In the story “Counterparts” Farrington worked as a copy man for Mr. Allyne. Farrington is not fond of his job at all. He is lazy and tends not to finish the work he has been asked to do. In this story Farrington goes decides to go to the bars and drink with his friends instead of copying a certain paper for his boss. I think Joyce was using this to show how Ireland was not motivated to do much back then. While Farrington is at work all he is thinking about it when or how he can get to a pub and he ends up leaving in the middle of the work day to go to the pubs. When he gets home from his “long” day at work he is stressed and maybe a little drunk. He notices that his son left the fire burning and he is not happy. He continues to beat his son and his son repeats “I’ll say a Hail Marry for you.” I think Joyce might have been trying to say that Ireland never takes direct action to fix their problems. They sit a wait for someone else to come along and fix it for them.
In the story “Clay” Maria is a very nice, not so attractive old lady. She volunteers all of her time to helping others. She goes over to her friend Joe’s house for dinner and she bring two cakes. She leaves one on the subway and gets very upset about it. Joe tries to tell her it will be ok but it doesn’t help. She doesn’t really have anything of her own to live for so she lives for others. That’s why she is so upset. At the end of the story Maria sings a song about love. This moves Joe to tears because she has no one to love or to love her. Also, she repeats a verse of the song on accident this symbolizes Ireland repeating themselves for years and years and how they can never break through to better themselves.
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