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Rasik writes: Thanks Chandra and Beth for those views on Clay. Beth, water is supposed to represent life, I think. Can't remember what Maria's connection with the saucer containing water was. I presume she failed to lend her hand on that! One general comment on this story: Most critics I have read suggest that the story is not satirical, that Joyce wsa drawing a sympathetic portrayal of Maria. I am not conviced of that, Joyce seems to be anatomizing Maria with subtle cruelty, building a whole negativity around trivial incidents. This story reminds me very much of "The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne", except that, in this story, Maria has "sublimated" (with or without much success) her libido! Her character seems pathetic, in the end. Joyce did the same with the protagonist of Counterparts. His little triumph at the office, in walking out of there and bragging about it in the pub is contrasted well with the cruel and domineering attitude towards his son later, his desire to be noticed by the girl with the London accent, etc. Maureen, I think it is good to have all these discussions around Joyce. It seems to me Joyce was basically anti-mystical, hence his antipathy to Yeats' Celtic-mystical leanings. When we come to the Portrait we will have to discuss the influence of Aristotle, Vico etc. on Joyce. Did not Yeats go far out in the field? Seances and stuff? I believe the esoteric mystical work of Yeats is "A Vision". I have never been able to get into it. Was he some how connected with Madam Blavatsky's circles or, rather, the theosophical movement in Dublin? Joyce, in several passages in Ulysses takes the mickey out of Hindu (and other) mysticisms. I will, in due course, quote some of them. Joseph Campbell, in his lectures on Joyce called "Wings of Art" waxes about the mystical in Ulysses and FW. I think his writing will be of great interest to the members of this list. Try and get his six videocassettes from the Mystic Fire people or the lectures in book form, called "Mythic Worlds, Modern Words", published by Harper Collins. Maureen ramble away as much as you like on Yeats and others you like. They are very welcome digressions. Let us stay with Joyce for a while though, lotus spray there is no breakaway group of Yeatseans...Now day, slow day, from delicate to divine, divases. Padma, brighter and sweetster, this flower that bells, it is our hour or risings... Although Yeats was a friend of Tagore, I believe he had expressed, in private, critical opinions to the effect that Tagore could never use or master English as a born English-speaker could. Here are some quotes on Clay from a book called "James Joyce and the Craft of Fiction", by Eoifanio San Juan. Jr.: "The organizing principle of "Clay", to the majority of critics, may be deduced from the method used by the narrator to place in the forground the central symbol of "clay." Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren, for instance argue that the "soft wet substance" Maria chooses betrays her essential self and represents her destiny.... the clay Maria touches indicates primarily the innocent mischief of the neighbour's girls who misconceive her, with due cause, as a suspicious, nasty, old lady. The use of the piece of clay is a consequence of Maria's initial treatment of the children. On this mimetic level, the trick played on her -- though capable of being associated with her pliant nature and with death-- demonstrates how circumstances dominate Maria and compel her to act in ways that defeat her ultimate purposes." And here are a few lines from "The Joucean way" sub-titled "A topographic Guide to Dubliners And A Portrait of the Arttist as a Young Man", by Bruce Bidwell and Linda Heffer: "The movement in 'Clay' is easy to trace: as Maria herself says, 'From Ballsbridge to the Pillar, twenty minutes; from the Pillar to Drumcondra, twenty minutes; and twenty minutes to buy things'. Its significance lies in the way it reinforces both the religious and supernatural elements of the story, when Maria as the Virgin Mary and Maria as Halloween witch travels from the Protestant Dublin-by-Lamplight Laundry to the "Holy Land' of Drumcondra. Continued on next page! |
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