Clay (short story) Clay (short story) "Clay" is a short story by James Joyce published in his 1914 collection "Dubliners." It is important to note that due to this short story being left intentionally vague by its author, there can be numerous interpretations on what occurs in the story and the analysis of it. Maria, an elderly woman with a job in a rescue mission for wayward women, is looking forward to a holiday evening at the house of Joe, whom she nursed when he was a boy and of whom she is still very fond. She departs for Joe's after attending a
The Dead (short story) expands past him, edging into the surreal and encompassing the entirety of Ireland. As the story ends, we are told that "His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead." Dan Barry of "The New York Times" called "The Dead" "just about the finest short story in the English language" on the centennial of "Dubliners". T. S. Eliot called it one of greatest short stories ever written. Joyce biographer and critic Richard Ellmann wrote, "In its lyrical, melancholy