Clay, By James Joyce (1914)

 Clay, By James Joyce (1914)


Rating: 7.5/10


The most interesting part of this story was where Maria sings at the end. She is an old lady, and she is very deteriorated. So she sings the same part once more. No one points out her mistake, and Joe fell into tears. I think this is because of the theme of death. Maria is too old so Joe is worried about her death. And this situation, singing the same verse one more time, makes Joe feel that Maria is getting older. This seems similar to The Dead's ending where Gabriel feels sad. His aunt Julia may be in the same situation as Maria. 

The title clay means an early death. At first, I couldn't understand why clay was the symbol of early death. However, after hearing about the Halloween Game and the background in Dublin, clay is quite dark and hard to catch so it's like an uneventful early death which Maria is in. 

The plot was kind of a hero's journey for Joe, which understood more about Maria. This is the another reason why I liked this story. (180 words)

댓글

댓글 쓰기

이 블로그의 인기 게시물

A Manual for Cleaning Woman, by Lucia Berlin (2015)

 A Manual for Cleaning Woman, by Lucia Berlin (2015) Rating: 7/10 This story was not very interesting to me. Especially, the writing style did not satisfised me. Its writing style was the reminiscences of the narrator, by looking at the buses passing through her. This made the short story complexed. Short stories are too short to know about the sub characters, especially like these madames in theins story. Their description is not very long to know about them and how the narrator felt about them. If there were more specific descriptions, I think thw story would have been fun, because there are some funny episodes like finding the puzzle piece etc. And also, it was difficult for me to understand the theme of this story. The narrator thinks about her past, and watches the laundry room and the people riding motorcycles, and she cries. At first, the final ending developed too fast to understand. After listening about the discussion, I realized that she felt a lot of things, for example...
자세한 내용 보기

An Encounter, By James Joyce (1914)

  An Encounter, By James Joyce (1914)  Rating: 8/10 The most sympathized part was to get out of the routine. Living in KMLA in a strict routine, makes me deviate. In this short story, the narrator and his friend Mahony make a deviation and wander around Dublin. And then they see many people and places and meet a man. I think this man has bad thoughts. He is so conservative. Maybe it is because of the Irish religion. Catholic is one of the strict and conservative religions that I know, so this man may be influenced by the religion. I liked this quote from the story. "But real adventures, I reflected, do not happen to people who remain home: they must be sought abroad." I think this is like a hint of this full story. Because of this thought, the narrator could break away and see the society, meet a man that was an encounter. From this encounter, the narrator could feel better about his friend.  I think both <An Encounter> and <Araby> are similar as a growth stor...
자세한 내용 보기

The Sisters, By James Joyce (1914)

  The Sisters, By James Joyce (1914) Rating: 6.5/10 I wanted to talk about Flynn's confess. In the story, there is no answer of what Flynn confessed. However, through reading the story, there were hints. For example, old Cotter doesn't like the relationship between the narrator and Flynn. And, the sisters also talk about the confess. What I think is that Flynn did something wrong to the narrator, so he comes out in the narrator's dream and keeps it reminded.  The reason I rated this story 6.5 is I read this three times but it is stil difficult for me to understand. I can't know what the death of Flynn symbols. And also I don't know a lot of the Irish culture so it makes me difficult too. (119 words)
자세한 내용 보기