In 'Clay', it is the children, who Maria almost accuses of 'stealing' her plumcake, who resent

her the most, and if Dubliners' women are financially vulnerable, children are the more so. In
'An Encounter', three boys each 'saved up sixpence' to fund an ultimately dispiriting day of
adventure. When Leo Dillon 'funks' the day of truanting, leaving 'a bob and a tanner instead of
a bob' (a shilling and sixpence instead of a shilling) for the two survivors, the funds do not
stretch further than two currant buns, tolls to cross the Liffey, some 'musty biscuits' and a
shared bottle of raspberry lemonade. The boy in 'Araby' is similarly impoverished, dependent
on his drunken uncle's return from the pub to give him the 'florin' to furnish his longed-for trip
to the bazaar. Half that sum goes on his shilling entrance, and what remains after his thirdclass train fare is pathetically insufficient for the souvenir with which he hopes to court
Mangan's sister. The 'fall of the coins' as 'two men were counting money on a salver'
underscore the boy's futile sense of himself as a creature 'derided by vanity'. - See more at:
https://www.bl.uk/20th-century-literature/articles/money-in-james-joycesdubliners#sthash.5hAZRVUN.dpuf
Summary
Maria, a maid at a Protestant charity that houses troubled women, proudly reviews her
preparation for Halloween festivities at her workplace. Running through the evenings
schedule, she also looks forward to her celebrations for later in the night with the family of a
friend, Joe Donnelly. Maria nursed Joe and his brother, Alphy, when they were young, and
both of them helped Maria get her present job. Though Maria was at first uncomfortable with
the Protestant association of the charity, she has grown to accept it and is warmly loved by the
staff and residents. The time for festivities arrives, and Maria distributes the seasonal spiced
bread, called barmbrack, and tea. One of the women raises a toast to Maria.
Afterwards, Maria prepares for her journey to Joes home, admiring her appearance in the
mirror before leaving her room. On her way to Joes, Maria does some shopping. Moving
through the crowded streets, she visits two shops to buy cakes for the children and a special
plum cake for Joe and his wife. She boards a crowded tram and sits next to a colonel-looking
gentleman who kindly makes room for her. They chat casually during the ride, and at Marias
stop they cordially say goodbye to each other.
At Joes home, the Donnellys happily greet Maria. She distributes the sweets to the children,
but when she goes to present to plum cake to Joe and his wife, she cannot find the package.
Maria desperately looks everywhere, with no success. The Donnellys suggest that she
probably left it on the tram, which makes Maria think about the man, and she scolds herself
for getting distracted by his presence and for ruining her own surprise gift. Joe consoles Maria
by telling her stories about his office and offering nuts and wine.
The conversation turns to the past, and Maria tries to say good things about Alphy. The
brothers have had a falling out, though Joe has named his eldest son after Alphy. Joe grows
defensive, and his wife attempts to divert the matter by starting a round of traditional
Halloween games. Two girls from the house next door help the children to arrange a table of
saucers filled with different objects and lead a blindfolded Maria over to them. Maria touches
the saucer with a mound of wet clay on it, which in games of this sort represents early death.
Joes wife reproves the visiting girls, as though clay should not be an option given its bad
omen. Maria reaches again and touches a prayer book, forecasting a pious life in a convent.

The festivities continue happily until Joe asks Maria to sing for the family. With Mrs.
Donnelly at the piano, Maria timidly sings I Dreamt that I Dwelt, a popular opera aria
written by an Irish nineteenth-century composer. Maria sings the first stanza twice, but no one
points out her mistake. Joe is visibly moved to tears and, to cover up his reaction, asks his
wife where the corkscrew is.
Analysis
Unlike the female protagonists in earlier stories, Maria does not confront decisions and
situations with large consequences, but rather those whose consequences seem small or even
nonexistent. Nothing much seems to happen in this story, and its inaction stands out even
more since it follows the violent Counterparts in the collection. Maria illustrates the quiet
life of a single maid, whose spotless reputation as a veritable peace-maker attests to her
placid lifestyle. The excitement with which the Donnelly family greets her shows that outside
of work she is equally loved. Maria is a small, gentle woman whose continuous laughter
brings the tip of her nose to touch her chinas though she loses herself in her joy. However,
the events in Clay, though quiet, are far from innocuous. Even Maria, with her serene life,
harbors unhappiness and frustration, and instead of being exempt from the tedium of routine,
she is in fact entrenched in it.
Maria has such little conflict and so few varied experiences that the smallest details of daily
living have become the focus of her energies, and these details deaden her life. For Maria,
everything demands organization and precision. She fastidiously supervises the distribution of
food portions at the charity, she prides herself on her neat and tidy body, and she repeatedly
divides up the minutes she will schedule for traveling and shopping for the evening at Joes.
Maria intends for her attention to minute details to create order and clarity in her life, but such
rigidity actually encourages frustration and emotional reactions that are out of proportion to
the situation at hand. When she realizes that she has misplaced the plum cake, she is so
furious with herself and her carelessness that she almost cries. Unlike Eveline, who feels
numb to the loss of her lover and a potential new life, Maria feels acute emotions over events
that are far more trivial. Clay demonstrates that Marias responses are just as restraining as
Evelines. Maria most likely focuses intently on lifes small details in order to avoid greater
pains. Joe exhibits the same behavior: He covers up his mysterious, tearful reaction to Marias
song by asking his wife to show him where an ordinary household item is. Preoccupation with
such trivial matters helps to repress the more difficult aspects of life. The reader never knows
what moves Joe, nor what Maria might feel on deeper levels.
The title Clay draws attention to Marias fateful selection of clay in the Halloween game
and applies that symbolism of early death to the story as a whole. Rather than implying a
literal death, the clay casts Marias uneventful, detail-oriented life as a metaphorical early
death. Clay also suggests the state of Maria and her life up to that moment. Like the paralytic
Father Flynn from The Sisters, Maria hovers in a state between living and dying where
engagement with her surroundings cannot move beyond a superficial, material level. Like
Farrington in Counterparts, she fails to recognize the tedious routine of her days, as her
repetition of the song suggests. Maria does not actively shape her experience in significant
ways, but instead she allows it to shape her. The image of her face collapsing into itself in
laughter implies that Maria in her blind happiness is moldable and soft, like clay. Maria
chooses the prayer book after the clay, which suggests she might find escape in the cloistered
life of a convent. Whether Maria escapes or not, some part of her will die. She will lose her

vibrancy to the dullness of routine, or she will lose the life she knows for one that is
unfamiliar.
In Clay by James Joyce we have the theme of poverty, conflict, disconnection, escape and
paralysis. Taken from his Dubliners collection the story is narrated in the third person by an
unnamed narrator and after reading the story the reader realises that Joyce, by giving the
reader a description of Marias daily tasks, may be exploring the theme of paralysis. Maria has
a job to do in the laundry, a responsibility which she performs daily. There is no change in her
routine and similar to the character Farrington in Counterparts it is Marias routine or
repetition of her duties, which suggests the idea of paralysis for Maria. In essence nothing
changes (at least in her daily tasks) for Maria. Joyce also appears to be exploring the theme of
poverty in the story. Maria is fully aware of how much money she has and how much money
she will have left by the time she travels to Joes house. It is also evident later in the story that
Maria is upset about the loss of the plum cake. She is acutely aware of how much it cost her,
again this suggests that Maria is conscious of how much money she has. It is also important to
remember that Maria would have earned very little money from working in the laundry. It is
also interesting that Maria considers herself to be an independent woman. This may not be the
reality considering her financial circumstances.
There is a sense of emptiness in Marias life which is also particularly noticeable. She focuses
on others, rather than on herself and she seems to escape from her own emptiness by focusing
on others. She is well liked by the other girls in the laundry and the matron has even told her
that she is a veritable peace-maker. This is significant as it suggests that Maria is involved
with helping others, rather than on developing herself. Marias involvement in other peoples
lives is also noticeable when the reader discovers that she is unhappy that Joe and Alphy have
fallen out. It is while she is at Joes house that she attempts to suggest to Joe that he should
reconcile with his brother. However she is not successful and lets the matter go. Some critics
may suggest that Maria, focuses on others, to make up for the shortcomings in her own life.
She is a middle aged woman, who has no family of her own. and the nearest she would have
to family, is Joe and Alphy. Maria also lives an uneventful life, doing the same things every
day in the laundry.
There are several instances in the story which suggest conflict, notably external conflict.
There is the fact that Maria is known to be a peace maker in the laundry, resolving disputes
between the other girls. Also Joe and Alphys dispute, though the reader is never told as to the
cause of their dispute, Maria attempts to resolve it. As for internal conflict (within Maria),
there is very little in her life which suggests any conflict. However the smallest of things can
upset her. The incident of losing the plum cake on the tram results in Maria nearly crying.
This fragility over something minor is important as it suggests that Maria is in some ways
disconnected or closed off from the real world. Everything is a routine for her. From the tasks
she performs in work, to the planning of her trip to Joes house. Any deviation from this
routine will cause upset for Maria.
There is also symbolism in the story to suggest Marias disconnection from the real world.
She works and lives in the laundry, which was set up to provide relief and housing to women

who had incurred difficulty in their lives. People living in the laundry would have been closed
off from the real world. Also Maria is unaware that while she is deciding which cake to buy in
the shop, the woman behind the counter is being sarcastic. This also suggests a disconnection
from the realities of the world. The idea or disconnection from the real world is also further
explored near the end of the story when Mrs Donnelly tells Maria that she will enter a convent
by the end of the year. Again Joyce may be suggesting that life in a convent (or in any
religious order) may be an escape from the realities of the world.
The divination game that Maria plays in the story is also important. Some critics suggest that
Marias picking of the clay is symbolism for her pending death, while other critics suggest
that it may be symbolism for her continued stunted development or paralysis. It is also
significant that Maria was blindfolded. Again this may be symbolism for Marias inability to
see where her life is going and Joyce may be suggesting a continued paralysis for Maria.
The ending of the story is also interesting. Maria sings the first verse of the song twice,
without realising her error. It may be significant that no one tells Maria that she has made a
mistake. This in turn may suggest that Maria is to continue living her life as she has, doing the
same things and living the same way. In essence paralysed and escaping from the realities of
the world. It may also be significant that the song Maria sings at the end of the story, is a song
about a woman going from rags to riches. Joyce may be using irony to symbolise that nothing
will change for Maria.
Clay from Dubliners is typical of Joyce the Modernist, whose perspective in the story is
suggested by the physiognomy of that elusive corkscrew. Everything depends upon the reader
being more perceptive than Joe Donnelly, for almost every detail of the story implies
opposites or contradictions, the essence of irony. Reading on all levels simultaneously is
somewhat like playing three-dimensional chess. Maria the central figure is a soul of clay, one
of many old maids in Dubliners, isolated between the Flynn sisters and the Morkan sisters.
Her spinsterhood invokes the most obvious and for her the most painful ironies: Lizzie
Fleming said Maria was sure to get the ring. Maria pretends she didnt want any ring or any
man either, and laughs with disappointed shyness. The stylish bakery clerk asked her was
it a wedding cake she wanted to buy, and Maria pretends amusement, blushing. In the saucer
game Joyce emphasizes symbolic appropriateness rather than irony by having Maria miss the
ring and get the clay (death). But her response is the most crucial irony in the story, at least as
far as she personally is concerned: Maria understood that it was wrong that time. All present
are relieved to see her get the prayer-book the next time; for them the appropriate choice is the
abhorrent choice. Soon they were all quite merry again and Mrs. Donnelly said Maria would
enter a convent before the year was out because she had got the prayer-book. Joe asks the old
lady to sing some little song before she went. In her embarrassment Maria seems to sense
some of the irony of her romantic song from The Bohemian Girl and it may be this partial
consciousness which causes her to omit a stanza about a lover. Blushing very much, she
sings in a tiny quavering voice that she dreamt she dwelt in marble halls instead of dirty
Dublin, with vassals and serfs instead of squabbling laundresses; that she, a withering
spinster, was the hope and pride of all assembled; that she had wealth, nobility and love.

The irony of the song expands through Marias analogical association with the Irish Catholic
Church. It may be tempting to think of Maria as also analogous to Ireland itself, but this
second grand association is dubious and would confuse such otherwise precise social ironies
in the story as those implied in the song. There is a point of diminishing return, even in Joyce.
As to Marias identification with the Church, however, there can be little confusion and no
doubt. The last words of the story Counterparts lead directly into Clay when Farringtons
boy invokes Marias namesake to avert a beating. The last futile cries of Ill say a Hail Mary
are followed by the introduction of the futile Maria in Clay, as Joyce answers exhortation
with deflation. The virginal Maria is treated by her relatives like the Virgin Mary, and she
unwittingly enacts an imperfect allegorical parody of the Church. Everyone was so fond of
Maria. Joe calls her his proper mother. Her duty is to cleanse the soiled laundry of Irish
souls, and she superintends a mock sacrament in the Dublin by Lamplight laundry, ringing the
big bell as a summons, distributing bread to the complacent, joking communicants. Yet
literally she works for Protestants, who control Irelands purse. Her own purse is a present
from Protestant Belfast. She had become accustomed to the life, but there was no time like
the long ago, when Ireland, old and young alike, was totally Catholic. Standing on the tram
wearing her Dublin-brown waterproof, she is ignored by the young men. But an old
gentleman moves over so that she can take her proper place. He is all Irish, with a square
red face and a Dublin-brown hat. He is stout and, most typically, under the influence of stout.
Maria the proper mother favors him with demure nods and hems, while Maria the spinster
is so flustered she loses her plumcake. Like the Church, she is so preoccupied with form, she
loses the gift and fails to deliver. Maria also ultimately fails as a peacemaker: Joe cried that
God might strike him stone dead if ever he spoke a word to his brother again and Maria said
she was sorry she had mentioned the matter. The Irish Church was of course the antithesis of
a peacemaker in the times of Charles Parnell. For her blind groping the proper mother gets
death and prayer, then sings of being the hope and the pride. Since Maria is like a witch as
well as a saint, the two sets of associations contradict each other. She has a very long nose
and a very long chin, and when she laughs their tips nearly meet. Her evening out is
Halloween, the night before All Saints Day, the night when people pretend to be what they
are not. She is the victim of her own spell. Maria the spinster is doomed, at least in part, by
Maria the proper mother. For her tidy little mind is the product and embodiment of Irish
Catholicism. She is disappointed in her life, but uncritical of her faith. She has never really
examined either one, anymore than she really examines herself in the mirror, when she
appropriately looks at the body and not the head of her constitution: In spite of its years she
found it a nice tidy little body. Her body, like her mind, is diminutive, arrested in its
development, now shrinking with age. She sees what she wants to see and pretense is her
defense. The cook said you could see yourself in the big copper boilers, but such reflections
are distortions. Maria never really sees herself at all. In addition to being both saintlike and
witchlike she is both ladylike and ratlike. Like a rat she is very, very small, long-nosed,
brown-coated, ferreting her way-- and trapped. Like a lady she considers the laundry
matron a nice person to deal with because she is so genteel. Ginger Mooney on the other
hand had the notions of a common woman. Though Maria has no epiphany, some critics
claim one for Joe. But he is a counterpart in circumstances and sensibility to Farrington of
Counterparts. He also laughs too much over a smart answer which he had made to his

boss. Fond of stout, bitter towards brothers, sick with loss, both men end blinded by emotion,
without any genuine revelation. Joes eyes filled up so much with tears that he could not find
what he was looking for and in the end he had to ask his wife to tell him where the corkscrew
was. Tears of sentimentality and remorse blur his vision in the fullest sense. He has begged
for one of the old songs, one that would remind him of the long ago. And he is very
much moved by the song rather than by the pathos of Marias omitted stanza, which he, like
the others, regards as a simple mistake. The missing corkscrew, one of several lost objects in
the story, embodies the final irony. The only meaningful epiphany in Clay is the readers.
As with the Pok! epiphanies of Ivy Day in the Committee Room, the revelation depends
upon a missing opener, and consists in what certain Dubliners cannot discover, cannot see.
Michael Hollister (2015)