Clay
Clay, a short story found in the “Dubliners” series written by James Joyce features woman named Maria who is described as someone with a “very long nose and a very long chin (73).” The story is centered around a holiday, known as “Hallows Eve”, reminiscent of our Halloween. Maria’s day begins at work, then she travels to a bakery and end’s her day at a friend’s home. The story displays usage of ethos that allows the audience to sympathize with the challenges that Maria is dealt.
Joyce reveals Maria’s social status by including “The MATRON had given her leave to go out as soon as the women’s tea was over and Maria looked forward to her evening out (73).” This initial sentence shows the audience Maria’s low status in society. It also develops a sympathy feeling towards Maria, as the readers begin to feel bad for her. In addition to her poor socioeconomic status, Maria is single, petite in stature and lacks a support system, as she is without children; however, Maria does have relationships with her two brothers named Alphy and Joe, she practically raised them, they see her as a mother figure.
Maria’s desire to give and receive love is highlighted by Joyce as Maria is going to spend the evening with her brother Joe. Before Maria arrives at Joe’s house, she stops at a bakery. A woman greets her and asks if Maria is shopping for a wedding cake. A question that had Maria blushing, smiling and bubbling with excitement. As she leaves the bakery, Maria connects with a man that leaves a lasting impression on her. He has potential impact Maria’s life in ways she hasn’t experienced. As Maria continues her pursuit to her brothers home, she boards a nearly filled tram. Other riders made room for her, except for the gentleman that Maria thought was “Colonel-looking.” Joyce states that she “was impressed on how polite he was than the young men who simply starred straight before them(76).”
Maria serves a duty which is to serve other women at a company where she is currently employed. As she is working, someone mentions “Maria was sure to get the ring and, though the lady had said for so many Hallows Eves . . . She laughed her grey-green eyes sparkled with disappointed shyness and the tip of her nose nearly met her chin (74-75)”. Joyce uses this quote to describe the psyche of Maria and how that impacted her.
This slight communication impacted Maria so much that when she arrived at Joe’s house she forgot the plum cake on the tram. The events that occur when Maria arrives to Joe’s house demonstrate her depression and sadness. For example, when Maria sings “I Deamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls for the children,” a song talks about the dreams and desires Maria has for her life moving forward. Prior to the song Maria plays a game where she is blindfolded and must pick and object, which represents something in the future. Maria first picked clay, which symbolizes death. As she picked again she picks a prayer book which symbolizes convent, giving her hope for love and affection. Maria’s social status made a big impact on her life, as well as her lack of love and affection that she does not receive.
As Joyce concludes her story we are now aware of the love and affection Maria wants and eventually needs in her life. As a woman is it extremely difficult, to want something you cannot have when it is something as little as love from someone you can call your significant other.
Double vision - lexical pattern in clay
Two things have called the critics' attention in "Clay," the symbolic duplicity of Maria, at the same
time the witch and the Virgin, and the omission, when Maria sung "I Dreamt
that I Dwelt," she omitted the second stanza of the song and no one tried
to correct her. Much attention has been given, in critical analyses of the
story to the stanza which is not sung and where there are references to
marriage. According to those interpretations of Joyce's short story, Maria
cannot sing the second verse of the song because, "consciously or
unconsciously she rejects such a direct statement of her own
situation" "she sees herself
ridiculous and rather ugly", or “for the first time, she sees her life for
what it is."
The diversity of interpretations
demonstrates well the difficulty introduced by Joyce in his short story. Not
only on the stanza which was not sung, but in the ambiguity of the narrative
discourse in "Clay". The first two paragraphs of the story can be
taken as an example. The double vision used by Joyce in describing Maria In the
beginning of the story, in the first paragraph the author chose the name of
Maria which has a reference to the Virgin Mary also he described her as a hard
working yet a good woman. However, in the second paragraph the author destroyed
the image of Maria as a pretty woman by describing her as very short woman and
a woman with a very long nose and very long chin which depicts Maria as a witch.
What is defamiliarizing here is the repetition of the adverb
"very," and the emphasis expressed by another adverb,
"indeed," as if the narrator, convinced that the readers will doubt
him, wants to make Maria seem even smaller than she really is. Maria's
appearance and reality are, thus, ambiguous. In fact, there are two
Maria's, the outward ugly, witch-like small person, and the inward good,
caring, peace-making person.
We have already seen that the two signals
are common to the initial and final groups of information in "Clay,"
repetition and ambiguity. The passage from one group to the other must reveal,
then, the narrative coherence of the story, In other words, its lexical
pattern, in other words the story is structured through a pattern of
repetition. For example, the reference to Maria's big nose and big chin is
repeated many times, the Bambracks Maria cuts in the laundry and the cakes she
bought in two different shops, the trams Maria took two times, but the most
significant of these repetitions, however, is the opposition between the
remembrance and forgetfulness. In the first part of the story, Maria remembered
the five years before, when he and Alphy had gone to Belfast and also
remembered the day of Halloween and the mass morning. However, in the second
part of the story Maria forgot the cake, and nobody could find the nutcracker,
and in the end she forgot to sing the second verse of the song.
We can conclude that Maria's
"mistake" in repeating the first verse of "I Dreamt that I
Dwelt" is coherent with the structure of repetitions on which the story is
built. On the other hand, if we insist on the fact that Maria, consciously or
unconsciously, forgets to sing the second verse of Balfe's song, her
forgetfulness is also coherent with the structure of the story. Maria cannot
sing that second verse because, in the structure of "Clay," the
pattern of repetitions established in the initial paragraphs of the story must
have its correlative in the final paragraphs. In other words, the structure of
the story does not allow Maria to sing that second verse, not because it refers
to marriage, but because, more important than the theme of marriage is the opposition
between remembrance and forgetfulness.
Duplicity of Maria and the omission
In his short story ‘Clay’ James Joyce used
two different techniques which grabbed the attention of critical readers, the
symbolic duplicity of Maria; at the same time the witch and the virgin, and the
omission, when Maria sung ‘’ I Dreamt that I Dwelt’’, she omitted the verses
talking about Marriage and no one tried to correct her mistake. Different
critical analyses interpreted Maria’s mistake as, Maria deliberately avoided
singing that verse because for the first time she saw her life for what it is.
Or, Maria saw herself ridiculous and ugly.
The diversity of interpretations demonstrates well the difficulty
introduced by Joyce in his short story. Not only on the second verse which was
not sung, but in the ambiguity of the narrative discourse in "Clay".
The first two paragraphs can be an example of ambiguity, the double vision
used by Joyce to describe Maria. In the first paragraph we realized that he
chose the name Maria which *has a reference* to the Virgin Mary, and he
described her as a peace-maker, and a perfectionist hard working woman.
However, in the second paragraph, Joyce described Maria as a very short woman
with a very long nose and a very long chin which depict Maria as an ugly witch.
What is defamiliarizing here is the use of the adverb ‘’very’’ to emphasize on
her ugly looking. Thus, Maria’s appearance and reality are ambiguous. In fact,
there are two Maria, the witch-like small person Maria, and the good, caring,
peace-making Maria.
James Joyce not only used double vision that leads to ambiguity but also
used a lexical pattern in his narrative discourse in other words the story is
structured through a pattern of repetition. For example, the reference to
Maria's big nose and big chin is repeated many times, the Bambracks, the cakes
she bought in two difference shops, and the trams Maria took two times, but the
most significant of these repetitions is the opposition between the remembrance
and forgetfulness . In the first part of the story, Maria remembered the five
years before, when Joe and Alphy had
gone to Belfast and also remembered the day of Halloween and the mass morning.
However, in the second part of the story Maria forgot the cake, and nobody
could find the nutcracker, and in the end she forgot to sing the second verse
of the song.
From analyzing the two techniques, The double vision and the lexical
pattern, used by James Joyce in his short story clay, we can have a logical
answer to the mistake of Maria in repeating the first verse of “ I Dreamt that
I Dwelt” twice. Maria’s mistake is actually coherent with the structure of
repetitions which the story is built on. Maria could not sing the second verse
of that song because the structure of the story did not allow Maria to sing it,
not because it refers to marriage, but because, what is more important than the
theme of marriage is the opposition between remembrance and forgetfulness
To sum up, Joyce presented to us a piece of art that included two
different techniques that built the discourse of the story in a coherent yet
correlative way, the ambiguity and the lexical pattern push the readers to come
with different interpretations, the thing that illustrate the power of James
Joyce as a modern author.
