Eveline has been given a chance to escape. But in the end, the girl finds herself incapable of going. Certainly, she has every reason to leave. The portrait we have of her family life is not heart-warming. We see that she is responsible for keeping the family together, as her mother did before her. Her father is an unfair man, who makes his daughter work and then keeps her wages. Rather than appreciate her work, he ridicules her. Mostly the circumstances of her family make Eveline want to escape.
Eveline’s father is a shadowy but menacing bully who has ruined her mother’s life and is set to ruin hers. Eveline’s father is the repressive authority in her life. She is helpless to break away from him.