James Joyce

As I do in mostly all my writing I pick a part in a person’s life that I find most interesting and I try to relate it to one of his poems or writings. I find this is a good way to see where the author is coming from and use it to get a good idea of how it feels to me. First Mr. James Joyce, whose writings were banned and pirated for their language and content, told the world hey if I can not express myself the way I want to in the English language than I will just go back to the ancient languages when such similar words and meanings were acceptable. So you could just imagine how bummed I was to see that this book did not have “The portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.” If you had to change to ancient languages to get the art out it had to be something serious. What they do have though is “clay” which is a more acceptable art among the people of that time and I am sure as a whole it is just as good, but like I said before I really wanted to see what the former writing was about. What was Mr. Joyce’s mind really capable of. Anyway “Clay,” which is a short story, tells the story of an elderly women named Maria, who works in a shelter for once streetwalkers, and is invited to a party by a childhood friend. It seems there is a reoccurring theme that this person does not like the life they are granted. From her getting the news of the party to her going to the party, she is reminded over and over again as the story progresses that she is not married. What makes it worse is that when playing the game of random choice she receives an item that resembles death and then one that made her assume the role of a nun, all by which avoiding the one item that meant marriage. Oh did I add that the person who invited her to the party is also married and I believe she had or may have feelings for him. But back to the story after all this becomes to much for her she gets liquored up and sings her beloved host a song about marriage. The song was so touching that the host(Joe) begins to cry. And that basically ends the story. Now I went through that summary for a reason. The reason is does the title clay have multiple meanings in this tale? Maybe clay can stand for your life. Meaning each choice you take each mistake you make shapes you into the person you are. Now the question is will you make your lump of clay an artistic success, that has been a carefully planned project, that you can be proud of for years to come or is it an unenergetic piece of garage that was scraped together just to get by and was fine until it was placed next to another sculpture? It may be a stretch but this is one of the main ideas that stood out for me in this piece.