What is the theme of "And Of Clay Are We Created"? What was the main point of the story?

Like most stories, this story seems to have many different
and varying themes. Clearly one of the key topics of the story concerns the relationship
between Azucena and Rolf Carle, and the way in which this experience enables Rolf to
face certain memories of his past and childhood. If you are interested, these are
featured in Isabel Allende's novel, Eva Luna. The traumatic
experience of watching Azucena slowly die breaks down the barriers within Rolf
Carle:

That
night, imperceptibly, the unyielding floodgates that had contained Rolf Carle's past for
so many years began to open, and the torrent of all that had lain hidden in the deepest
and most secret layers of memory poured out, leveling before it the obstacles that had
blocked his consciousness for so
long.

The connection between
them and the intimacy which they are forced into means that Rolf recognises how his past
resembles Azucena's present:

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He was Azucena; he was buried in the clay mud;
his terror was not the distant emotion of an almost forgotten childhood, it was a claw
sunk in his throat.

As Rolf
says to Azucena after this night of revelation, he is not crying for Azucena, but for
himself, for he hurts all over.

The title seems to suggest
that for individuals like Rolf, tragedies such as that of Azucena confront us with our
own fragility - we are made of clay - a breakable, fragile substance, even though so
often we try to live our lives as if we are unbreakable and stronger. We finish reading
this story, therefore, wiser if not sadder about our own
fragility.