What kinds of indirect characterization are employed in Eveline?

While there are four different ways in which authors
develop their characters using indirection
characterization--

1. through a physical
   description


2. through the thoughts of the
   character


3. through the character's own
   actions


4. through the comments and reactions of
   other characters

--for the most part,
James Joyce employs only two of these techniques; namely #2 and #3. For, he makes use of
Eveline's thoughts by means of the Modernist technique of interior monologue. In
addition, Joyce utilizes imagery to connote Eveline's being "spiritually lost."  As she
sits, leaning against the dusty drapes watching the field where she used to play and the
brown houses, Eveline reflects upon how her father "was not so bad then" and her mother
was yet living. Eveline also contemplates her intentions to leave
home.

Glancing around the house, Eveline notices more dust,
suggestive of immobility and death-in-life as she deliberates her decision to leave,
qestioning its wisdom. But, she recalls her subservient positions both in the home and
at work where Miss Gavan "had an edge on her": 

readability="8">

"Miss Hill, don't you see these
ladies?...Look lively, Miss Hill,
please."

So, Eveline
concludes, she will not miss the Stores, hoping that in her new home people will treat
her with respect, and not as her mother has been
treated.

readability="7">

Even now, though she was nineteen, she
sometimes felt hersel in danger of her father's
violence.

Eveline
reflects upon the father's control, how he takes her salary and she must beg for money
for groceries. And, she thinks about how he squanders the money on drink, concluding
that hers is a difficult life, but she is going to leave it. However, Eveline also
thinks,

readability="6">

It was...a hard life--but now that she
was about to leave it she did not find it a wholly undesirable
life.

These
ruminations of Eveline provide much insight into her character. Eveline is of the abused
personality, submissive to others, hurt by others, yet reluctant to sever her
relationships with others. as the day grows "indistinct," so, too, does Eveline's
resolve.Eveline becomes somewhat paralyzed mentally as she continues to sit by the
window in the growing dusk. With imagery, Joyce expresses the approaching death of her
dream as she leans against the curtains and inhales the "odour of the dusty cretonne."
Suddenly, her promise to her dying mother comes into her mind and she hears her mother's
final desperate cries.

Terrorized, Eveline clutches the
idea that Frank will save her from her brown and dusty existence of obligation and
abuse. As she enters the dock, she prays to God for direction; the ship on which she is
to board blows "a long mournful whistle." But, just then "[A] bell clanged upon her
heart" and Eveline becomes paralyzed, fearful of her lover now, fearful of the unknown.
She grips the iron railing, refusing to board the ship. Eveline is so terrified with
uncertainty that she cannot escape her old life. Therefore, she trades her freedom for
duty and a "dusty" existence of mundane chores and abuse from her
father.