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Marvin Magalaner and Richrad Kain (Joyce: the Man, the Work, the Reputation) have seen, along with many others now, that Maria's character combines elements of both the peace-maker and the trouble-maker and that it is not inconsequential that 'Clay' (originally titled 'Hallow Eve') takes place on 31 October, the night when spirits walk abroad and the Eve of All Saints Day when the blessed of the world , those canonized and those unknown, are honoured.What has not been noted before, however, is the way in which the topography plays in....'the conflicting elements in Maria' which 'suggests saint and witch', and more is 'out of joint' on this evening than may at fiirst seem apparent. The Dublin-by-Lamplight Institution at 35 Ballasbridge Terrace is described..... as a "valuable institution supported by voluntary contributions and by the inmates own exertions. It was a charitable institute with a working laundry attached, organized under the auspices of the Protestant Church of Ireland and catering for homeless women who otherwise, the name suggests, might be plying their trade beneath the street-lamps of Dublin. The laundry's biblical motto, 'That they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will' was not lost on Joyce. (see the qoute from Joyce in the glossary in my previous message re 'Clay'). Both the motto and Joyce's phrase, 'wicked and lost women', suggest that the 'valuable institution' in Bllsbridge may indeed be a den of witches, and Maria's physical description coupled with the remark in the first sentence that this evening, 31 October, was 'her evening out' strengthens the conceit. Maria, a relative of Joyce's mother, worked in the kitchen of the institute and in the story she keeps the'cauldrons' well polished and, as if by magic, slices the barmbracks so neatly they appear uncut. In her other role as Mary the saint, she is cast as a 'veritable peace-maker' at the laundry and always sent for when the other women quarrel. But if 'Eberyone was so fond of Maria' at the institute where she spread nothing but peace and happiness, her evening visit to Joe's house has very much the opposite effect. Losing the plumcake on the way, she upsets the children by suggesting they night have taken it and goes on to generally disrupting the evening through a series of well-intentioned blunders. This contrast between Maria as competent witch and saint at the laundry and Maria at Joe's where she fails at both roles is central to the story, and Joyce is careful to select widely divergent locations to emphasize and lend irony to the contrast..... ....Joyce wants us to focus on the pathetic incompetence Maria carries about and spreads around her and to conclude that, like Frank in Buenos Ayres, Maria has created her own fictional story in which to live. In her fiction she is clever and competent, the peace-maker, the 'proper mother'. But all she tells us about herself is incompatible with what we see at the cake shop, on the tram, and at Joe's house. That the whole setting in Lower Drumcora would seem to be so harmonious to Maria's success only emphasizes her failure there and further calls her reported success at the laundry in question. Maria's character does indeed carry elements of both the Virgin Mary and bedevilling, umwanted 'witch', but the first is part of her own fictional self-deception, the second the reality of life." Well, that's all folk, for now. Those who got this far in reading this message, you have a lot of patience and perseverance! Please respond! |
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