Theme: modernism in american literature contents: introduction chapter the early twentieth century literature (1901-1939). Modernism

William Somerset Maugham

1874-1965

William Somerset Maugham is one of the best known writers of the present day. He was not only a novelist of considerable rank, but also one of the most successful dramatists and short-story writers.
W. S. Maugham was born in Paris, where his father was a solicitor for the British Embassy. His mother died when he was eight. Two years later the father followed, and the orphan child was sent to his paternal uncle, a clergyman in Whitetable, Kent. What he experienced in that cold and rigid environment he has told in Of Human Bondage, which except for its ending is almost entirely autobiographical. At thirteen he was sent to King’s School, Canterbury, with an intention that he should proceed to Oxford and prepare to enter the church.
But he had always wanted to write and finally secured his uncle’s permission to go to Heidelberg University. According to his uncle's will he had to choose a profession and he chose medicine, thus entering St. Thomas Hospital in London in 1892. In 1898 he attained his medical degree, but he never practiced, except for a brief period in the Lambeth slums as an internist. “In those six years I must have witnessed pretty well every emotion of which man is capable. It appealed to my dramatic instinct. It excited the novelist in me. I saw how men died. I saw how they bore pain. I saw what hope looked like, fear and relief. I saw dark lines that despair drew on a face.” This experience resulted in writing the first novel Liza of Lambeth (1897). He then visited Italy and France, where he settled down in Paris. His talent for fiction, however, had little success and he tried his hand at playwriting. His luck turned only in 1907, with his first successful play Lady Frederick. In the succeeding years he produced plays which made him both famous and prosperous.
Several times he went on round the world trips, and spent long periods in the USA, the South Seas, China and Russia. During World War I he enlisted with a Red Cross Ambulance Unit. Later, however, he was transferred to the Intelligence Service (Secret Service) and was sent to Russia to prevent the Bolsheviks from coming to power in Russia and prevent the change of the government.
Early in the 1930’s Maugham settled down near Paris. At the outbreak of World War II he was assigned to special work at the British Ministry of Information in Paris. The Nazi advance overtook him there; he managed, however, to reach England, leaving behind him all his belongings and many of his unfinished manuscripts. In the years following he settled down in England.
Of Human Bondage (1915) is considered to be his masterpiece. It is clearly based on the author’s personal experience, but the novel should not be regarded as autobiographical. This is a story about Philip Carey, brought up by his uncle, a vicar. He prayed much and believed in the omnipotence of God. This was the first bondage he experienced in life – religious bondage. Being lame he experienced physical bondage which in a way isolated him from others. He studied art for two years but he realized that his wish to become a real artist would never come true. Philip left Paris to become a medical student. His love affair with Mildred, a waitress in a tea shop, brought him financial difficulties and he left his medical service. The reality which was offered him differed terribly from the ideal of his dream. He experiences other bondages – cruelty, unhappiness, grief and pain, both physical and moral. They all are the consequences of the unjust social system.
Cakes and Ale (1930) – was claimed by Maugham himself to be the best of his books. It represents the backstage life of literary profession. The Moon and Sixpence (1919) deals with the life of a painter.
He possessed a keen and observant eye and in his best works he ridiculed philistinism, narrow-mindedness, hypocrisy, snobbery, money worship, pretence, self-interest, etc. His acid irony and brilliant style helped him win a huge audience of readers.
W. S. Maugham, a highly prolific novelist and playwright, has left a legacy of novels, novelettes, short stories, essays and over 20 plays. Maugham's other chief works include: novels – The Painted Veil (1925), The Narrow Corner (1932), The Razor’s Edge (1944); plays: The Circle (1921), Caesar’s Wife (1922), The Constant Wife (1927), The Sacred Flame (1929).
Maugham’s short stories are based on his numerous travels in the South-East of Asia. There are a great many collections of stories to his credit: The Trembling of a Leaf (1921), On a Chinese Screen (1925), The Casuarina Tree (1926), Six Stories Written in the First Person Singular (1931), A King (1933), Cosmopolitans (1936), Creatures of Circumstances (1947) and others.
The Moon and Sixpence. The novel which has rather an unusual plot is partly based on the life story of the famous French painter Gauguin, who being an innovator and rebel in art wanted to do away with the conventionalism in bourgeois art.
Charles Strickland, a London stockbroker of middle age, who gets obsessed by an irresistible desire to express himself in painting, abandons his business career and his wife. He leaves London for Paris, where he devotes himself to painting. Although none of his paintings are appreciated in Paris and he is almost starving, his decision to paint is irrevocable. The only person who understands Strickland's creative genius is the painter Dirk Stroeve. Trying to save Strickland from a terrible disease and starvation, Dirk Stroeve brings him home where he sacrifices his time, his comfort and his money for Strickland. But instead of gratitude Strickland shows his callousness and inhumanity towards Dirk Stroeve. He seduces Stroeve’s wife Blanche who falls in love with him. When the latter takes no more interest in her, she commits suicide.
Thus after years of resultless struggle in Paris Strickland moves to Marseilles. He spends about four months at Marseilles where he finds it impossible to earn the small sum he needs to keep body and soul together. His imagination being haunted for a long time by “an island all green and sunny, encircled by sea more blue than is found in the Northern latitude”, he decides to go to the South Seas. By a chance of luck he boards a ship bound for Australia, where he works as a stoker thus getting to Tahiti. There he marries a Polynesian woman Ata and devotes the rest of his life to painting. Strickland dies of leprosy. According to his will his wife burns their house the walls of which had been covered from ceiling to floor with elaborate compositions by Strickland. Everything had been burnt and only on discovering some canvases Strickland had once carelessly tossed aside during his years of unrewarded work, does the world of art realize it has lost a genius.
The novel is an illustration of one of Maugham's favourite convictions that human nature is a knit of contradictions, that the workings of the human mind are unpredictable. Strickland is concentrated on his art. He is indifferent to love, friendship and kindness, and inconsiderate to others. He ruins the life of Dirk Stroeve and his wife who nursed him when he was dangerously ill. He does not care for his own wife and children and brings misfortune to all the people who come in touch with him. But on the other hand we cannot deny his talent as an artist, a creator of beauty. His passionate devotion to art arouses the readers’ admiration. Strickland cannot help acting according to his nature, and he cannot care for anything else but art as art is the only means for him to express himself.
Society, however, is hardly ever tolerant and patient with geniuses. Most often a genius has to die before he is acknowledged. Maugham shows how blind the bourgeois public is to real beauty. Later Strickland’s works are bought by the public because it is fashionable to have them in one’s flat. The author mocks at the Philistines represented by Mrs. Strickland who has hated her husband so long. Now she finds his paintings a great consolation for they are so decorative.
Another important character of the novel, Dirk Stroeve is shown as an antipode to Strickland. He is a very kind man, but a bad artist, though he possesses a keen sense of beauty and is the first to appreciate Strickland’s talent. Stroeve paints easily and is able to cater for the vulgar tastes of the public. The author shows that the public lacks sensitivity and imagination therefore real art is as unattainable for the rich as the moon is. The title served to Maugham as a symbol for two opposing worlds – the material world quit by Strickland, where everything is thought of in terms of money and the world of pure artistry and craving for beauty.