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In “Dubliners,” through a series of portraits, James Joyce describes the emotional, intellectual, and spiritual loss of the time. We envision ourselves based on how other think of us and in “Clay” and “A Painful Case,” Joyce writes about people’s awareness of themselves in the world. Joyce explains that life not only base on how we view ourselves, but also our own significance is in a large part based on how other people view us: how much or how little we choose to recognize ourselves through the eyes of others, determines the quality of our life. Maria, from “Clay,” chooses to recognize only the compliments she receives from other people, by doing so, she, like James from “A Painful Case,” remains distant from real emotion and is unconscious of her failures. Maria disliked by everybody she encounters and she has learned to care only about the positive things people say about her: because such comments are scarce, anything that she feels compliments her