James Joyce

James Joyce. I already have it set in my mind that I am not going to like his writings because of everyone’s comments in the chat the other night. After reading his works I found that most of their opinions of Joyce were shared by me. I found Joyce to be very boring with his writing.

In Joyce’s work Clay we are shown a day in the life of Maria. It explains that Maria works as a maid at a Protestant charity and that she has plans to celebrate Halloween with a close friend Joe, whom she had watched when he was younger. Maria buys some cakes for Joe, his wife and their children but while on the tram gets caught up talking to a gentleman and forgets the plumcake she had purchased for Joe and his wife. One thing I found interesting about this was how upset Maria was, “At the thought of the failure of her little surprise and of the two and fourpence she had thrown away for nothing she nearly cried outright.” (1136). I believe that Maria was beating herself up for this simple mistake.

One part of the story that seemed very interesting to me was when Maria and the young girls were playing a traditional Halloween game.

“She felt a soft wet substance with her fingers and was surprised that nobody spoke or took off her bandage. There was a pause for a few seconds; and then a great deal of scuffling and whispering. Somebody said something about the garden, and at last Mrs. Donnelly said something very cross to one of the next-door girls and told her to throw it out at once: that was no play. Maria understood that it was wrong that time and so she had to do it over again: and this time she got the prayer-book.” (1137).

By reading the footnote provided, I learned that wet clay meant that the person playing would experience an early death. This is obviously where the title of the work comes from but I am not quite sure what it symbolizes in the story. Perhaps it is simply suggesting that Maria’s life will soon come to an end or maybe it is suggesting that he life has already come to its end. No clue really.

Another part of the story that I found to be very interesting was when Maria sings I Dreamt that I Dwelt. Maria makes the mistake of singing the first verse twice but nobody points out her mistake and Joe gets very upset. I wonder if Joe is upset because he is simply remembering the time when Maria watched and sang to him and his brother, whom we learn earlier that he no longer speaks to. It could also be possible that Joe has secretly had feelings for Maria and hearing her sing this song only stirred up those feelings and that it was brings him to tears. I believe the way Joyce finishes leaves the interpretation up the reader. We never know the deeper meaning behind Maria’s life and the selection of the wet clay, or why Joe gets so upset hearing her sing. And that kind of bothers me. Yes I could create my own ending to this work but it still bothers me that I was not able to find an actual meaning provided by Joyce.