A young woman, Eveline, of about nineteen years of age sits by her window, waiting to leave home.

When Frank is referred to as Eveline's "lover", it's only in the sense that they are romantically involved: the word didn't have its current meaning until the 1920s (OED).

Joyce said that his intention in writing the stories was to reveal the "paralysis" suffered by Dubliners of the period.

[2] William York Tindall finds Eveline's inability to leave Dublin with Frank to start a new life "the most nearly straightforward expression of paralysis" in the collection.

[3] Hugh Kenner finds Frank's success story improbable, his name to be ironic, and argues that his leaving Eveline alone at the dock shows he didn't intend to take her to Buenos Aires, but rather to seduce her in Liverpool, where the ship is actually headed.