James Joyce

The character of Maria in Joyce's Dubliners, more specifically "Clay", is, to her core, a people pleaser.  All she wants to do is please people, and she is very good at it because "Everyone is fond of Maria" (Joyce 1134).  However, everyone also does not appreciate Maria; she is not married and is often ridiculed for that.  She is also under-appreciated by a man she formerly cared for as he was growing up.  A small purse that Joe had gotten for her five years previously is one of her most cherished possessions, but for all she did for him in his youth, the purse does not seem to fit or reciprocate the love she showed him.  Maria, being a people pleaser, is very dedicated to every job or task she does, so when she is constantly being let go from jobs as a nanny because the family has no need for her anymore, she feels a need to please people even more, like with the incident of the plum cake that she misplaced.  She was so disappointed she lost it because the plum cake was something she could have been appreciated for, but was not.  

Maria's character also seems to accept her fate as if it is set in stone.  When playing the game, she picks the clay first, which symbolizes death, and secondly she picks the prayer book, informing her that she will enter a convent in the next year.  Because she is considered a spinster, she has come to accept that she will never be properly appreciated and she will never be married.  Maria's fate is a tragic one, but not because she is elderly, under-appreciated, and unmarried, but because she is so set on making others happy that she fails to give herself the same kind of happiness.