CLAY (KEY THEMES/ CRITICISM)

Question 1

What key themes are explored in Clay?

Answer 1

Main Themes:
1. Loneliness and Isolation
2. Passivity, paralysis and repression.
3. Social mistreatment/ role of women
4. Ridgidity and repression

Minor Themes:
Fate and mortality

Question 2

How is the theme of passivity, paralysis and repression explored?

Answer 2

• Maria takes a passive/complacent stance towards her life–epitomising self-effacement and deference. When she is not being overpowered by her colleages, friends or even random strangers she is overlooked.
• Joyce reveals her quiete tradgedy through her perpetual fawning- reflecting internalised mariginalisation (as an unmarried woman) and social conditioning.

Question 3

What quote highlighsts the theme of paralysis in Maria?

Answer 3

• Opening line—‘The matron had given her leave’
• ‘She asked all the children had any of them eaten it–by mistake, of course’
• ‘Joe said it didn’t matter and made her sit down by the fire. He was very nice with her.”

Question 4

How is the theme of social mistreatment/ role of women explored?

Answer 4

• Maria is constantly overpowered or sidelined by others- reflecting the invisibile status that unmarried, elderly woman have in a patriarchal society.
• She takes on a surrogate maternal role to the children/in the Laundary, to gain the social reward given to other women- However, these rewards remain out of reach (even when she destroys herself in the process)

Joyce uses Maria to comment on…./ A feminist lense…

Question 5

What quote highlights the systemic mistreament of (unmarried) women?

Answer 5

• It was ‘a long time before she could get herself attended to’
• ‘None of the young men seemed to notice her’ (and thus she assumes she will have to stand in the tram)

Question 6

How is the theme of ridgity explored in Clay?

Answer 6

• Maria’s life follows a predictable, rigid schedule, with little room for spontaneity or change.
• This internalised sense of control, highlights her overcomensation for her external lack of social control/ power.

Question 7

What themes highlight Maria’s ridigity and repression?

Answer 7

• ‘Nice tidy body’
• Repetition of ‘twenty minutes’ when she is mapping out her trip to the bakers.

Signfies her ordliness and ritual

Question 8

How is the theme of Loneliness and isolation explored?

Answer 8

• Maria’s loneliness is portrayed through her routine existence, lack of close relationships, and emotional self-effacement.

Question 9

What quote highlights the theme of loneliness?

Answer 9

• ‘she didn’t want any ring or man either; and when she laughed her grey-green eyes sparkled with disappointed shyness’

Question 10

What quote highlights Maria self-deception

Answer 10

She thought of “how much better it was to be independent and to have your own money’.

This is a terrible irony, as Maria is not independent in any true sense. Her labour is rewarded with a few pathetic pennies, and she is dependent on the Church for a job and home. Maria’s reflection here is also another example of her determined reiteration of how content she is with her lot in life. (Joycean irony