The protagonist of “Clay” is Maria, a small, unmarried woman who works as a scullery worker in a laundry in Dublin, Ireland. Joyce describes Maria as a tiny woman; his word choice in describing her includes not only “very, very small” (95), but also “diminutive.” Her nose is long and so is her chin. Taken all together, Joyce presents Maria as physically “unattractive” and socially insignificant by noting these details. Maria is representative of The Diminishing Power of Low Social Status in Joyce’s Dublin, as she has been reduced to “usefulness” and in many ways dehumanized.

Not only is Maria small in stature, but her life is also small. She lives in a little room in the laundry, has no friends to speak of, and has no family. She does not seem to feel she has peers at the laundry and imagines herself above the workers, though below the matron in status. While calling the matron “nice” and “genteel” (96), she calls Lizzy Fleming, one of the laundry workers, a “common woman” (97). The workers are likely former sex workers, while the matron is middle-class. Maria aspires to the middle class, although her position as a scullery worker is not much above the workers, if at all.