At first glance, James Joyce’s “Boarding House” might appear as yet another one of those love stories written purely for entertainment. After all, when Polly “made a clean breast of [her relationship with Mr. Doran] to her mother,” it is clear that Mr. Doran must make a choice, probably the biggest one in his life, to either “marry her or run away.” His whole life—his reputation, his job, his future—depends on that one choice, and the readers are anxious to see how the story unravels. However, on the other hand, there apparently is a bigger scheme behind this situation, deliberately laid out by Mrs. Mooney and, as it turns out, Polly herself too: they intentionally “did not intervene” with the problem so that Mr. Doran, a man of higher class than Polly, would be left with no choice but to marry Polly. Therefore, it is perhaps more accurate to assume that “Boarding House” is written not for entertainment but to raise awareness of the reality where marriage is not anymore (has it ever been?) the result of true affections and feelings for each other but is used as a means to satisfy secular goals. In this sense, Mr. Doran was manipulated by Polly and Mrs. Mooney (with her own set of marriage problems) through how “everyone [knew] everyone else’s business” in Dublin. And however true his feelings for Polly might have been, he was in the end bound to an affectionless marriage.
It seems that in James Joyce’s “Clay,” nothing much happens; it depicts Maria’s visit to Joe’s house for Halloween. Maria buys some cake to share with Joe’s family on her way, arrives at Joe’s house, and has fun with the people there. To us, this is only a series of ordinary, everyday things that can happen anytime, even if it isn’t Halloween. But in fact, this is a very special occasion for Maria, a big deviation from her routine life. Thus, she dresses not casually but as “she [had] used to dress for mass on Sunday morning when she was a young girl;” at Downes’s cake shop, she “wanted to buy something really nice,” and spends a long time pondering which ones to buy. When she found that she lost the cake, she “nearly cried outright.” From such behavior of regarding trivial events as very special, it is more plausible to conclude that this story pokes at how people are so immersed in routine lives. Joyce probably preferred to have more dynamic lives; to that end, he writes that when Maria—the symbol of people of routine—laughed, “the tip of her nose nearly met the tip of her chin.” This is impossible; it almost is a deformation of the face rather than a laugh. This conveys that when one goes through the same cycle of events over and over, part of him or her is already dead, and thus it is hard to properly appreciate life.
It seems that in James Joyce’s “Clay,” nothing much happens; it depicts Maria’s visit to Joe’s house for Halloween. Maria buys some cake to share with Joe’s family on her way, arrives at Joe’s house, and has fun with the people there. To us, this is only a series of ordinary, everyday things that can happen anytime, even if it isn’t Halloween. But in fact, this is a very special occasion for Maria, a big deviation from her routine life. Thus, she dresses not casually but as “she [had] used to dress for mass on Sunday morning when she was a young girl;” at Downes’s cake shop, she “wanted to buy something really nice,” and spends a long time pondering which ones to buy. When she found that she lost the cake, she “nearly cried outright.” From such behavior of regarding trivial events as very special, it is more plausible to conclude that this story pokes at how people are so immersed in routine lives. Joyce probably preferred to have more dynamic lives; to that end, he writes that when Maria—the symbol of people of routine—laughed, “the tip of her nose nearly met the tip of her chin.” This is impossible; it almost is a deformation of the face rather than a laugh. This conveys that when one goes through the same cycle of events over and over, part of him or her is already dead, and thus it is hard to properly appreciate life.
