... Joyce tried several times, unsuccesfully to have "Clay" (and the earlier version, "Hallow Eve") published before it appeared as part of Dubliners in June 1914.
"Clay" focuses on an old maid, Maria, who works as a scullery maid in the Dublin by Lamplight laundry, a Protestant institution for reformed prostitutes in Ballsbridge. ... Maria plays a game of saucers (a game of divination of the future) and is tricked by one of the neighborhood girls into choosing clay, which symbolises death. ...
Despite the ostensive mildness of the topic, "Clay" presents an ominous view of the the life of lower-middle-class Dublin women. ... And the object she chooses during the divination game is clay: traditionally, this object was the omen of approaching death.
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