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Summary
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Clay, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Loneliness and Estrangement
Sadness and Repression
Paralysis and Stagnation
Summary
Analysis
Excited to finish work and go out for the evening, Maria prepares for the women’s tea at the charitable laundry where she works. She has scrubbed the kitchen, stoked the fire, and sliced the barmbrack cakes; everything looks wonderful now. A small and calming presence, Maria is known as a “peace-maker” at the laundry. When the women argue, well-liked Maria is the one to resolve the issue.
On the surface, Maria’s life seems positive: she does good work at the laundry and is a source of positivity for the women there. However, her excitement to get away from the laundry for the evening suggests that her positive exterior and persona as a “peace-maker” may not tell the whole story.
Active
Themes
Maria plans to leave for the evening around seven. She calculates her route, including shopping time, and figures she’ll be at her destination by eight. After her tram fare, she’ll have a little money left over, and she thinks what a lovely evening she’ll have, as long as her friend Joe doesn’t come in drunk.
While Maria’s planning suggests excitement about going out, her concerns about Joe’s drunkenness imply an underlying anxiety about the evening ahead. These concerns lay the groundwork for Maria’s consistent discomfort with alcohol throughout the story, a discomfort that she tries to repress. It is also clear that Maria just barely has enough money to get through the evening, suggesting the difficulty of supporting herself as a single woman.
Active
Themes
Joe often asks Maria to come live with his family, but Maria—feeling that she would be “in the way”—has declined. Despite how kind Joe’s wife is to her, Maria is “accustomed to the life of the laundry” now. When Joe and his brother Alphy were children, Maria cared for them, and Joe has always seen Maria as a mother figure.
Joe and Alphy, in fact, got Maria the job at the laundry. Before working there, Maria had a “bad opinion” of Protestants, but now she thinks of them as “very nice people to live with,” even if she finds them a little “quiet and serious.” Besides, Maria likes caring for the plants in the conservatory, and even though she’s annoyed with the religious messages that hang on the walls, she thinks that the matron who runs the laundry is easy to get along with.
Active
Themes
Literary Devices
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Since tea is ready, Maria rings a bell and the women begin to file in, all of them sweaty from work. Over mugs of tea and slices of barmbrack, the women joke and laugh together. One of them suggests that Maria will find a ring in her barmbrack, which she suggests every Hallow Eve. To this, Maria “ha[s] to laugh” and insist that she doesn’t want to get married, although her eyes show “disappointed shyness.” When they toast to Maria’s health, another woman says she wishes she had porter rather than tea, and Maria laughs uncomfortably, thinking that this woman means well, even if she has the “notions of a common woman.”
When tea ends, Maria is excited. She goes to her room to change and, remembering that she has mass in the morning, sets her alarm for an hour earlier than usual. Putting on her best clothes, she looks in the mirror, remembering what she used to wear to mass when she was a girl. Maria is still fond of her body, “in spite of its years.”
Active
Themes
It’s raining outside and the tram is full, so Maria sits uncomfortably on a stool at the end of the car. She reflects that it’s “better” that she is independent and has her own money, and she thinks the evening will be nice, even though Joe and Alphy—who were close as boys—are no longer speaking. She exits the tram and buys some cakes at a shop. Then, wanting “something really nice,” she heads to another cake shop, where she browses for a long time. This annoys the young woman who works there, and the woman asks Maria if she’s trying to buy a wedding cake. Maria “blush[es] and smile[s]” before choosing a slice of plum cake.
As she gets back on the tram, Maria thinks she will have to stand because “none of the young men seem to notice her,” but an elderly man finally makes room for her to sit. The man is “colonel-looking” and Maria finds him more polite than the younger men. The man notices the cakes Maria is carrying, and the two make pleasant conversation about how children should enjoy their youth. When the tram reaches Maria’s destination, the two say goodbye to one another, and Maria goes out into the rain. She thinks of the man as “easy […] to know,” despite the fact that he was a little drunk (“he ha[d] a drop taken”).
Maria arrives at Joe’s house and receives an enthusiastic greeting from him, his wife, his children, and two girls from next door. She gives the bag of cakes to the children. Mrs. Donnelly finds it “too good” of Maria to bring the cakes.
Active
Themes
Maria then looks for the plum cake but cannot find it anywhere. She asks the children if they ate it; they deny having done so and are uncomfortable with the accusation. Mrs. Donnelly concludes that Maria left the cake behind on the tram. Maria recalls the “confus[ion]” she felt during her conversation on the tram with the elderly man and feels “shame and vexation and disappointment.” She is on the verge of tears as she reflects on her losing the cake and the money she wasted.
As the festivities continue, Joe “insist[s]” that Maria have a drink, even though she does not want to. Maria then tries to talk to Joe about Alphy, but Joe swears that he will never speak to his brother again. Maria apologizes for bringing up the subject. Mrs. Donnelly objects to the way Joe speaks about his brother, but Joe refuses even to consider Alphy his brother anymore. He does not want to get too angry on Hallow Eve, though, and he asks Mrs. Donnelly to get him another drink.
The group’s mood improves as the next-door girls organize Hallow Eve games for everyone to play. Maria is glad that the group is in a good mood. The next-door girls blindfold each child and lead them up to a table with saucers on it. One of the next-door girls, during her turn in the game, selects a ring. The girls then “insist[]” that Maria participate. Maria laughs as they blindfold her. Once blindfolded, Maria places her hand on a “soft wet substance.” She is “surprised” that everyone is silent and that they have not taken off her blindfold. The group begins whispering uneasily. Maria figures that she should try again, this time placing her hand on a prayer book.
Once the game has ended, Joe again insists that Maria have a drink. Mrs. Donnelly says that Maria will enter a convent soon because she placed her hand on a prayer book in the game. Maria thinks that Joe has been nicer to her this evening than he has ever been, and she says that the whole group has been “very good to her.”
Active
Themes
The children are tired, and Joe and Mrs. Donnelly push Maria to sing an old song. With a “tiny quavering voice” and “blushing very much,” Maria sings a song called “I Dreamt that I Dwelt.” She sings the first verse—about dreaming of wealth and luxury—twice, which no one points out to her. Joe finds her performance moving and he expresses nostalgia for the past and for old music. He gets so teary-eyed that he has to ask Mrs. Donnelly for help finding the corkscrew.
