Clay

"Clay" is a short story by James Joyce published in his 1914 collection Dubliners. It deals with the reflections of a middle-aged, unmarried woman during the course of her day. The story Maria, a tiny, middle-aged, well-loved, and peacemaking woman with a job in Dublin by Lamplight, a rescue mission for wayward women, is looking forward to a holiday evening at the house of Joe, whom she nursed when he was a boy, along with his brother Alphy, and of whom she is still very fond. She departs for Joe's after attending a tea service with her fellow laundresses, stopping to buy cakes for the Halloween party on the way. At the bakery, Maria is somewhat teased by the clerk, who asks whether she wishes to buy a wedding cake, mirroring a similar joke that was made at the earlier tea. On a tram, Maria has a bashful encounter with an elderly and drunken man who chats with her. She is welcomed warmly at the house by Joe’s family, but she is saddened and ashamed to realize that she has left the plumcake she bought for Joe and his wife on the tram, probably due to "flirting" with the elderly man. Maria is soon enticed into playing a traditional Hallow Eve game with the children in which objects are placed in saucers and a blindfolded player has to pick among them. Each object is supposed to have a prophetic significance. One of the objects in the game is a ring, standing for marriage, which Maria failed to get during a similar game (in which objects were baked into pieces of barmbrack) back at the laundry. At Joe's, Maria once again misses the ring and instead chooses what is implied to be a lump of clay. Everyone goes quiet.