In the story, "Eveline," by James Joyce, a young girl named Eveline has to make a hard choice between staying at home or moving out with her lover. She keeps reminiscing on the memories she shared with her father, the good and the bad, and doesn’t know if she wants to be a good daughter and obey her father. On the other hand, she meets her lover, Frank the sailor, who she is madly in love with and secretly wants to run away and live a life of true happiness with in Buenos Ayres. They are planning to go to Buenos Ayres to get wedded, but Eveline has her father in the back of her mind knowing that he would disapprove and it would deeply hurt him. Eveline has a hard choice to make between the two: stay with her father at home or go off with the man of her dreams. She is tired of living in her worn out, dusty home and needs to make a decision fast, before it ends up being too late.
Eveline explains her house as dusty. She uses this term as a con to decide whether or not she should leave her home. The connotes to the term of dusty would be: dull, worn out, raggedy, old and hideous, and aged over time. She says that she sees “familiar objects which she had dusted once a week for so many years, wondering where on earth all the dust came from.” This shows that she sees the familiar objects as dull and how the objects have aged over time rather than her wanting something new. Another negative point that she mentioned was that “her head was leaned against the window curtains and in her nostrils was the odor of dusty cretonne.” She sees the curtains as old and hideous, which she lays her head upon because she’s tired. She describes her home as dusty to show that it’s worn out, raggedy, and she wants something brand new, at least that’s what she describes.
When she decides to throw the pros and cons about moving out or staying home, she had tons of pros but few cons to make her final choice. The connotes to the word home would be: “where the heart