to say to him. "I know these sailor chaps," he said. And one day he had quarrelled with Frank, and after that she had to meet her lover secretly.
A bell clanged upon her heart. She felt him seize her hand:
"Come!"
All the seas of the world tumbled about her heart. He was drawing her into them: he would drown her. She gripped with both hands at the iron railing.
"Come!"
No! No! No! It was impossible. Her hands clutched the iron in frenzy. Amid the seas she sent a cry of anguish!
"Eveline! Evvy!"
He rushed beyond the barrier and called to her to follow. He was shouted at to go on, but he still called to her. She set her white face to him, passive, like a helpless animal. Her eyes gave him no sign of love or farewell or recognition.
Ten words from the story and its world, each chosen because it does real work elsewhere too — in a conversation about a decision, a regret, a turning point. Tap a card to reveal its meaning and a usable example.
Joyce barely steps in to explain. He writes from inside Eveline's head, and lets the smallest details carry the weight. Notice these three moves.
| Move | What it does | Marker in the text |
|---|---|---|
| Free indirect discourse | Her thoughts and the narrator's voice blur, so we are inside her hesitation | "Was that wise?" / "Home!" / "Why should she be unhappy?" |
| The epiphany | A small ordinary moment opens into a sudden, silent realisation | The bell, the railing, the face that gives "no sign" |
| Symbolism of dust and the sea | The known is stale but safe; the unknown is freedom but also drowning | "dusty cretonne" vs "all the seas of the world" |
Almost every memory in this story is a habit: the children who used to play, the father who would hunt them in, the lover who used to meet her. That is exactly how English narrates the repeated, finished past — with used to and would.
Pattern: used to + base verb. It tells us something was true repeatedly or for a long time in the past, but is not true now. It works for both habits (actions) and states (situations).
1. There (be) a field there where the children played. (state)
2. They (play) in that field every evening. (habit)
3. Frank (meet) her outside the Stores every evening. (habit)
4. Her father (not be) so bad when her mother was alive. (state)
1. used to be
2. used to play
3. used to meet
4. used not to be / didn't used to be
For repeated actions in the past, would + base verb is an elegant alternative to used to, common in storytelling. But there is a trap: would cannot describe a past state. You can say "He would come home late" (action), but not "There would be a field there" (state) — for states you must use used to or the past simple.
Rewrite with would where it is possible. If would is not possible, write "used to only".
1. Her father used to hunt them in out of the field. → Her father hunt them in.
2. Little Keogh used to keep watch and call out. → Little Keogh keep watch.
3. There used to be a field there. →
4. Her mother used to be alive. →
1. would hunt (repeated action — fine)
2. would keep (repeated action — fine)
3. used to only ("be" here is a state — "would be" is wrong)
4. used to only (being alive is a state, not a repeated action)
The past simple just says it happened. Used to adds the idea that it was a habit or a lasting state, and that it is over now. Choose the form that fits the meaning.
1. Last Tuesday she (clean) the whole house. (one finished action)
2. Every week she (dust) the same familiar objects. (repeated past habit)
3. The night she met Frank, she (feel) elated at the theatre. (one occasion)
4. When she was a child the family (be) rather happy. (past state, now over)
1. cleaned (a single completed action — not a habit)
2. used to dust / would dust (repeated habit)
3. felt (one specific occasion)
4. used to be (a past state — "would be" not possible)
Four moves to spot. They are why a story in which a woman simply does not get on a boat can stay with you for years.
Joyce drops the "she thought that…" and lets Eveline's own voice rise straight into the narration: "Was that wise?" "Home!" The technique collapses the distance between narrator and character, so we don't observe her hesitation — we inhabit it.
Nothing dramatic happens at the quay: a bell, a hand, a railing. Yet in that instant the whole weight of her life arrives at once. Joyce compresses a lifetime of duty and fear into a single silent refusal. This sudden ordinary revelation is the engine of every story in Dubliners.
Across the collection, Joyce returns to lives that cannot move — held in place by duty, religion, family, habit. Eveline literally cannot let go of the railing. The motif recasts her stillness as something larger than one girl's nerves: it becomes a portrait of a whole city's inability to leave.
At the climax Joyce suddenly steps out of her head, after a whole story spent inside it. We get only "a helpless animal," eyes with "no sign of love or farewell or recognition." By withholding her thoughts at the one moment we most want them, he leaves the ending open — and unbearable.
Now move to the next tab. The technique work above feeds directly into the three speaking tasks.
Do all four. Each one builds on the last. The timer is for your benefit — it forces you to fill the time rather than escape it. Use the past-habit structures (used to / would) and the effect verbs from the previous tabs.
Before we discuss it, tell the story back to me as if I had never read it — in your own words, not line by line. Aim for about eight to ten sentences.
As you go, use at least five words from the Vocabulary tab and keep the events in order using the used to / would forms for past habits from the Grammar tab. These beats will help you: Eveline sits at her window at dusk, reviewing her life · home is hard — a dead mother, a difficult father, endless duties · a kind sailor, Frank, wants her to sail away and marry him in Buenos Aires · she weighs escape against a promise to her dying mother · at the quay the boat is ready and Frank calls her — gripped by fear, she cannot move and gives him "no sign of love or farewell".
Eveline's memories are built almost entirely from habits — what people used to do, what they would do every evening. Describe the place and the people of your own childhood the same way.
Talk for four minutes about where you grew up: what your family used to do, what a particular relative would always do, what used to be there that is gone now. Use at least five "used to / would" structures, and be careful with states (used to only).
The story turns on a single moment of decision at a barrier. Tell me about a real threshold — a job offer abroad, a relationship, a move, a resignation — where someone had to choose between the safe known and the frightening unknown: your own if you like, or one you've watched someone close to you — or a well-known person — wrestle with.
Set up the two sides as Eveline does (reasons to go, reasons to stay), then say what you actually did. Use at least three effect verbs (recast, compress, suspend, withhold…) to describe how the moment felt.
Eveline does not get on the boat. Was she right? Build a two-minute argument that her choice was wisdom — duty, loyalty, self-knowledge — and then a two-minute argument that it was a tragedy — fear winning over freedom.
Imagine the road not taken using the third conditional — if + past perfect, then would have + past participle, for an unreal past ("If she had stepped onto the boat, she would have started a new life"). Add at least one structure that captures lasting past habit to show what her life will go back to.