Analysis of "Clay" by James Joyce

1. Clay
James Joyce
Dr Mohammed Fahmy
Raiyah

2. James Joyce
(1882-1942)

3. Some Other Famous Irish Writers
Jonathan Swift Oscar Wild
W. B. Yeats
George Bernard Shaw
Samuel Beckett

4. Dubliners is a collection of 15 short stories by James Joyce, first published in 1914.

5. The Republic of Ireland

6. Dublin in the early 20th century

7. Halloween
31 October

8. Halloween Turnip lanterns
Trick or treat
Barmbracks Bumpkin lanterns

9. Barmbracks

10. “Maria was a very, very small person indeed but
she had a very long nose and a very long chin.”
witch

11. Ballsbridge, Dublin, 1911
“From Ballsbridge to the Pillar ,
twenty minutes; from the Pillar to
Drumcondra, twenty minutes; and
twenty minutes to buy the things.
She would be there before eight.”
The Pillar, Dublin

12. “The tram was
full and she had
to sit on the
little stool at
the end of the
car, facing all
the people, with
her toes barely
touching the
floor.” Tram
(Dublin, 1904)

13. Plumcake
for Joe
Plum

14. Penny cakes
For the children

15. Game of
divination

16. “She felt a soft wet substance with her fingers
and was surprised that nobody spoke or took off
her bandage.” Why?

17. “his 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.”
People tend to escape reality
and avoid facing bleak facts by
focusing on trivial objects or Corkscrew
involving themselves in petty
activities.

18. ANALYSIS

19. PLOT
Almost nothing happens in the story. The
main emphasis of the story is on character, rather
than plot (cf. The Cask of Amontillado).
 The early paragraphs that introduce the main
characters and the setting constitute the
exposition.
 The rising action follows, as we follow Maria in
her trip in the streets of Dublin to Joe’s house.
 The climax occurs when Maria chooses the clay
in the parlour game. The rest of the story is the
falling action.

20. SETTING
The place is the city of Dublin. The story begins
in the Dublin by Lamplight laundry where Maria lives
and works. Then, we follow Maria in her trip through
the streets of Dublin, boarding the tram, to Joe’s
house, where the last part of the story is set.
The time is the beginning of the twentieth
century.

21. CHARCTERS
MARIA
Maria is the central character in the story. She is a
middle-aged woman who lives and works in a charitable
institution for women. Maria seems almost willfully
unaware of the more brutal aspects of day-to-day life. She
tries to forget her difficult life by focusing on the small
details of daily living. The story abounds in examples of
Maria’s preoccupation with these trivial details.
Maria’s concentration on the positive aspects of life and
the cheerful sides of her existence are a means of
compensation for the emotional vacuum and the
emptiness of her real life. In other words, Maria creates
her own world that allows her to make for the deprivation
and losses of her life.

22. Maria’s reputation as a peacemaker attests to her ability
to evade the larger issues of life and to avoid conflicts in
order to make her life more acceptable and palatable. She
likes to please all people around her. Consequently, she is
equally loved by the women in the laundry and by people
outside. She is warmly welcomed by Joe and his family and
the children.
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 Joe’s. Maria intends for her attention to minute details
to create order and clarity in her life, but such rigidity
actually results in 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.

23. Mari’s choice of clay during the game signifies, not
her impending death, but her emotional death. On
the other hand, her choice of the prayer book, which
stands for her entering a nunnery, symbolizes her
further retreat from real life.

24. POINT OF VIEW
limited third-person point-of-view. The narrator
lets us see the world through the eyes and thinking of
Maria. The reader is permitted to go inside the mind
of Maria and no other character.

25. THEMES
Death-in-life:
The story shows how people can live an incomplete life in which
their concentration on the small trivial details prevents them from
seeing the bleak reality of their existence and makes them seem dead.
Consequently, they live in a state between life and death.
Death:
Death is a prominent theme in the story. The title word of the
story is a symbol of death. Maria picks the saucer that contains clay, a
portent of imminent death. Joe, aware of Maria’s old age, is moved to
tears.

26. SYMBOLISM
Clay:
Clay in the traditional game of divination is a
symbol of death. On the other hand, clay is also a symbol
of Maria’s death-in-life state. Maria’s life that is focused
on small details, avoiding facing the reality of life, is a
kind of metaphorical death.
Corkscrew:
The corkscrew that Joe looks for when he is full
of tears upon hearing Maria’s song is a symbol of the
way people avoid facing painful reality by focusing on
small trivial objects.