The character of Maria in "Clay" is the product of Joyce`s vision of human beings and his highly sophisticated and complex narrative technique. The puzzle and the irony of the story is that the witchlike, poor, old, spinster, Maria, is the only character in Dubliners who is content with her life, though occasionally her suppressed desires seep out. Still she is called "a veritable peace-maker." The limited third-person point of view strategy and the "narrative mimicry" of the third-person narrator reveal who Maria is and what she thinks. The narrative of "Clay" has a predominantly childlike tone which mimics the retarded and immature Maria. The noticeable childlike tone of the "Clay" is very similar to that of a fairy tale which would provide Maria with the fantasy world that the heroine of her song "dreamt.` Though Maria, an inadequate being in her society, lives a lonely and miserable life at the laundry, she never falls into melancholy. The fable`s tone in "Clay" works as a defence for Maria from her harsh reality: it refuses to see the world as it is, and Maria feels safe within it. The defensive illusion woven by the words of a fairy tale not only blinds her but also animates her to sustain her hard life. Maria never awakens from her self-delusion, maintaining her childlike ways to the end of the story, and she never experiences an epiphany. However, Joyce never criticizes Maria for her "blindfold" narrative and for her imprisonment in her own illusions, though he portraits her ironically and pathetically. Joyce shows deep compassion for the miserable life Maria leads, though he, in resisting to idealize reality, named the story "Clay".