W. Somerset Maugham has never been taken seriously. In his lifetime ....
because he thought that in Of Human Bondage he had not said all he had to say.
Durham E-Theses
W. Somerset Maugham and a philosophy of life Linares, Francisca Sempere
How to cite:
Linares, Francisca Sempere (1992)
W. Somerset Maugham and a philosophy of life,
Durham theses,
Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/5735/
Use policy
The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-pro t purposes provided that: •
a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source
•
a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses
•
the full-text is not changed in any way
The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details.
Academic Support O ce, Durham University, University O ce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail:
[email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk
SOMERSET MAUGHAM AND A PHILOSOPHY OF
LIFE
by
Francisca
Sempere
Linares
The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged.
A candidate f o r the degree of Master of Arts i n the School of English, University of Durham, 1992. The work presented i n this thesis has not been submitted f o r any other degree and is the original work of the author.
2 2 0£C 1992
Francisca Sempere Linares. W. Somerset
Maugham
and a Philosophy
of
Life. M.A. b y Thesis, 1992. THESIS ABSTRACT 'Man is nothing else b u t that which he makes of himself'. This, which is the f i r s t principle of Existentialism, is the starting point of the present study on Maugham's production. The heroes and heroines of the works analyzed here are
people
who, at a certain time i n their lives and due to d i f f e r e n t circumstances, wonder about the meaning of life. They reach the conclusion that life has no meaning and that i t is each person who has to create his own p a t t e r n and thus make of life something bearable. Starting f r o m the idea that l i f e has no meaning, i t is clear that these characters because we
are
know that
not
going to
'happiness is
find
a
b l i s s f u l happiness;
first,
something you must under
no
circumstances seek, i t j u s t comes i f you interest yourself i n absorbing p u r s u i t ' ; and second, because this k i n d of happiness can never exist i n a meaningless world. Thus, what they are looking f o r is a kind of life to which t h e y can resign themselves with a certain degree of contentment, and i n which they feel f u l f i l l e d . A l l this, of course, without having any great expectations f r o m l i f e . Maugham proposes i n his works three d i f f e r e n t ways by means of which his characters can reach this state of satisfaction: t h r o u g h Love, A r t , and T r u t h . Although this w r i t e r also reminds us that the only other way open f o r those who cannot come to terms w i t h life is suicide, he seems also to suggest that the best t h i n g one can do is resign oneself to the fact t h a t l i f e is meaningless and t r y to make the most of i t .
A
C
K ISr
O
W L E I> O-E
M: E N" T?
S
I would like to thank Dr. Patricia Waugh f o r supervising this thesis, and my f r i e n d s i n Durham f o r their friendship and emotional support.
To my p a r e n t s and Tong, f o r t h i s t h e s i s is more t h e i r s t h a n mine.
CONTENTS
Introduction Chapter
p.l
I : A Philosophy A:
B:
I n Search Al:
Love
A2:
Faith
A3:
Art
Life
of
Happiness p.l-^ p.63 p,8''i D.103
Suicide
Chapter
I I : i^laugham a n d
Chapter
III:
Conclusion
of
Philip
H i s l^asks
Carey
and
Andres
p. 112 Hurtado
p.j.39 p.i60
Notes
p.l
Bibliography
p.l
INTRODUCTION
The critic I am waiting f o r is the one who will explain why, with all my faults, I have been read f o r so many years by so many people. W. Somerset Maugham
I know this is not a v e r y original way of starting my thesis since this quotation has already been used many times; however, I could not f i n d
a more appropriate
one, f o r what I want to show
t h r o u g h my study is exactly why this happened. W. Somerset Maugham has never been taken seriously. I n his lifetime, because he made so much money by his pen, nobody thought his l i t e r a r y
production could
be of any
interest.
His works were
considered to be potboilers and so not worthy of a place among the serious,
"real" novels. A f t e r his death things became even
worse.
Something he had more or less successfully managed to hide from the public, his homosexuality, became widely known; and this, together with the negative criticism about,
his last article 'Looking Back' brought
greatly contributed to
the
bad
press he
has
always
had.
However, i t cannot be denied that the main criticism Maugham has received has
always been
against his l i t e r a r y
production and
his
skilfulness as a craftsman. Most critics could not f o r g i v e him his success; however, there were
just
a
few who realized
how
unfairly
Maugham was
being
treated. Thus, A l d i n g t o n l says:
Maugham has either been ignored or condescended to in a manner I f i n d quite i n f u r i a t i n g . What perverse nonsense i t is to assume that a book or play which is immediately successful on a large scale must be bad!.
If
I have decided to study Maugham i t is because, agreeing
w i t h Malcolm Cowley2, I t h i n k that:
critics have usually been u n j u s t to Maugham; they have neglected his great achievements as a craftsman.
I t is curious to notice how contradictory his critics' comments are; to such an extent that i t is d i f f i c u l t to believe that they are talking about the same writer. Thus, Maugham is said to be:
the most s k i l f u l writer i n the world3,
a f a c t that would confirm the following quotation: w i t h The Painted Veil Maugham has reached a height that would have seemed almost inaccessible f o r a writer; i t will be hard f o r him to climb higher unless he abandons this genre which he has created4;
and yet, at the same time, he is also v e r y strongly criticized:
A f t e r one notices how restricted his serious interests have been, must not one conclude that he has failed to give himself sufficient scope to i n t e r p r e t much that is peculiar to our changing culture?5.
A critical analysis of his works should consider both their form and content.
As f o r the latter, only on v e r y few occasions
have
critics granted Maugham's works any profound meaning. The general feeling among critics was that he w^as a good story-teller, but they never considered the possibility of f i n d i n g any philosophical, moral or transcendental Razor's
ideas i n his works. Of Human
Bondage
and
The
Edge are the only two novels i n which critics have been able
to see the heroes' quest f o r a meaning of life. I am not going to deal with the content of Maugham's works in this introduction, since this is the real topic of my thesis and so, I
shall study i t i n detail i n the following chapters. However, I would like to dedicate a few words to his style. As I
have j u s t
said, i t is v e r y
simple
and
critics
have
mistaken simplicity f o r insignificance. Some readers, P f e i f f e r says6, call him superficial because his meaning is always clear. For many intellectuals a measure of obscurity is a necessary ingredient of the profound.
This seems to be especially true at the time Maugham wrote. He was
the
contemporary
of
the
Modernist
writers
who
were
experimenting with new ways of w r i t i n g . As Lodge? describes i t : Modernist f i c t i o n is concerned with consciousness, and also w i t h the subconscious and unconscious working of the mind. Hence the structure of external 'objective' events essential to traditional narrative a r t is diminished i n scope and scale, or presented v e r y selectively and obliquely, or is almost completely dissolved, i n order to make room f o r introspection, analysis and reverie.
Maxigham kept apart from the Modernist wave and thus critics and w r i t e r s thought that i f he did not use the same devices i t was only because f i r s t l y , he
was not a good craftsman, and
secondly,
because he was not as learned as they were. However, agreeing
with
Aldingtons I would say that:
My own impression is that Maugham knows more about literature, philosophy, and painting, and has better taste, than his condescending critics.
This can easily be proved not only by looking at the
number
of books he owned, but also by the evidence we f i n d i n his books of the great number of them he had read. He was v e r y widely read not only
in
philosophical
matters,
l i t e r a r y , and artistic ones.
but
also
in
religious,
historical,
What happens w i t h Maugham is what Glenway Wescott9
rightly
says: I f you are looking f o r the deep thoughtfulness i n a story or a novel by Maugham, you cannot expect to have i t underlined f o r you as such.
Maybe, a f t e r all, Maugham expected his readers to be cleverer than his critics. And he was, himself, clever enough to be able to write f o r both kinds of readers: f o r those who merely want to be entertained, and f o r those who look f o r a deeper meaning i n what they read. Why should a meaningful novel be obscure; why can i t not also entertain? That was Maugham's legacy: Writing must never obscure its meaning; must never fail to interest, to entertainlO.
Another t h i n g to be taken into account is that simplicity is not easily attainable. As Maugham tells us i n The Summing
Upll:
but i f richness needs g i f t s with which everyone is not endowed, simplicity by no means comes by nature. To achieve i t needs r i g i d discipline.
There appreciate
were,
nevertheless,
Maugham's
skills.
few w r i t e r s and Thus,
George
critics who did Orwell
in
an
autobiographical note saysI2: but I believe the modern w r i t e r who has influenced me most is Somerset Maugham, whom I admire immensely f o r his power of telling a story straightforwardly and without f r i l l s .
What we should
not
do is what Edmund Wilson did in 'The
Apotheosis of Mr. Maugham'13, that is to say, to base our criticism on one of his bad novels. He based his article on Then
and Now, and
•J
without scarcely having read any other of his works, concluded that Maugham's works had nothing worth to offer. The least he should have
done
before daring
to criticize
Maugham is
read
his whole
production and t r y to f i n d out what i t was he was communicating to his readers. I n any case, i t would have been more honest i f he had merely
criticized
this novel without
trying
to
reach
any
general
conclusions about Maugham's whole production. There are three quotations I would like to consider to defend Maugham's craftsmanship as a writer: Maugham, a keen student of human nature, is o f t e n able to present a plausible explanation of the reason f o r his characters' conductl4. The greatness of the book (Of Human Bondage) consists i n two qualities which are independent of the plot. One of these is completeness i n the picturization of life; the other is i n t e g r i t y i n the presentation of a personalityl5. Yet he has been able, i n his greatest book, to poi-tray human passion, aspiration, and defeat, and to do so without cant or exaggeration. This is a good deal f o r any w r i t e r to have donel6.
A f t e r reading this we cannot but agree with Maugham when he writes i n A Writer's
Notebook,
1949:
I have long known that there is something i n me that antagonises certain personsl?;
and w i t h him we wonder:
what i t is i n me that is antipathetic to them.
What we cannot accept is his next statement: Nor do I mind what they think of me as a writer,
since he did mind i t as i t is implied i n the following quotation: I have no illusions about my l i t e r a r y position. There are b u t two important critics i n my own country who have troubled to take me seriously, and when clever young men write essays about contemporary fiction they never t h i n k of considering me. I do not resent i t l 8 .
Of course, he resented i t and this was one of the causes of his unhappiness. One of the reasons f o r which Maugham was disliked is that he portrayed his f r i e n d s and acquaintances with hardly any disguise. He won many enemies f o r this. At the same time, however, and because of this,
some authors also used
him f o r their
precisely novels
plays. Thus, he appears i n the following works: Ada Leverson's Limit
(1911); Hugh Walpole's
Jane
(1952); Noel Coward's
Mordaunt's Gin and direct
attack
Maugham's
on
Bitters
and
Cornelius
A Song
at
(1937); S.N.
Twilight
The
Behrman's
(1966); and Elinor
(1931). The latter is, perhaps, the
Maugham
Cakes
John
since this
Ale and
his
was
most
w r i t t e n i n reaction
supposed
or
portraits
of
to
Thomas
Hardy and Hugh Walpole. Another aspect I would like to consider i n this introduction is the
question
of
Maugham's
second-rate author, this
many
biography.
Although considered
as
a
he was a v e r y popular author, and because of
biographies
have
been
written
on
him.
As
far
as
biographical fact is concerned, there are few facts of his life which are unknown to his readers. For
quite
a
long
time
biography w r i t t e n , not even This,
however,
a f t e r his death.
did not
Maugham
was
against
by his own nephew,
prevent
having
his
Robin Maugham.
critics from w r i t i n g
i t , especially
Maugham was always a v e r y enigmatic f i g u r e . He always
had
his mask on, and not even his most intimate f r i e n d s could ever get to know him thoroughly. The objective facts of his life are v e r y well-known, since he, himself, used them i n his narrator,
novels and
short-stories.
who is always Maugham, we learn about
Through
their
his childhood in
Kent and about his social life as a w r i t e r . He also wrote some autobiographical novels. Of these, Of Human Bondage
is
the
one
which follows his
life more
closely. I t
was,
actually, w r i t t e n as a catharsis to liberate himself from unpleasant memories which were tormenting autobiography Cakes
and
Ale
him, and i f we cannot
call i t his
i t is only because fact and f i c t i o n are mixed in i t . is
also quite
autobiographical,
because he thought that i n Of Human Bondage
since
he
wrote
it
he had not said all he
had to say. Another Notebook
kind
of autobiographical
and The Summing
material is
his A
Writer's
Up, which cannot really be considered
to
be novels. The former is a compilation of notes he had taken during many years and which he used f o r his novels. They include sketches of people, philosophical reflexions, opinions about other artists,
etc.
The latter follows more the pattern of a traditional novel, and as the cover of the Penguin edition tells us: Here is Maugham's impartial judgement on Maugham, a considered comment on life and on his own life's work, a c a r e f u l weighing of religion, philosophy, and the artsl9.
With
so
much
autobiographical
information
in
his
works,
biographies do not really discover anything new about his life. They only help us to know more about his social life and his relationship w i t h his family and f r i e n d s . Something all his biographies
deal with
in
detail
is
his
homosexuality.
While he
was
alive Maugham
had
managed to keep i t secret; he never associated himself explicitly with any homosexual
movement
nor
did he ever help them to claim f o r
their r i g h t s . He lived at the time of Wilde's scandal, but he refused to get involved i n the a f f a i r . Maybe this attitude was due to the fact that he did not want to accept his nature; he considered i t as a bad joke life had played on him: My greatest one (mistake) was this, [...] I t r i e d to persuade myself that I was three-quai'ters normal and that only a quarter of me was queer whereas really i t was the other way round20.
We should not forget, however, that the fact that he was a homosexual had a great influence on his work since, as I intend to show later, his works deal mainlj'- with outsiders
. And as such
he
considered himself too, due to this and other characteristics of his. When dealing w i t h the biographies w r i t t e n on him, we must be c a r e f u l and take everything they say with a pinch of salt, since we should
not
forget
that
some of
them
are
not
totally objective.
Maugham was a v e r y controversial w r i t e r and he won some enemies by his w r i t i n g s . This is, f o r example, the case with Beverley Nichols and
his
book
Maugham's,
A
Case
of
Human
Bondage,
Formerly
a
f r i e n d of
he t u r n e d against him when Maugham wrote his article
'Looking Back' i n which he severely
attacked his own wife, who was
already dead and could not defend herself. I
am not interested
i n defending
Maugham's
actions,
among
other things because he was probably wrong i n doing what he did. However, what is of interest to me is the fact that his
biographers
are not always r i g h t i n the information they give. Thus, Nichols, i n the book j u s t mentioned21, says:
I n years to come Gerald was to gain an even greater ascendancy, he was to work on the Master night and day, elaborating t h i s foulest of all actions, t i l l he was at last b r o u g h t to believe that Liza was not his daughter at alL
I t is t r u e that 'the Master' came to believe that Liza was not his
daughter
and
that
he t r i e d
to disinherit her;
however,
this
happened i n 1962 and Gerald, Maugham's companion f o r t w e n t y - f i v e years, and to whom Nichols refers i n his book , had died i n 1944. Consequently, he could not 'have worked on the Master' f o r this; no matter how many other things he did and what he was Hke. On the other hand, Ted Morgan22 seems to imply that i t was the doing of Alan Searle, Maugham's companion a f t e r Gerald's death. I t definitely could not have been Gerald's doing since he had been dead f o r many years, and we know f o r certain that Maugham's argument w i t h his daughter happened i n 1962, as Wilmon Menard tells us i n The Two Worlds
of Somerset
Maughan&2,
when Liza sued him
f o r $648,900 i n May of t h a t year. I n any case, i t is always d i f f i c u l t to decide who is r i g h t and who is wrong. Thus, I have j u s t said that Ted Morgan t h i n k s i t was Alan who was responsible f o r Maugham's argument w i t h his daughter; and yet, Robert Galder i n his book Willie: The Life Maugham
of W.
Somerset
24 praises Alan's behaviour towards Maugham. I f we beheve
Calder's description of Alan's character i t is v e r y d i f f i c u l t to believe that he could have done such a bad action. Curious, and even f u n n y is what we f i n d i f we compare what his d i f f e r e n t biographies tell us Morgan's Somerset
Maugham25
about
his wedding date.
I n Ted
we are told:
At 3 p.m. on May 26 1917 Maugham married Syrie i n Jersey City.
Robin Maugham on his p a r t says i n Conversations
with
Willie26:
He married Syrie i n New York i n 1916.
Menard, i n
The
Two
Worlds
of
Somerset
Maugham
seems to
agree w i t h Morgan27:
He married her in New Jersey i n 1917;
and w i t h Calder28: They were married on 26 May i n Jersey City. I t is important to remember, however, that Maugham's decision to marry Syrie was not made exclusively i n New York in 1917.
Pfeiffer29, however, moves the date to 1915: I n 1915 [...] he married a divorcee named Syrie Wellcome.
More curious, though, is what happens with Richard Cordell. Thus, i n his book W. Somerset
Maugham
he says:
I n 1915 he married SyrieSO;
and i n his other book on Maugham Somerset and Critical
StudySl
Maugham:
A
Biographical
he changes the date to 1916:
I n 1916 he had married Syrie.
I know that his wedding date is not an important fact f o r his biographers
or
for
an
understanding
of
his
works;
however,
it
proves that we should not always believe all that has been w r i t t e n on Maugham.
ii
Perhaps more important f o r us is when we f i n d that his critics give information which is proved wrong when we read his books. I am r e f e r r i n g to his nephew Robin who wrote books on his uncle's life and who is not always r i g h t i n what he says about him, as we have j u s t seen w i t h the date of his uncle's wedding. I n Somerset and all the Maughams32 he says:
My uncle Willie never mentioned the fact i n his books, but he actually had two guardians when his father died i n 1884. He was probably so obsessed with the Reverend Henry Macdonal Maugham that he forgot that the second guardian was Albert Dixon, the London solicitor who had told him of old Robert Maugham and the baked potatoes (italics mine).
We only have to read Of Human Bondage
to prove him wrong;
f o r not only does Maugham mention him as one of his two guardians, but he is mentioned at least f i v e times: pp. 140, 331, 332, 498;
They wrote to the family lawyer, Albert Nixon, who was co-executor with the Vicar of Blackstable f o r the late Henry Carey's estate, and asked him whether he would take Philip 33.
Must we conclude, then, that he did not even read his uncle's masterpiece?. Maybe its length p u t him o f f . I n spite of the fact that the information sometimes given i n his biographies give is not v e r y accurate, overall, we can believe what his biographers say and we get a clear idea of what Maugham's life was like. I n my thesis
I am not going to pay v e r y much attention to
biographical facts since there are already too many biographies on him and I could not say anything new. As I said before, what I am really interested i n is the content of his works.
Maybe what has happened
with Maugham and his critics is that
the latter have seen that Maugham the artist is too close to his art and they tend to t h i n k that this is not real art. Thus, they have only seen the biographical facts i n his works and have not t r i e d to f i n d a possible philosophical meaning i n them. Maugham's production includes novels, plays, short-stories and other miscellaneous writings. The selection I have chosen on which to concentrate
has not been based on the works themselves, that is to
say, on whether they were good or bad, novels or short-stories; but on how well they could illustrate my point. Thus, although I have mainly concentrated chosen
the
on some of his novels, I have not
best or the
most famous. My study
necessarily
is also going to
include some of his plays and short-stories and, as with the novels, they are not always his best. Although I have j u s t said I am not interested i n biographical facts, this does not mean that I am not interested persona. As a matter
i n the Maugham
of fact, the basis of my work is
Maugham's
philosophy of life and how i t is reflected i n his books. I could not possibly separate the author from his works since he is v e r y much part of them. I am interested i n him as f a r as he is present i n his works. By being present I do not necessarily
mean that he is the
narrator of the story or a character i n i t ; what I really mean is that in his works he transmits his philosophy, his experiences and so his persona is as
important as
the
novels themselves.
We need
some
background information of his life; we need to know what factors i n his life determined the way he thought; what happened to make him be as he was. All I am interested
i n about
his life are
the
circumstances
which made him t h i n k that life had no meaning and how he resigned himself to this. For me, his books are only the mirror of Maugham's
personality.
They
understanding
are
of, and
Maugham's an
experiments
adaptation
to
come
to
an
to, life. They represent
the
d i f f e r e n t stages he passed t h r o u g h u n t i l he came to be the cynical, resigned spectator of life. My purpose when I decided to write my thesis on Maugham was to prove that he was more than a mere story-teller; that there is a message i n his books but that we have to discover i t . Maybe he was unlucky to be the contemporary of writers such as Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and D.H. Lawrence who are considered
as
v e r y ' p r o f o u n d ' and who were experimenting with new forms of the novel. His style is, definitely, not like theirs; but his novels have a message as important and as 'philosophical' and ' p r o f o u n d ' as theirs. Simplicity of style does certainly not mean superficiality. I have discovered a message i n Maugham's books which maybe is
not
the
message
he
intended
to
transmit,
and
other
critical
accounts of his works may be closer to his intention than mine is. However, my reading
of his works has
made me enjoy them
and
t h r o u g h them I have known a d i f f e r e n t Maugham from the one
I
discovered i n the biographies w r i t t e n on him. What follows is, then, only a v e r y subjective interpretation of his works and, as such, a
verydeb'atableone.
CHAPTER I : A PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE A: IN SEARCH OF HAPPINESS A l : LOVE As I said before, there are already quite a few biographies on the life of Somerset Maugham, and a lot of articles and critical books on his wide production. However, only a few of them would I consider as serious works, since most of them refuse to give Maugham a chance of showing that his works deal with matters; that maybe
there
i t is worth
serious
is a whole philosophy of life i n them. So, paying attention
to his
production from
a
psychological point of view; and that is what I intend to do. What is i t that
makes him such
an interesting case?. I n
Jensen's words:
Maugham would be an interesting subject f o r a psychological analysis. His stammering, his shyness, the unhappy years of his childhood and of his youth, his French background. These among other things are facts that, when considered i n relation to his apparent cynicism, his irony, his preoccupation with the theme of unrequited love, o f f e r complete material to a mind of the psychoanalytic t u r n l .
Are these unhappy circumstances of his life going to deter us
from w r i t i n g
Robin?:
about
his life, as
they
did with
his
nephew
' I have no objection now to you w r i t i n g my biography a f t e r my death' [...] but I wanted to do so less and less. I t would have involved delving into too much unhappiness2.
Certainly not; and what I do not intend to do either is to write, as Robin did, merely a 'superficial' story of his life. I f a f t e r reading St. John Adcok's warning:
I f , from any cause, you are afraid to look life i n the face, you had better leave Mr. Maugham aloneS,
we still want to t r y and understand him, then, we shall have to start w i t h a detailed study of each of the circumstances
which
made him the k i n d of person he was. I shall open a parenthesis now to c l a r i f y one thing; i f I am interested i n Maugham's life i t is only because i t is going to help us understand his works, because he is v e r y much part of them and
because
through
them
he
was
communicating
and
experimenting with new ways to come to terms with life. In
Somerset
were
gathered
all the
ideal conditions f o r
making a person feel u t t e r l y miserable, to such an extent that not even
his
longevity
could
make
him
overcome
them.
These
circumstances, listed above, marked his life and helped to form his character:
Being deprived at an early age of his beloved mother, and thrown on unfeeling relations, marked him f o r life. As a doctor and the brother of a great lawyer he
saw deep into the human heart and his cynicism masked both a compassion of which he was almost ashamed and a b i t t e r rage against the terrible tragedies, disablements and stupidities t h r u s t , by its own limitations, upon the human condition4.
How does a child feel when he is deprived of his parents', especially
his mother's,
love
at a v e r y early age;
taken
to a
f o r e i g n country, the language of which he does not master; and is brought up by people who do not understand him?. We only have to
read
Of Human
Bondage
and
The
Summing
Up to
know
his
feelings. Actually, the former was w r i t t e n as a catharsis because, even years later, he still felt:
obsessed by the teeming memories of my past life [...] i t all came back to me so pressingly, i n ray sleep, on my walks, when I was rehearsing plays, when I was at a p a r t y , i t became such a burden to me that I made up my mind that I could only regain my peace by w r i t i n g i t all down i n the form of a novel5.
And i t is this novel that we are because i t was
his f i r s t novel, which
going to study now. Not i t was
not; but
because
being his autobiographical novel i t will serve us as the basis f o r the understanding of his life and works. I t h i n k i t is necessary to emphasize here the fact that this is not his autobiography,
that
all which happens i n this book did not actually happen i n his real life; although
most of
the
events
described
actually occur.
As Maugham said i n The Summing Up:
i n the
novel did
17
Fact and f i c t i o n are so intermingled i n my work that now, looking back on i t , I can hardly distinguish one f o r the other6. This is especially the case with Of Human Bondage,
but the
important t h i n g f o r us is that
the emotions are my own7.
And i t is emotions rather than events that we are going to analyse. 'The day broke grey and d u l l ' , with this beginning we are warned that something bad is about to happen; t e r r i b l e than the death
and what more
of a child's mother. Thus starts
Philip
Carey's misery and i n this same way Maugham's did. This was the event that would mark all his life to such an extent that even at the
age
of ninety he could
still
be found c r y i n g
holding
his
mother's photograph. She had l e f t him alone to face a world cruel to him. I n an article about the similarities between Jack London and Maugham^, Haire and Hensley mention as one of them the fact that London usually started
his
stories with a reference to the bad
weather, as we have j u s t seen Maugham does i n his masterpiece. This is as f a r as they go; however, f o r the writer of this work the weather i n Somerset Maugham's works has a specific function. I t is usually t h r o u g h a reference to the weather that the author expresses his feelings. And yet, throughout my research
I have
lis
only come across one critical work i n which mention is made of the meaning of the use of the weather i n Maugham's works9. Of Human Bondage
is the story of a boy's apprenticeship i n
life; he s u f f e r s at f i r s t and, terms
with
life.
Thus
the
little by little, learns to come to depressing
beginning.
I t is
true,
however, that this is the only time i n the novel that he uses a depressing weather to express unhappiness or misery, but i t is not an unimportant reference. I t is i n a significant position i n the story, and on reading i t one automatically enters the atmosphere of the novel. I t is only when we come across the references to the good weather and we see that they always happen when Philip is experiencing a sense of happiness that we understand
the
real
significance of the f i r s t sentence of the novel. Examples of this are:
(He) look at the sunshine [...] He was delighted x^th himself (by the way, something that v e r y rarely happens) 10,
I stopped happy 11,
to look at the sunset [,.,] Because I was
He was happy at the idea of seeing his f r i e n d s again, and he rejoiced because the day was f i n e l 2 .
And no less significant is the ending of the novel:
And the sun was shining 13.
I f as a premonition of something bad about to happen we had a dull, grey day; f o r a 'happy ending' we needed the sun to be out. I t is the perfect ending f o r such a beginning. One of the most important topics i n Of Human Bondage
is
Misery. As we mentioned before, i t starts with the death of his mother when he is only a boy. I f even before her death he felt a little lonely because he was an only child and was too much l e f t to play by himself; now, that his dear mother is no longer with him,
his
loneliness
is going
to become
almost unbearable.
His
misery increases when, as an orphan, he is sent to live with his uncle and aunt. I n spite of having been married f o r many years, they
are
childless, and
at
so late a time this child
comes to
d i s t u r b the pattern of their lives. The religious atmosphere of his new home is too much of a burden f o r him. His wretchedness is even
greater
when
misfortunes j u s t
he
starts
going
to
school,
mentioned we have to add
since
to
his
his club-foot. This
prevents him from joining i n the games the other boys play, and at the same time, because of i t , he is made f u n of.
I t seemed to his childish mind that his life was a dream, his mother's death, and the life at the Vicarage, and these two wretched days at school, and he would awake i n the morning and be back again at home [...] He was too unhappy, i t must be nothing but a dream, and his mother was alive 14.
This mere physical difference between Philip and his fellow students is going to create a gap between himself and the others.
10
He is l e f t a good deal to himself and thus the feeling that he is an outsider increases. The effect of this is that:
gradually he became silentl5,
and he became so much used to being alone that
i t made him restless to be with people and he wanted u r g e n t l y to be alonel6.
However, i n spite of this, he misses what is so important at such an age, f r i e n d s :
He looked at the people walking about and envied them because they had f r i e n d s . Sometimes his envy t u r n e d to hatred because they were happy and he was miserablel?.
He f i n d s refuge from all his miseries i n literature without knowing that:
He was creating f o r himself an unreal world which would make the real world of every day a source of bitter disappointmentlS;
which is what happens. He is never satisfied with what he
has,
w i t h the present moment; and so, he is always imagining what the f u t u r e will be like. But, when the f u t u r e comes, i t only brings
disappointment. He has to learn an important lesson before he can put
an
end
to
all his
misery.
With
this we
would enter
the
psychological part of our analysis of the novel, although this is something we are going to leave f o r later on. For the moment we shall j u s t say that the clue f o r the mystery of this riddle is what could be considered as the f i r s t principle of Existentialism:
Man is nothing himselfl9.
However,
Philip is
comes to understand always i n f l i c t e d on
else
going to
but
that
which he
s u f f e r much more
makes of
before
he
life. The t r u t h is that his s u f f e r i n g is not him, i t is
something
f o r which he,
himself,
masochistically searches; i t is a kind of punishment f o r his pride. The new source of misery is Mildred, a waitress i n an ABC bar. I t is s u r p r i s i n g to see why this p a i n f u l relationship starts:
I t was obvious that she disliked him rather otherwise, and his pride was wounded20.
than
He has to make her love him, but he fails. I t might have been his previous circumstances i n life what made him act like this. His need of kindness and care is so great that f o r him i t is better to feel this heart-breaking
passion than
not having anybody or anything, j u s t an endless boredom:
He was troubled and the fear seized him that love would pass him by. He wanted a passion to seize him.
he wanted to be swept o f f his feet and borne powerless i n a mighty r u s h he cared not whither21.
He falls prey to this passion to degrading limits, u n t i l he f i n a l l y exhausts i t . Unless great
loneliness
and
his
seen from the craving
for
point of view of his affection, we
cannot
understand this passion. Agreeing with Theodore Dreiser we can say that
I n p u r s u i t of his ideal from his earliest youth he clings to both men and women i n a pathetic way, a t r u l y moving spectacle22.
Philip does not even ask f o r his love to be returned, he only wants her to let him love her:
I don't mind that you don't care f o r me. After all you can't help i t . I only want you to let me love you23.
He t h i n k s he is too
insignificant, ordinary and ugly f o r him) crippled24
and (what is worse
f o r any woman to care f o r him. So f a r we can understand his passion; i t is when Mildred comes back to him a f t e r having l e f t him and after he has met Norah that we start to feel a little puzzled about this affair. What is i t now that makes him go back to her?. He has met a woman much worthier than Mildred and who r e t u r n s his feelings, who
gave him all that a wife could, and he preserved his freedom; she was the most charming f r i e n d he had ever had25
and yet:
He did not care i f she was heartless, vicious, and vulgar, stupid and grasping, he loved her. He would rather have misery with one than happiness with the other26.
I t seems that a f t e r all i t is true that:
i n matters of happiness and misery [...] men come often to p r e f e r the worse to the better, and to choose that which by their own confession, has made them miserable27.
We wonder
now
if
i t is
not
his
desire
to
make
her
surrender, i n a way , to humiliate her, that makes him love her so desperately. His is not blind love:
He had read of the idealization that takes place i n love, but he saw her exactly as she was28,
he sees all her shortcomings:
I t was only when he gave her showed any affection29 ;
anything that
she
She would only take advantage of his weaknessSO.
All this might also
be due to his desire to h u r t himself.
There is one t h i n g which could help us understand the reason f o r Philip's behaviour. At this stage i n his life Maugham agreed
with
the theory that to love is better than to be loved:
but when all was said the important thing was to love rather than to be lovedSl.
If this is so, i t is only natural that Philip prefers Mildred to Norah, because he loves the former, whereas the latter loves him. This last theory would
of loving and being loved is something I
like to deal with
later
on when I come to comment on
Maugham's conception of love, with its d i f f e r e n t connotations. Finally, to f i n i s h this topic of misery and Mildred's part in i t , I would like to conclude by saying that as everything i n Of Human Bondage,
this long episode
also
has
its meaning i n the
wider context of the novel, since
i t is usually part of a young man's apprenticeship that he becomes ensnared by a woman who is vulgar, insensitive and unintelligent. I n most cases the hero f i n a l l y frees himself and, although emotionally scarred, is more mature because of his experience32.
The quest f o r freedom i n this been considered
autobiographical novel
has
as the motive f o r the action of the novel. I do
not, particularly, t h i n k freedom is what Philip is looking f o r i n his lilgrimageof
life. However, I intend to concentrate on this later on,
a f t e r having analyzed
the whole novel, since I need this as
the
basis f o r my hypothesis about the real topic of Maugham's works. Nevertheless, Bondage,
as
freedom its title
plays
an
important
implies, and
part
I cannot
but
in
Of Human
dedicate a few
words to i t . We
are
going
to
analyze
it
in
relation
to
misery.
Summarizing, we could say that the causes of Philip's unhappiness are
the
miserable
wretchedness
at
conditions school,
and
of
his the
life
at
the
burden
of
Vicarage, a
his
strenuous
relationship with Mildred. All this apart from his attitude to life which, at the same time, is motivated by the circumstances which surround him. These circumstances make him feel an outsider; and as such his chief desire is to cease to be one and to f i n d his way back to himself33. His problem, and the outsider's,
then, is the
problem of freedom34:
A condition of perfect freedom [...] being an unavoidable fate (The Surrealists) or our conceivably attainable goal (The Kantians) 35.
I n order to get this freedom what he has to do is to free himself
from
all the
bondages which
suffocate
him. The
first
bondage he must outgrow is the oppressive environment of the Vicarage. Here there are two factors influencing him negatively:
what we could call his home-life, and religion. As f a r as the f i r s t one is concerned, Philip never feels at home at his uncle's. I t is t r u e that he comes to love his aunt a f t e r he realizes how much he means f o r her:
I've t r i e d to be like a mother to you. I've loved you as i f you were my own son36;
He had not known with what a h u n g r y love she cared f o r him37.
The case is even worse with his uncle f o r whom he
never
has a nice word:
His uncle was a weak and selfish man whose desire i t was to be saved trouble38.
As his uncle is
the
reverend
of the
chief
village, Philip
is
obliged to ' s u f f e r ' some of the strictness this kind of life implies; as, f o r example, attending Mass regularly, as well as saying h i s prayers every night:
He had been taught by his uncle that his prayers were more acceptable to God i f he said them i n his n i g h t s h i r t than i f he was dressed39;
and as a consequence:
27
He was beginning to realize that he was the creature of a God who appreciated the discomfort of his wor shipper s40.
Philip's
disenchantment
with
religion
comes
mainly
by
observing his uncle's behaviour:
Black-stove [...] lighted i f the weather was v e r y bad and the Vicar had a cold. I t was not lighted i f Mrs. Carey had a cold41;
When her husband wanted a holiday, since there was no money f o r two, he went by himself42.
I f he who shouldset
anexample behaves like this, what can
be expected from the others?. This s t r i c t f a i t h which had been forced upon him could not last long because i t becomes too heavy a burden so that
when Philip ceased to believe i n Christianity he f e l t that a great weight was taken from his shoulders [...] he experienced a v i v i d sense of liberty43.
This is not, however, the f i r s t hurdle he has to overcome i n his way to freedom. F i r s t comes wretchedness
that
he
puts
school. And i t is here i n his
religion to
test,
and
i t fails.
The
solution f o r all his problems would be a miracle. I f his club-foot were cured, he would be like the other children and they would accept him. The miracle does not occur and he has to p u t up with a good deal of hard-treatment. A f t e r some years at school he cannot but feel that
His life at school had been a failure. He wanted to start afresh44.
He is i n such a h u r r y to leave school and start life that he does not stop to consider the .effect i t can have on his f u t u r e . I f he had stayed he could have been agiven a grant to go to Oxford. We mentioned before how d i f f i c u l t i t is to distinguish between fact and f i c t i o n i n Maugham's works, and that the important thing is that the emotions are his own. I n this case, Philip does not show any
regret
for
this
action;
however,
this
is
one
of
the
autobiographical facts of the novel, and Maugham does show his discontentment f o r such a h a s t y action. He does not do i t i n this novel, though, but i n The Razor's
Edge when he says:
I never went to Cambridge as my brothers did. I had the chance, but I refused i t . I wanted to get out into the world. I've always regretted it45.
One
of the
most
burdensome
bondages
is
passion;
you
cannot be f r e e unless you can control i t . I n the case of Of Human Bondage,
the bondage is Philip's passion f o r Mildred; and this has
been amply considered above. The only thing to say now is that this is a bondage
f o r which he , himself, is responsible. He is
conscious that i t is doing him no good at all, and
he wanted passionately to get r i d of the love that obsessed him; i t was degrading and hateful46.
The curious t h i n g is that i t is not Philip who makes the move f o r his freedom; i t is Mildred who takes the f i n a l step, as has always been the case i n their relationship. Finally, we get to the last bondage:
Having emancipated himself from environmental, physical, cultural, religious, aesthetic and emotional restraints, one f i n a l bond remains: Philip's need to 'understand' the meaning of life47.
He who asks what is the meaning of life is sick. The meaning of life is life itself48.
already
We cannot but agree with both of Freud's statements. As f a r as the f i r s t one is concerned, Philip's 'pilgrim' in life starts when he leaves school and the Vicarage and decides to go to Heidelberg. He is not satisfied with his present life and sets o f f i n search f o r something better. He feels completely out of place i n the
society
he is l i v i n g and sets o f f to f i n d himself, to f u l f i l himself. Thus, I t h i n k i n a way we can say that he is sick; however, at this point he does not know what is wrong with him; he does not imagine that his life is the problem. As f o r the second statement, that is the answer
Philip is
going to f i n d
f o r the
riddle of life. His
p i l g _ r i r n a g e i n life takes him from Heidelberg to London; from London to Paris, to go back to England more
mature than he l e f t
but
without having f o u n d what he was looking f o r . He certainly has not found what he wanted, but he
starts
wondering what is wrong with life; at least with his life. He is
eager to live; he is t i r e d of preparing f o r life49; but he does not realize he is letting life escape t h r o u g h his fingers by thinking of the f u t u r e . And this is a v e r y important form of enslavement, too.
that of l i v i n g i n a world of illusion, of not seeing life as i t actually is and therefore f r e q u e n t l y s u f f e r i n g the pain of disillusionment50.
No matter i f he is not happy i n one place, he will move to a d i f f e r e n t one and t r y something else. However, when he is there, he is disappointed; things are not as he expected them to be. He lives i n a world unhappiness
he
of illusions which puts
too
are
much f a i t h
never
in the
f u l f i l l e d . I n his f u t u r e , and
this
attitude is , according to Freud, typical of unsatisfied persons:
A happy person n e v e r f a n t a s i s e ^ n l y an unsatisfied one. the motive forces of fantasies are unsatisfied wishes, and every single fantasy is the f u l f i l m e n t of a wish, a correction of unsatisfying reality51.
However, he
does not realize that
the solution to all his
problems lies inside himself. Nobody can help him discover
the
meaning of life:
I t is worthless unless you yourself discover it52.
Finally, the solution, which had been hidden i n the Persian r u g Cronshaw gave him, comes to his mind:
There was no meaning i n life, and man by living served no end [...] Life was insignificant and death of no consequence [...] i t seemed to him that the last burden of responsibility was taken from him; and f o r the f i r s t time he was u t t e r l y free53.
He could not reconcile himself to the believe that life had no meaning and yet everything he saw, all his thoughts added to the force of his conviction [...] Life was not so horrible i f i t was meaningless, and he faced i t with a strange sense of power54.
There
is
no
point
i n escaping
from
reality, i n keepinj
moving from one place to another t r y i n g to f i n d a new life.
your life is what you make of it55.
This is the existentialist principle he has come to believe in:
Life has no meaning, that the meaning comes from the individual, not from anything eternal or absolute56.
I t is f r o m this point that Philip's life starts to go well. He has come to terms with life, and yet he still keeps making plans f o r the f u t u r e and t h i n k i n g he is going to start life. I t is not t i l l the v e r y end, w i t h his decision to marry Sally and give up all his hopes of travelling normal life w i t h
that
he f i n a l l y chooses the
a wife and a job against
happiness of a
an uncertain f u t u r e
travelling and i n which we can foresee the same fate the
other
travels b r o u g h t him. I t is only when he realizes i t is useless to
go on w i t h
his
search
f o r nonexistent absolutes
that we
can
conclude that he is on the way f o r his recovery.
Is that the secret, to learn to hold the present i n the hand?. To take no thought f o r the morrow?57.
His travels are not going to f u l f i l his illusions. Why not?. What is i t that Philip is looking for?:
Traherme said he was seeking 'happiness', Ramakrishma said he was seeking God; but they meant the same t h i n g . Blake would have called i t 'vision'58.
They need something to give meaning to their lives, and so does Philip. I t is really from here that my analysis starts. I would like to take
the
idea that
there
is no meaning i n life as my
starting-point. Some explanation is needed,
however, concerning
what, then, I have been t r y i n g to show with my analysis of Of Human write
Bondage,
I have mentioned before that I do not intend to
a biography of
Maugham, nevertheless,
I am v e r y much
interested i n the development of his philosophical ideas about life because they are essential f o r an understanding of most of his works. I t seems to me that the main idea from which most of his serious
works
develop
is
the
one
just
mentioned
of
the
meaninglessness of life. I f they p a r t from this idea i t can only be because that is what Maugham himself thought. I t is not that he ever stated i t so clearly, but f o r me, i t is obvious that is what he thought. There is no real way of proving i t , and yet this is the
conclusion we reach a f t e r researching on his life. If
I have started
my study with
Of Human
Bondage
i t is
because what I am interested i n showing is that due to all his misery he came to wonder about the meaning of life and that he discovered i t has no meaning. As I did not want to enter into an analysis of Maugham's life I thought I could use Philip to show how he came to reach this conclusion about life. I do not mean that
we
should
consider
everything
which
Maugham.
However,
this
happens we
to
novel Philip
cannot
autobiographical novel, and as
as
his
biography,
did actually deny
that
that
happen this
to
is
an
such there is v e r y much of the
author i n i t . For me, i t does not make any real difference that Philip s u f f e r s from a club-foot (in spite of this handicap having strong
classical
associations
with
art)
and
that
what
really
happened to Maugham is that he was a stutterer. The important thing
is
that
there
is
something
which
prevents
them
integrating into the society to which they belong, which
from makes
outsiders of them. What is essential f o r us is emotions, feelings, and these, he admitted, were his own. Throughout my analysis I intend to show how all Maugham's serious heroes at one point or another i n their lives wonder about the meaning of life; and as we saw before, agreeing with Freud we could consider them as sick. For the moment then, let me ask you to assume that this is t r u e . Once this conclusion is reached, there are only two ways open to his characters: either they commit suicide or they set off i n search
of happiness,
which according to Tatarkiewicz consists
i n f i n d i n g satisfaction w i t h our life59. We shall come back to the f i r s t solution later on i n our analysis; f o r the
moment we are
going to concentrate on the quest f o r happiness. I am going to call
it
happiness,
but
we could
also
call
i t contentment
or
f u l f i l m e n t . I t is the search f o r something to give meaning to the meaningless l i f e ; something to make our lives worth l i v i n g . I t is usually the case that people who wonder about life are not happy; and according to Telfer
A person who is unhappy can become happy i n either o f two ways: by altering his circumstances or by altei-ing his attitude to his circumstances60.
I t seems to me that the former can be a false way-out; and, i n fact, i n most of Maugham's books i t proves to be so. I n the case of Philip Carey, even before wondering what is really wrong w i t h him, he realizes
he is not happy where he is and
leaves
school and the Vicarage and sets o f f to Germany t r y i n g to be happier there. Germany is not, however, the only place he will v i s i t i n his search f o r happiness; Paris will follow, and once again he will be disappointed. Wherever he goes he feels the same, what is wrong with him?. For Robert Calder i t is Freedom that Philip is looking f o r 6 1 . I t is t r u e that and
he feels oppressed
by so many
bondages,
he needs to f r e e himself from all of them; but once he
has
done so he still feels the same:
His
school-days were over, and he was f r e e ; but the
wild exultation to which he had looked f o r w a r d at that moment was not there62.
The same is going to happen from a d i f f e r e n t bondage.
every time he frees himself
He expects a greater
change than i t
actually brings about:
Philip entered deliberately upon a new life. But his loss of f a i t h made less difference i n his behaviour than he expected63.
A f t e r all, i t is only another of his dreams; once he is free life will be d i f f e r e n t f o r him. He cannot be happy now because he is oppressed b y so many external things; he cannot act f r e e l y , he has to behave as i t is expected of him. At the end he comes to admit that freedom is j u s t another illusion:
the illusion of f r e e will is so strong i n my mind that I can't get away from i t , but I believe i t is only an illusion. But i t is an illusion which is one of the strongest motives of my actions64.
Does he really strive f o r his freedom?. He seems to want to get
rid
of
all
his
bondages;
and
yet,
in
the
case
of
his
relationship w i t h Mildred although:
He wanted passionately to get r i d of the love that obsessed him; i t was degrading and hateful65,
on the other hand, he clings to her f o r what I consider to be his fear
of
loneliness.
. Throughout
the
novel
we
find
many
references to Philip's loneliness. I t starts when he is j u s t a child and his mother is still alive:
Philip had led always the solitary life of an only child66;
increasing w i t h the passing of the years:
Philip had few friends67
He looked at the people walking them because they had friends68
about and
envied
Sometimes he f e l t so lonely that he could not read69
A proof of how great his fear of loneliness is can be found at the end of the novel i n his dismay when he learns that Sally is not pregnant, and so he does not need to marry her:
His heart sank. The f u t u r e stretched out before him i n desolate emptiness [...] He could not confront again the loneliness and the tempest70 (italics mine).
He not only needs to be f r e e but at the same time to be p a r t of the world problem
of
he lives i n . I f the outsider's problem is the
freedom,
his
chief
desire
is
to
cease
to
be
an
outsiderTl. He cannot be alone, he wants to keep his freedom, but
w
in
communion w i t h
somebody
Lawrence's Women in
else,
such as
Birkin
intended in
Love,
As psychoanalysis tells us, man wishes to be happy.'
Men seek happiness, they want to become happy and to remain so72.
However, things which
Philip are
cannot
be
happy
because
he
lacks
considered to be necessary f o r being
the
happy:
f r i e n d s , love, affection, family. That is Philip's real problem; no freedom, as he comes to realize at the end:
All his plans were suddenly overthrown, and the existence, so elaborately pictured, was no more than a dream which would never be realized. He was free once more. Free!. He need give up none of his projects, and life still was i n his hands f o r him to do what he liked with. He f e l t no exhilaration, but only dismay. His heart sank. The f u t u r e stretched out before him i n desolate emptiness [...] He could not confront again the loneliness and the tempest73; (italics mine).
Finally, he has
discovered why he is so unhappy; he
has
always been alone. Now he knows that what he wants more than anything i n the world is
a wife, a home, and love74.
We have j u s t seen how the change of circumstances does not help Philip f i n d the contentment he needs to go on with his
7
life. I t is a change of attitude, the second above f o r f i n d i n g happiness, which would Only
one
positive
attitude
can
be
solution I suggested be more
adopted
to
appropriate.
this
negative
conception of l i f e , and this is resignation. Nevertheless,
this
resignation can
take one
of two forms:
one can either resign oneself to one's fate, having to stand this meaningless life u n t i l one dies; or, on the contrary, one can t r y to make the most of i t , following the existentialist principle that
Man is nothing himself75.
else
but
that
which
he
makes of
I n this case the resignation is accompanied by a quest f o r a 'happier' life. An example of the attitude of complete resignation would be Maugham as Dr. Saunders i n his novel The Narrow
Corner.
As we
shall see i n detail later, he is j u s t a spectator of the 'play' of l i f e . He does not seem to act, he j u s t is:
' I believe i n nothing but myself and my experience. The world consists of me and my thoughts and my feelings; and everything else is mere fancy. Life is a dream i n which I create the objects that come before me'76.
The other characters i n the novel are still s t r i v i n g to f i n d a meaning of life and
he observes them as one who has
already
experienced these things. Let us
concentrate
now
on the
second attitude,
that
is,
resignation to our fate, but i n order to t r y to f i n d something to give meaning to our lives.
There are only two things i n the world that make life worth l i v i n g : love and art77.
This quotation taken from his masterpiece is going to serve us as the starting point of our analysis of this attitude. Love and a r t are then the two solutions Maugham seems to o f f e r f o r the problem of life; although, as we shall see later, they do not always succeed i n their purpose. We are need to
going to analyse the former f i r s t , and f o r this Ave
know
what
i t and
its
importance f o r our happiness. We f i n d that Eric Fromm, in
his
book Man for Himself,
psychoanalysis
tells
us
about
tells us that
Love is supposed happiness78.
Sartre does not use
to
be
the
only
the word happiness but
source
of
he talks of
stability of being, which could be another way of describing what men look f o r i n life:
-^0 Love is one of the stability of being79.
forms under
which
we
pursue
One of the things from which men s u f f e r most i n life is Loneliness, which is , as we have seen, Philip's real problem. I do not t h i n k man can really be happy unless he has somebody with whom to share his failures and successes. As early as Plato we f i n d statements like: The happy man needs friendsSO,
and i t is so because although
every f r i e n d s h i p is desirable f o r itself, [...] i t starts from personal needSl.
Mere f r i e n d s h i p , however, does not seem to be enough, since what all the characacters i n Maugham's works look f o r is not only a f r i e n d , but a special one. I t is undoubtedly true that we need f r i e n d s , but we also need a special f r i e n d , somebody who we can rely on and who can walk with us i n the d i f f i c u l t path of life. Agreeing with Russell, I t h i n k that i n this loved person we look f o r more than j u s t sex:
Love is something f a r more than desire f o r sexual intercourse, i t is the principal means of escape from the loneliness which a f f l i c t s most men and women throughout the greater part of their lives82.
This is what happens with Bella i n The Merry-Go-Round.
She
has always led a solitary life as the only child of a widowed dean. When she o f f e r s to marry Herbert, a dying poet much younger than herself, she is making one last bid f o r happiness83.
Even
the
happiness
of
a
short
marriage
will
be
enough to compensate f o r what her life has been u n t i l then:
I've been lonely i n my life, so dreadfully, lonely84.
She needs to be loved, to feel that
she is important f o r
somebody, that is why she is so happy with her husband:
' I t ' s so good to be loved', she answered. 'No one has ever said such things to me before, and I'm so ridiculously happy'85.
She
knows her
husband
happiness is not
going to
because
has
her
life
a
is going to die
be eternal
meaning
now.
and She
soon, that
yet has
she
is
known
her
happy what
happiness is and i t has given her strength to go on even once he
has gone. At least she has her dreams of happiness. Stendhal is r i g h t when he defines happiness as
the product of 'love and work'86. You need to be
satisfied with your work i n order
to
be
happy. However, work is not as a big a problem as love since i f you do not like your work you can f i n d , or t r y to f i n d , a better one. I do not mean that work is not important, j u s t the
opposite;
i t can be a v e r y important source of unhappiness, but i t can also be our only refuge from life. I t is usually the case that who cannot
find
any
meaning
in
life,
people
people
who feel lonely
consider their jobs as the only source of happiness. This is what happens
to
passionately
Julia,
the
heroine
i n love twice she
of
Theatre,
.
After
being
t u r n s to her acting as her only
escape:
They say acting is only make-believe. believe is the only reality87.
That
make-
She has been a slave of her passion but she is not going to let that happen again to her; she is going to be her only master; but, unfortunately, i n a 'make-believe' world. I n this world she is a star; i n the real one j u s t a failure because she knows
success i s n ' t everything i n the world. A f t e r all, love is the only t h i n g that matters88.
But as i n the world of the theatre,
you put the mask on
and the performance goes on. Although Maugham also made his job the aim of his life, i n his l i t e r a r y works he does not really contemplate i t as a solution f o r our troubles. Thus, I am going to concentrate on love as a solution f o r the loneliness of men. Of all the conditions necessary f o r acquiring happiness, the most important one f o r Maugham is love:
The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love89.
When w r i t i n g about love i n Maugham's works, we have to distinguish between to love and to be loved. For Maugham
it's loving that's the important thing, not being loved [...] When all was said the impoi-tant thing was to love rather than to be lovedQO.
This is the theory Philip follows i n Of Human Bondage.
He
does not ask Mildred to love him, he only wants her to let him love her. However, at
the end of the
novel he lets himself
be
loved by Sally, and he would rather have that than anything else. We wonder what has
happened to the belief that loving is more
important. The answer is simple: when one loves , one loves with passion, and that is something that usually t u r n s out badly, as we
shall see happens i n most of his works. Philip's love f o r Mildred represents passion whereas what he feels f o r Sally at the end is not love, but what Maugham calls loving-kindness:
and yet, he knew that he did not love her. I t was a great affection that he f e l t f o r her, and he liked her company91.
This idea
of
loving-kindness
is present
i n most
of
novels. This is the positive side of love. Loving-kindness
his
gives
the idea of a quiet, gentle love which, not being based on passion, can last longer and endure all the ups and downs of the married life. A proof of i t is that a f t e r a while Philip's passion f o r Mildred is exhausted; i t is too violent to last. It
is t h r o u g h
understand
what
Human Bondage: the
happy
this
notion of love
have been considered
that
as
we
can
come
to
the two flaws of Of
Philip's infatuation with the hideous Mildred, and
ending.
How can
he
love Mildred?. The answer
is
simple: he needs love; he needs to have somebody with him, as we saw above;
and
as,
according to Maugham's
theory,
to love is
better than to be loved, he tries to be happy by loving:
' I t ' s v e r y hard when you're as much i n love as I am. Have mercy on me, I don't mind that you don't care f o r me. A f t e r all you can't help i t . I only want you to let me love you'92.
He t h i n k s that nobody will care f o r him, that he is
insignificant and crippled and ordinary and ugly93. Philip desperately
needs love, and i f he cannot be loved,
then he will love somebody, no matter how h o r r i d this person is. As w i t h Maugham we can say that
he found i t hard to f i n d or give love, but longed f o r i t all his life94.
As
f o r the
coherent
one.
ending,
Why
f o r me i t is the
should
the
public
most adequate and
expect
ending?95. He sets o f f i n search of happiness. himself
from
d i f f e r e n t bondages
and
then
an
unhappy
First he liberates he
tries
to
find
i t is affection received, not affection given causes this sense of security96.
that
happiness t h r o u g h love, only that he does not realize that
I f this that Russell t h i n k s is true, by the end of the book Philip has gained what he had been looking f o r : happiness. For (Marriages
the
same
reasons
are Made in Heaven)
that
Philip
marries
Sally,
Jack
marries a woman society considers
unworthy:
I was t i r e d of this miserable existence of mine. I was sick to death of being always alone. I wanted someone
46
to care f o r me, someone to belong to me and to stand by me97.
I t is not love that brings regard
f o r each
other
and
them together
a great
need to
but a pleasant escape from
the
loneliness of t h e i r lives. His feelings and needs are more important than society:
' I want to live with you j u s t as you are' [,..] I f anybody says ,'is that all'? [...] he must have had little experience of solitariness and dread, little experience indeed of solitary dread98.
So f a r we have talked of two kinds of love: passion
and
loving-kindness. They could be identified with the distinction the Greeks made when r e f e r r i n g to love: Eros, described as passionate love; Philis, as f r i e n d s h i p , and Agape as God-like love. This t h i r d k i n d of love is present i n Maugham's work and also as way of f i n d i n g happiness. For the time being we are
another going to
continue considering the role of the f i r s t two kinds of love and we shall study the t h i r d one later. Continuing
with
the
topic
of
love
as
an
escape
from
loneliness and concentrating on love as passion, we are going to study now another of his novels, Mrs. Bertha Ley has
lived
Craddock.
with her aunt, Miss Ley, since
her
father died, and although they keep each other company, yet they
keep all their feelings to themselves and they are 'spiritually' as lonely as though they were l i v i n g alone:
Their chief desire appeared to be to conceal from one another the emotions they felt99.
She does not seem to be dissatisfied with her life; however, when she meets Edward Craddock she realizes that the world she is l i v i n g i n is empty; all her riches do not mean anything to her; and her sumptuous house is nothing but a prison:
She could not r e t u r n to the house [...] and the walls seemed like a prisonlOO.
There is something lacking i n her life; hers is a useless, meaningless life. Thus, when she meets Edward she thinks she has found what she needs most i n life:
You can give me happiness, i n the w o r l d l O l .
and I want nothing else
From now on she is never going to be alone, she will have somebody with whom to share her happiness and anxieties. She does not care about social prejudices. Everybody is against marriage with him since
her
they belong to d i f f e r e n t social classes.
The common thought is he can only be interested i n her f o r her money, and
that
she
is going to
make
a fool of herself
by
marrying him. And a fool she what people
makes of herself;
not because of
t h i n k , but because all she gets i n exchange f o r her
passion f o r him is j u s t loving-kindness:
Love to her was a f i r e , a flame that absorbed the rest of life; love to him was a convenient and necessary i n s t i t u t i o n of Providence, a matter about which there was little need f o r excitement as about the ordering of a suit of clothesl02.
Loving-kindness proved to be the r i g h t solution i n Philip's case. Even Sally, though
she loved him, did not love him with
passion. Bertha needs more than that, she not only needs to love; she also needs to be loved. She needs to feel that she is loved i n the
same way as
she
loves
him. She
needs to have her
love
returned. As Sartre said:
love is the demand to be lovedlOS.
As
we
saw
with
Philip's
passion
for
Mildred,
Bertha's
feelings f o r her husband also keep her i n bondage. She is a slave of
her
passion. She
Loneliness
cannot
let him go because she
f r i g h t e n s her. Thus
her
needs him.
joy when she learns she
expecting a baby; from now on she will not be alone again;
is she
will give him all her love and she will not need to depend on her husband. I t is the beginning of her freedoml04. She puts in her baby all her expectations child is born again:
of happiness. Thus her misery when the
dead; her life has
escaped t h r o u g h her
fingers,
Her sobs were terrible, unbridled, i t was her life that she was weeping away, her hope of happiness, all her desires and dreamsl05.
Once more she is alone in life and once more she turns to her husband f o r comfort and affection:
I n her loneliness she yearned f o r Edward's affection; he now was all she had, and she stretched out her arms to him with a great desirel06.
The old passion comes back; but i t is a passion born out of need.
I would
consider
i t more as
need
than love. The
same
happens w i t h Philip; he is a slave of his passion f o r Mildred only because he is desperate f o r love. And the proof is that i t can more or less easily die i f something else comes along. I f Bertha had had her child she would have freed herself from her bondage. As she has lost him, her only hope is, again, her husband because as she says:
For me love is e v e r y t h i n g , the cause and reason of life. Without love I should be non-existentl07.
Her husband cannot give her what she wants, which is love, and she is l e f t once
more alone and unhappy,
with nobody to
stand by her. Finally, she frees herself from the passion which torments her
and
resigns
herself
to
a
meaningless
life,
in
which
indifference to i t is the only solution. But f o r this she needs to create her own world, a r t i f i c i a l , illusory, of course, and away from the present. When her husband dies, i t is a matter of no importance f o r her. She is free now, and i t does not make any difference any longer.
She
had regained
her freedom when she
stopped
loving
him. She is as lonely now as she was when he lived. The Bertha we f i n d satisfied with the life
at the beginning of the novel is not
she leads but is
still hopeful of f i n d i n g
somebody to give meaning to i t . She has not really suffered; she has j u s t had an uneventful, boring life. The widow Mrs. Craddock of the end of the book has discovered the meaninglessness of life; she has learnt not to expect anything from i t :
She had advanced a good deal in the science of life when she realized that pleasure came by surprised, that happiness was a s p i r i t that descended unawares, and seldom when i t was soughtlOS.
She has f o u g h t a battle f o r happiness and has lost i t ; not only has she not f o u n d i t but she has suffered and the battle has l e f t her
t i r e d out, i n body and mind, t i r e d of love and hate, t i r e d of f r i e n d s h i p and knowledge, t i r e d of the passing yearsl09.
She will not f i g h t again, i t is not worthy. She does not want to have anything to do w i t h the world any more:
51
I myself stand on one side, and the rest of the world on the o t h e r l l O .
Marriage
did
the
trick
i n Philip's
case,
it
does not i n
Bertha's. The difference is found i n that Philip is loved at the end
of
the
novel
whereas
Bertha
loves
but
is
not
loved.
Maugham's theory that i t is loving that is important is not proved r i g h t here. I t is not enough to love somebody, one needs to be reciprocally loved. I t h i n k we could agree with Russell when he says that
i t is affection received, not affection given, that causes this sense of security (i.e., security needed to face l i f e ) , though i t arises most of all from affection which is r e c i p r o c a l l l l .
Maugham insists important, i n another
on
this
same idea
of his novels.
that
The Painted
loving
is
more
Veil, Thus, we
hear K i t t y , the heroine of the novel, say:
but i t ' s loving that's the important thing, not being loved. One's not even g r a t e f u l to the people who love one; i f one doesn't love them, they only bore o n e l l 2 .
However, she is not sincere when she says this since here she is only considering one side of her situation. I t is true that she does not love her husband
, though he is v e r y much i n love
w i t h her. His love only bores her i n spite of his goodness and handsomeness. When everything is clear between them, when
she
does not have to pretend that she loves him any more, she feels relieved:
her.
I t was a relief that she his caressesll3.
need never again submit to
I n this case, his love f o r her
does not mean anything to
The
case
is
d i f f e r e n t , though,
with
her
lover.
She
is
passionately i n love w i t h him, and yet, he does not love her. Now, to love is not enough f o r her; she needs his love, too. When she does not get i t she feels :
She had nothing to live f o r any more 114.
As De Rougemont said
to love i n the sense of passion : love is the of to l i v e l l 5 .
She
had
entered
a
loveless
marriage
because she wanted to be married before her
with
contrary
Walter
only
j^ounger sister; as
she did not love anybody she thought she could live quite happily w i t h the man who loved her so much. Walter, on his side, knows his wife's real feelings f o r him, however, all he asks is that lets him love her. passionately. At the
When she beginning
gets to love Charlie, she
is extremely
she
she
does so
happy; love is
e v e r y t h i n g f o r her. She soon comes to realize that f o r him, she is only another lover and
not worth sacrificing his f u t u r e f o r . Life
is over f o r her; she cannot go on behaving with her husband
as
she did before, and her happiness is over too because she knows now what real happiness is. There is nothing to live f o r now:
I t was rather hard to be finished with life at twentysevenll6.
Suddenly she
comes to feel desperately
unhappy; she
has
been l e f t alone i n life. She had not realized how important her husband's support was f o r her; she had taken i t f o r granted and she did not consider i t of any importance. She does not feel sorry that she has lost him, b u t she feels:
a sense of emptiness, i t was as though a support that she had grown so accustomed to as not to realize its presence were suddenly withdrawn from her so that she swayed this way and that like a thing that was top-heavy 117.
And yet, at this point she still keeps t h i n k i n g that to love is the important t h i n g . If
Kitty
had
had
the
youth Philip
had,
she
would
have
appreciated the value of her husband's love f o r her. She would have known how important i t is to have somebody who cares f o r you by your side, and not to have to walk the path of life alone. She comes to discover i t when i t is too late. She comes now to t h i n k that life is not what she thought i t was. When single, she had been v e r y much spoilt by her mother, and had alwaj^s lived i n v e r y comfortable circumstances. When she
Avas about to lose her privileges she used Walter as an escape, and he had always protected her. Now she comes face to face with life; not only with a simple l i f e , since her husband takes her to the heart of a cholera epidemic. The life of the people who live there makes her realize how empty her life has been u n t i l then. She starts wondering what is wrong with her life and she her
search f o r a meaning of life, she
stai-ts
needs something to give
meaning to i t :
I'm looking f o r something and I don't know what i t is. But I know that i t ' s v e r y important f o r me to know i t , and i f I did i t would make all the d i f f e r e n c e l l S .
What is Narrow
Corner
this
something?.
The
resigned
Maugham of
The
appears now :
Some of us look f o r the way i n opium and some i n God, some of us i n whisky and some i n love. I t is all the same way and i t leads n o w h i t h e r l l 9 .
He o f f e r s several ways out but, a f t e r all, they are only false escapes. Opium and
whisky only
help temporarily and God and
love are only an illusion. However, these illusory aims serve their purpose. Maybe, a f t e r all, they are only an illusion, but they have given
meaning
to some
people's lives; they
have
made of life
something s a t i s f y i n g , something f o r which i t is worth living. God as the aim i n life or as what gives meaning to our life is represented
by the
life of the nuns i n the cholera stricken
place. Their life is one of Goodness;
they dedicate their lives to
the service of God and to the rest there is no other
of the
community. Even i f
life a f t e r this one, i t will
not really matter
because
their lives are i n themselves beautifull20.
Thus, i n this
novel we f i n d
Maugham's
triad
of
values:
Goodness, T r u t h and Beauty, which are the three things Edward Barnard (in the s h o r t - s t o r y
The Fall of Edward
Barnard)
is also
said to value i n l i f e l 2 1 . This is what his new life has made of him. He l e f t a comfortable life i n the city to look f o r something which, as the other heroes of Maugham's, he does not know what i t is. His f r i e n d s t h i n k he has failed i n life; however, his success has been complete since he has found a meaning f o r life:
You can't t h i n k with what zest I look f o r w a r d to life, how f u l l i t seems to me and how significantl22.
He has made his own pattern of life and f o r him i t is quite good:
'Do you t h i n k i t is so little to have enjoyed contentment? We know that i t will p r o f i t a man little i f he gain the world and lose his soul. I t h i n k I have won mine'123.
What else can we ask f o r i n life?.
Another example of Goodness as a way f o r a happy life can be f o u n d i n Of Human Bondage
i n the Athelny family. They are the
only happy people i n the novel, and their life is one of goodness and of simplicity. The f a t h e r is not a Christian but he allows his wife to take the
children to Church because they cannot learn
anything wrong there.
I have an idea that the only thing which makes i t possible to regard this world we live i n without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos [...] the richest i n beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of artl24.
This is a v e r y significant quotation since i n i t we f i n d a reaffirmation of the chaos of life but also the idea that out of i t we
can
make
something
beautiful,
and
that
is
what
matters.
However, as I said before, i t only depends on us. Once again we have the metaphor of life as a work of a r t and us as artists. With this we go back to what we said above that a r t is with love the only t h i n g that gives meaning to our life. In
Maugham's
produces sensitivity
happiness.
works Thus,
f o r beauty,
and
the we
contemplation of see
that
this feeling is
Philip
beauty has
always a
something that
great the
reader shares w i t h him:
I t was the f i r s t time that he had experienced [...] the sense of beauty [...] 'By Jove, I am happy' he said to himself, unconsciouslyl25.
A proof
of how
significant this
sense of
Maugham, is that this metaphor of beauty as
beauty
happiness
used i n other novels, as f o r example i n The Razor's
is f o r is also
Edge:
The sun rose [...] the sun caught the lake through a cleft i n the heights and i t shone like burnished steel. I was ravished with the beauty of the world. I ' d never known such exaltation and such a transcendent joyl26.
As f o r T r u t h as the aim i n our lives, we shall study i t later on , when we f i n i s h w i t h the topic of love. Love is also described as an illusion which
leads nowhitherl27,
and yet f o r Waddington, the one who describes
i t like this, i t
represents his whole life. I t is his shelter against the misery of life. As we have j u s t seen, this is not the case with Kitty, our heroine. Finally, she recovers her freedom; her husband dies and she frees herself from the passion she
f e l t f o r her lover. Her
freedom does not b r i n g her happiness; she has suffered and she is l e f t w i t h a
valiant unconcern f o r whatever was to comel28.
But she has learnt something from her s u f f e r i n g ; she witnesssed a life of goodness which
seems to o f f e r
has
happiness.
even i f i t is an illusory one. I t also o f f e r s what she is in need of: peacel29. against
However, Maugham provides
her
with
another
shelter
misery. She cannot face life alone, she feels lonely and
miserable
and
she
needs
love v e r y
badly.
She
turns
to
her
widowed father f o r love and the f u t u r e she faces now is one of a life shared w i t h him and the child she is expecting, and following the model of the nuns' life. And with the sun rising we leave her to
a
f u t u r e which
promises
to
be
more
rewarding than
her
miserable past.
Marriage is the keyword i n all Maugham's plays. I n the f i r s t volume of his plays we f i n d successful marriages members of the same class: Lady d i f f e r e n t classes: Smith.
Frederick
both between
and Mrs. Dot, and of
We f i n d marriages i n which passion is the
main force, as i n Mrs, Dot and Jack
Straw,
but i n both cases they
have to struggle before getting their reward. Marriage i n and Lady
Frederick
Smith
is of a d i f f e r e n t nature; i t is the result of a
period of understanding and
respect
f o r the woman of a lower
class. I t is not passion that the man feels f o r her but lovingkindness. The marriages we f i n d i n plays such as The and Our Betters
Bread-Winner
are those between people of the same class and
of marriages we can say that they only have the name. They live together because i t is convenient to be married and, of course, the life they lead is one of pretence. Naturally enough, we usually
f i n d the presence of lovers, both i n the case of the man and the woman. What these marriages Constant
mean
is well represented i n
The
Wife i n which the man appears as the bread-winner
and
f o r this reason he is free to do what he wants and the woman is supposed to be f a i t h f u l to him. When she starts earning her own bread, she does not need to be f a i t h f u l to him any longer. I t is a society
in
which
money
is
the
only
value
and
love
of
no
consequence.
There is not, except i n Sheppey, a single, happy or even affectionate marriage i n the whole of the Maugham's plays. There is a hint of happiness in Smith and The Land of ProniiselSO.
If
we
find
this
hint
of happiness
i n these
plays i t
is
because the marriages i n them are not based on passion. We have already
seen
quite a few examples
of passion
love and how i t
never ends well i n Maugham's works. Freeman,
the
hero
of
Smith,
after
a
wild
youth
goes
b a n k r u p t and goes to Rhodesia to start a new life. The man who goes back to England a f t e r eight years i n this far-away country is a completely new person.
He has
suffered but he has
learnt
how useless his life was before:
I've had a knocked me knocked the simple things
v e r y rough time, and the world has about a bit. Of course, I t h i n k it's nonsense out of me. I only want v e r y now 131.
B u t s o m e t h i n g is l a c k i n g i n h i s new l i f e ; t h e b e a u t y of t h e dawn and
the
stars is not enough
t o make him h a p p y . He feels
lonely
so h o r r i b l y l o n e l y l 3 2
to e n j o y the
beauty
of l i f e .
Finally,
he
discovers
w h a t i t is
he
wants:
I ' d discovered that 133.
man
was
n o t made
to live
alone
A n d t h a t i s w h y he goes back t o E n g l a n d , to f i n d a w i f e . He does
not
expect
to
fall
passionately
i n love w i t h
anybody;
he
knows t h a t
t h e r e ' s v e r y l i t t l e l o v e i n t h e w o r l d . A man o u g h t to be g r a t e f u l i f a woman cares f o r h i m l 3 4 .
That respect
is
a l l he
him a n d look
wants; a
good
a f t e r him. Love does not b o t h e r
b o u n d t o g r o w b e t w e e n them i f t h e y happens
to
Norah
marriage
is
one
of
woman who is p r e p a r e d
and
Prank
convenience
in on
live together.
The
Land
both
of
sides.
to
him; i t i s
T h i s is w h a t
Promise, Frank
Their needs
a
woman t o keep h i s house t i d y a n d t o look a f t e r his needs; Norah
w a n t s t o leave
her
brother's
house a n d
she has
nowhere t o
go.
Love has n o t h i n g t o do w i t h i t ; as F r a n k says:
What's l o v e g o t propositionl35.
to
do
with
it?.
It's
a
business
His needs are p r o v i d e d f o r now, b u t he has r e a l i z e d t h a t is n o t a l l he
wants;
he
needs l o v e , o r as
Maugham, w o u l d
call i t ,
l o v i n g - k i n d n e s s . T h e y l i v e t o g e t h e r b u t t h e y are n o t s h a r i n g t h e i r lives, t h e y are end
they
p u t t i n g u p a f i g h t t o see who is s t i ' o n g e r . A t t h e
realize
each o t h e r ' s
how
useless t h e i r
company a n d
a t t i t u d e is; t h e y
' l o v e ' . T h e y have l e a r n t t o
both
need
understand
each o t h e r a n d can now s t a r t a new l i f e t o g e t h e r . Something Painted
Veil,
similar
happens
to
what
happened
with
Kitty
now w i t h M r s . Otto i n Smith,
She
in
The
married
Otto Rosenberg o n l y because of his money a n d , of c o u r s e , a l l she has t o do f o r him is b o r i n g f o r her. She does n o t even t a k e of h e r i l l b a b y ; with
her
husband
rich
a l l she
cares a b o u t
f r i e n d s . I t is o n l y
threatens
to
when
separate f r o m
i m p o r t a n t he is f o r h e r . She
is p l a y i n g b r i d g e a n d
her,
her
baby
that
dies
she
care being
and
her
realizes
how
does n o t love him, b u t he is a l l she
has i n t h e w o r l d a n d he has a l w a y s been good t o her:
I d i d n ' t k n o w w h e r e I was to go i f he l e f t me. I t seemed t o me t h e whole w o r l d was coming t o an endl36.
It
is w o r t h
sacrificing
means. Once a g a i n , we see
her
useless l i f e f o r w h a t his
how i t is r e a l l y need
love
t h a t makes two
people s h a r e t h e i r l i v e s .
A l t h o u g h Maugham seems t o o f f e r love as one of t h e
things
w h i c h can g i v e meaning to l i f e ; h o w e v e r , i t does n o t always w o r k o u t a l l r i g h t . I t i s clear t h a t , f o r h i m , passionate love is n o t w h a t is g o i n g t o make before,
to
love
loving-kindness loneliness which few happy
us h a p p y ; with
j u s t the
passion
is
the
opposite
since, as
opposite
of
t h a t is r e a l l y g o i n g to help us threatens our
marriages
among
lives. I n any
to
we
live.
saw It
escape f r o m
case, we f i n d
his wide p r o d u c t i o n a n d
this
is the
very makes
St. J o h n E r v i n e c o n c l u d e t h a t :
M r . Maugham , a p p a r e n t l y , has n o t n o t i c e d t h a t the m a j o r i t y of m a r r i a g e s are a f f e c t i o n a t e a n d t h a t t h e history of marriage is illuminated by numerous i n s t a n c e s of g r e a t love a n d d e v o t i o n t h a t have lasted f o r l i f e , n o r has he n o t i c e d t h e s i n g u l a r f e l i c i t y w h i c h a t t e n d s t h e m a r r i a g e of people who share t h e same e n t h u s i a s m o r are engaged i n the same w o r k l 3 7 .
Maybe t h i s is because, u n f o r t u n a t e l y , he d i d n o t i t himself. L i k e failure.
the
marriages
he
describes,
experience
his o w n was also
a
A2: FAITH
So Somerset
far,
we
have
studied
two
kinds
of
love
in
the
w o r k s of
Maugham: passionate love and l o v i n g - k i n d n e s s . As we saw i n
the previous chapter, protagonists cling
i n t h e i r f e a r of t h e loneliness
t o love as t h e
l i f e . T h e y are a l l c h a r a c t e r s
of l i f e
Maugham's
solution f o r their boring, uneventful
who are
desperately
i n need
of a
special
f r i e n d s h i p , a n d t h u s p a s s i o n is b o r n . I t does n o t w o r k , t h o u g h , and
the
most t h e y can get is a bearable l i f e s h a r e d w i t h an agreeable companion who, feeling the
same
way, is p r e p a r e d
to
reach
a compromise f o r a
b e t t e r l i f e . T h e r e i s , h o w e v e r , a t h i r d k i n d of love w h i c h we d e f i n e d as agape, a n d
which
is
the
path
some people
f o l l o w t o g i v e meaning
to
t h e i r l i v e s . I t is t h i s k i n d of love t h a t we are g o i n g to s t u d j ' now. A clear d i s t i n c t i o n has
t o be made
between T r u t h ,
F a i t h , o r God
o n one h a n d ; a n d Religion o r C h u r c h , o n t h e o t h e r . The l a t t e r is always s o m e t h i n g n e g a t i v e i n Maugham's w o r k s a n d i t is n e v e r p r e s e n t e d possible
help f o r human
w h i c h i t is c o n s i d e r e d one
of
treatment
the
bondages
the
beings.
A n example
of t h e
can be f o u n d i n Of Human from
which
representatives
of
Philip the
has
Church
negative
Bondage to
free
receive
f a v o u r a b l e , e i t h e r . I n t w o n o v e l s . Of Human
Bondage
the
uncle t h e
Church
is
represented
b y Maugham's
and
as a
light
in
, where i t is himself. is Cakes
not
very
and
Reverend,
The
Ale,
and
I
gave some examples above o f t h e c h a r a c t e r of t h i s man. A v e r y c r u e l p i c t u r e of t h e C h u r c h is f o u n d i n one of Maugham's e a r l y bad n o v e l s : The
Making
of a Saint.
The man of t h e C h u r c h i n t h i s
case is P r o t o n o t a r y Savello, a n d he shows no p i t y f o r a n y b o d y :
T h e r e was a look of s u c h f e r o c i t y i n his f a c e t h a t one he w o u l d i n d e e d h e s i t a t e at n o t h i n g l .
saw
His c r u e l t y has no l i m i t s ; t h u s , he says to Caterina:
Remember t h a t we h o l d y o u r c h i l d r e n , a n d t o h a n g t h e m b e f o r e y o u r eyes2.
s h a l l not
hesitate
Not e v e n i n t h e case of t w o i n n o c e n t c h i l d r e n does his h e a r t melt. He is t h e o n l y one who does n o t h e s i t a t e t o go o n v / i t h his
The men God3.
The
Church
hesitated;
i n Maugham's
but
there
works
was
no p i t y
threat:
i n the
does not o f f e r r e f u g e
man
for
of
the
s o u l i n p a i n ; F a i t h does, h o w e v e r , a l t h o u g h , u n f o r t u n a t e l y , o n l y i n some cases:
T h r o u g h o u t t h e ages many have f o u n d i n t h e belief i n a l i f e t o come an adequate compensation f o r t h e t r o u b l e s of t h e i r b r i e f s o j o u r n i n a w o r l d of s o r r o w . T h e y are t h e l u c k y ones. F a i t h , t o those who have i t , solves d i f f i c u l t i e s w h i c h reason f i n d s insoluble4.
F a i t h g i v e s meaning
t o t h e l i v e s of t h e people who believe i n i t .
What w i l l h a p p e n i f a f t e r a l l t h e r e i s no l i f e e v e r l a s t i n g ? . a n s w e r i n The Painted
We f o u n d t h e
Veil :
T h i n k w h a t i t means i f d e a t h is r e a l l y t h e end of a l l t h i n g s . They've g i v e n up all f o r nothing [...] I wonder i f i t matters t h a t w h a t t h e y have aimed at is i l l u s i o n . T h e i r l i v e s are i n themselves beautiful5.
The i m p o r t a n t t h i n g is t h e r e w a r d y o u get
not w h a t
you will
get i n t h e f u t u r e ,
i n y o u r p r e s e n t l i f e . T h u s , we f i n d i n The
but
Narrow
Corner.
- ' W h e r e d ' y o u expect t o get i f y o u j u s t t a k e t h i n g s at t h e i r face v a l u e ? ' - ' T h e k i n g d o m of Heaven'. - ' A n d w h e r e is t h a t ? ' - ' I n my o w n m i n d ' 6 .
If
belief
makes
him a h a p p y
man w h a t
happens
next
is of
no
importance. Maugham's
theory
one we f i n d i n Sadhana
as
f a r as
F a i t h is c o n c e r n e d
or the Realization
of
seems to be
the
Life:
Man's a b i d i n g h a p p i n e s s is not i n g e t t i n g a n y t h i n g b u t i n g i v i n g himself u p t o w h a t is g r e a t e r t h a n himself, to ideas w h i c h are l a r g e r t h a n his i n d i v i d u a l l i f e , t h e idea of his c o u n t r y , of h u m a n i t y , of God7.
T h i s was t h e aim o f t h e n u n s i n t h e c h o l e r a s t r i c k e n place i n Painted
The
Veil, a n d t h i s is also w h a t Sheppey is g o i n g t o do i n t h e p l a y of
t h e same name.
Sheppey, a barber man a l t h o u g h
he
had
b y p r o f e s s i o n , had n e v e r been a verj'^ r e l i g i o u s
always l e d a
good l i f e . A l l he
had always
cared
a b o u t w e r e his j o b a n d h i s f a m i l y . As i t is t h e case w i t h e v e r y b o d y , also h a d
his
dreams
l o t t e r y . The dream
for a
better
day comes a n d
dreams come t r u e , u n e x p e c t e d l y
life
i n case
he
could
w i n on
he the
now t h a t Sheppey c o u l d make a l l his
, his b e h a v i o u r
changes. He no
longer
cares f o r a l l t h e m a t e r i a l t h i n g s w h i c h can make l i f e c o m f o r t a b l e . He seen people
s u f f e r and
almost s t a r v e
, and
now t h a t
he
has
has
a l o t of
money he i n t e n d s t o help them. He w i l l not b u y a f a r m a n d move to the c o u n t r y w i t h his w i f e ; he w i l l not e v e n help his d a u g h t e r
make a good
m a r r i a g e . He s t a r t s t a k i n g people t o his house to f e e d a n d
accommodate
t h e m , to t h e a n n o y a n c e of his f a m i l y , s p e c i a l l y his d a u g h t e r , who
wants
t h e money f o r h e r s e l f . Nobody can u n d e r s t a n d a n d t o lead buy. never
a very
luxurious life with
Nobody c o u l d expect shown
h i s b e h a v i o u r . T h e y expected him to r e t i r e
any interest
this
all the
behaviour
from
commodities
money
Sheppey, since
f o r religious things; and,
can
he
besides, and
had what
seems t o be t h e most i m p o r t a n t p o i n t of t h e p l a y , n o b o d y acts l i k e t h i s in
real l i f e . I t is all v e r y well to t a l k about
but, actually, nobody
helping the
does i t . The f u r t h e s t one
poor and i l l ;
w o u l d go w o u l d be
g i v e t h e m some money; b u t v e r y f e w people w o u l d t a k e a p r o s t i t u t e
to and
a t h i e f t o t h e i r homes t r y i n g t o r e f o r m them. As E r n i e says:
'The mistake y o u make, Sheppey, i s t a k i n g t h i n g s too l i t e r a l l y . The New Testament must be looked u p o n as f i c t i o n , a b e a u t i f u l f i c t i o n i f y o u l i k e , b u t a f i c t i o n . No educated man accepts t h e Gospel n a r r a t i v e as sober f a c t ' 8 .
The n o r m a l man i s s e l f i s h , g r a s p i n g , d e s t r u c t i v e , v a i n and sensual. What is g e n e r a l l y t e r m e d m o r a l i t y is f o r c e d u p o n him b y t h e h e r d , a n d t h e o b l i g a t i o n he is u n d e r t o r e p r e s s h i s n a t u r a l i n s t i n c t s is u n d o u b t e d l y t h e cause of the d i s o r d e r s of t h e mind9.
This
p u r e N i e t z s c h e a n statement
made b y
Dr. J e r v i s
summarizes
w h a t i s g o i n g t o h a p p e n t o t h i s p o o r b a r b e r . As n o b o d y acts l i k e t h i s ,
when
somebody
does
act
in
this
way
it
can
only
be
due
to
an
unbalanced mind. All the his
pity
Sheppey
shows f o r t h e
needy', is f o u n d l a c k i n g i n
d a u g h t e r w h o i s more t h a n p r e p a r e d to t a k e h e r f a t h e r to an asylum
i n o r d e r t o get h i s money. T h i s w o u l d have been h i s f a t e i f death
had
n o t come t o h i s r e s c u e . A n d a l l t h i s because he w a n t e d t o make people happy:
' I o n l y w a n t people t o be ' a p p y ' l O ;
w h i c h is s o m e t h i n g he k n o w s is n o t v e r y easy:
'Peace a n d 'appiness, t h a t ' s w h a t w e ' r e a l l l o o k i n g f o r , b u t w h e r e a r e we g o i n g t o f i n d i t ? ' l l .
Sheppey w o r k s . He does
is one of t h e v e r y f e w C h r i s t i a n s we f i n d i n Maugham's n o t expect
to get
his r e w a r d i n t h i s l i f e . When asked
w h a t he expects t o g e t f o r h i s money, he says:
' T r e a s u r e i n 'eaven'12
and:
'Oh, I d o n ' t perhaps'13.
know.
Peace of m i n d .
The
k i n g d o m of Heave,
He
does n o t r e a l l y k n o w w h a t he is l o o k i n g f o r ; a l l he
knows is
t h a t b y a c t i n g l i k e t h i s he is h a p p y a n d i n peace w i t h himself; a n d t h a t is
what really matters.
himself; w h e t h e r
they
He does n o t care a b o u t w h a t people say think
he is c r a z y , o r w h e t h e r t h e
about
people he
is
h e l p i n g do n o t r e a l l y a p p r e c i a t e i t . A n o t h e r i d e a we f i n d i n his a n s w e r s g i v e n above is t h a t of t r y i n g to f i n d peace. T h i s i s a v e r y i m p o r t a n t idea w h i c h we also f o u n d i n one of
t h e n o v e l s we s t u d i e d i n o u r p r e v i o u s
one c a n n o t f i n d h a p p i n e s s ,
chapter:
The Painted
Veil. I f
at least, one s h o u l d t r y to f i n d peace. Maybe
i t i s n o t t h e same, b u t i f we manage to f i n d peace of m i n d , we can make of
our
existence
s o m e t h i n g bearable.
T h i s is w h a t happens to K i t t y
at
t h e e n d of t h e n o v e l j u s t mentioned:
She c o u l d n o t k n o w w h a t t h e f u t u r e had i n store f o r her, b u t she f e l t i n h e r s e l f t h e s t r e n g t h t o accept w h a t e v e r was to come w i t h a l i g h t a n d b u o y a n t s p i r i t [ . . . ] , b u t t h e p a t h those dear n u n s at t h e c o n v e n t f o l l o w e d so h u m b l y , the p a t h t h a t l e d t o peacel4.
When we f i n i s h t h e n o v e l we leave o u r heroine to a f u t u r e w h i c h we
can guess w i l l n o t b r i n g h e r much happiness,
b u t we also know t h a t
she has l e a r n t to be i n peace w i t h h e r s e l f and t h a t w i l l help h e r to face w h a t e v e r t h e f u t u r e has i n s t o r e f o r her.
' I d o n ' t t h i n k I s h a l l e v e r f i n d peace t i l l I make u p my m i n d a b o u t t h i n g s [ . . . ] Who am I t h a t I s h o u l d b o t h e r my head a b o u t t h i s , t h a t , a n d t h e o t h e r ? . Perhaps i t ' s o n l y because I ' m a c o n c e i t e d p r i g . W o u l d n ' t i t be b e t t e r t o follow t h e beaten t r a c k a n d l e t w h a t ' s coming t o y o u come? [ . . . ] I t ' s h a r d n o t t o ask y o u r s e l f w h a t l i f e is a l l a b o u t and w h e t h e r t h e r e ' s a n y sense t o i t o r w h e t h e r i t ' s a l l a t r a g i c b l u n d e r of b l i n d f a t e ' ( i t a l i c s mine) 15.
This statement is best
novels
made b y
according
to
the
L a r r y , the
critics:
The
h e r o of one of Razor's
Edge.
Maugham's
L a r r y is
an
A m e r i c a n y o u t h w h o comes back home , a f t e r t a k i n g p a r t i n t h e war, a completely
changed
man. A f t e r
his
experiences
i n the
war
he
cannot
f o l l o w t h e p a t t e r n of l i f e his f r i e n d s f o l l o w :
' I ' v e g o t an idea t h a t I w a n t t o do more w i t h my l i f e t h a n sell b o n d s [ . . . ] go i n t o a law o f f i c e o r s t u d y medicine'16.
A l l he k n o w s is t h a t k i n d of l i f e does not appeal to him; t h a t needs to do s o m e t h i n g
he
d i f f e r e n t , b u t w h a t i t is he does not know. When
a s k e d w h a t he w a n t s t o do, his a n s w e r is v e r y s i g n i f i c a n t : ' L o a f ' 1 7 . I t is not that
he does n o t w a n t t o do a n y t h i n g . He r e a l l y needs some time to
himself so t h a t he can c l a r i f y t h i n g s . He needs time t o t h i n k , to wonder a b o u t l i f e since:
- ' Y o u have a l o t of time t o t h i n k w h e n y o u ' r e u p i n the a i r b y y o u r s e l f . You get o d d ideas'. - ' W h a t s o r t of ideas?' - ' V a g u e [ . . . ] i n c o h e r e n t . Confused'18.
A l l t h e ideas he
had f o r his f u t u r e have been
shattered by
the
war; w h a t u s e d to be i m p o r t a n t f o r h i m , now is of no consequence at a l l . Had i t n o t
been f o r t h e
f r i e n d s consider very
good
one
war,
n o r m a l : he like
t h e one
have m a r r i e d I s a b e l , t h e
he
would probably
have
been w h a t
w o u l d have f o u n d a j o b , most
probably
he is o f f e r e d i n t h e n o v e l ; a n d
his a
he w o u l d
g i r l he is i n love w i t h and t h e one who loves
him. As i t i s , people t h i n k he i s a b i t c r a z y a n d v e r y lazy since he does
7C
n o t w a n t t o accept
a n y of t h e
jobs
he is o f f e r e d . His f r i e n d s cannot
u n d e r s t a n d h i m because i n t h e i r c i r c l e t h e y are n o t used to people who wonder
about
the
most of them are
meaning
of l i f e . T h i s is q u i t e u n d e r s t a n d a b l e
w e l l - o f f people
who can get
all they
since
w a n t , and who
h a v e n o t g o t a n y w o r r i e s . The o n l y p e r s o n who seems t o u n d e r s t a n d him is t h e w r i t e r of t h e n o v e l , w h o is also i t s n a r r a t o r , a n d who appears i n the novel under person
Larry
h i s r e a l name. As a m a t t e r of f a c t , he is also the o n l y shares
his
views
with.
The
narrator
will
come
to
u n d e r s t a n d t h i s y o u n g man b e t t e r as he comes t o l e a r n more a b o u t him and his circumstances;
h o w e v e r , f r o m v e r y e a r l y i n t h e n o v e l he
a great
t o w h a t may be
understanding
happening
to L a r r y .
shows
T h u s , we
hear h i m say:
' I s n ' t i t possible t h a t he's l o o k i n g f o r s o m e t h i n g , b u t w h a t i t is he d o e s n ' t k n o w , a n d p e r h a p s he i s n ' t e v e n s u r e i t ' s t h e r e ? . P e r h a p s w h a t e v e r i t was t h a t happened t o him d u r i n g t h e w a r has l e f t him w i t h a r e s t l e s s n e s s t h a t w o n ' t let him be. Don't y o u t h i n k he may be p u r s u i n g an ideal t h a t is h i d d e n i n a c l o u d of u n k n o w i n g ? ' 1 9 .
We come once a g a i n t o w h a t we f o u n d i n t h e heroes of t h e we s t u d i e d i n o u r
previous chapter.
their lives they started
We saw
novels
how at a c e r t a i n p o i n t i n
w o n d e r i n g a b o u t t h e meaning of l i f e . Why t h i s
h a p p e n e d was d i f f e r e n t i n each case, as i t is also d i f f e r e n t now. What is i m p o r t a n t is t h a t once more t h e h e r o has to face t h e same p r o b l e m ; as Maugham says:
' I t h i n k he's been s e e k i n g f o r a p h i l o s o p h y , o r maybe a r e l i g i o n , a n d a r u l e of l i f e t h a t ' l l s a t i s f y b o t h his head and his heart20.
However, t h e p r o b l e m i n L a r r y ' s case is of a d i f f e r e n t n a t u r e f r o m t h e one we f o u n d i n t h e o t h e r n o v e l s . L a r r y c o u l d have had, i f he had wanted, Larry
what the
has
i t , that
other
heroes w e r e
i t is n o t e n o u g h
looking
f o r : love. Maybe because
f o r him. What he
r e a l l y wants
to
k n o w is
w h e t h e r God is o r God is not. I w a n t t o f i n d o u t w h y e v i l exists. I w a n t t o k n o w w h e t h e r I have an immortal soul or w h e t h e r w h e n I die i t ' s t h e end21.
He is more w o r r i e d considering the nature how
his
best
friend
about S p i r i t u a l
things, which
is q u i t e
logical
of his experiences. While he was f i g h t i n g he was
killed
trying
to
save
his
life;
i f our
saw life
f i n i s h e s w h e n we die, a n d i f we lead s u c h meaningless l i v e s , t h e n l i f e is of no consequence. We need t o f i n d a p u r p o s e i n l i f e ; we need t o know t h a t t h e r e is a reason f o r o u r s u f f e r i n g :
' I suggest Larry filled an a n g u i s h the sin and
t o y o u t h a t w h a t e v e r i t was t h a t happened to him w i t h a sense of t h e t r a n s i e n c y of l i f e , and t o be s u r e t h a t t h e r e was a compensation f o r s o r r o w of t h e w o r l d ' 2 2 .
We c o u l d say t h a t
w h e n harry
leaves his
home a n d
f r i e n d s , he
does so t o go i n s e a r c h o f a God i n whom he does n o t believe23. T h i s is not
s u r p r i s i n g since
Maugham
could not create a character
himself who had
d i d n o t believe
i n God. So,
to defend doctrines
a c c e p t a n d w h i c h f o r him w e r e nonsense.
he
he d i d n o t
Maugham, as we said b e f o r e , t r a v e l l e d v e r y w i d e l y along t h e w o r l d and
came
to
know
quite
a
lot of
c e r t a i n experiences w h i c h the the
religions or beliefs
d i f f e r e n t beliefs.
believers
considered
He,
himself,
had
miraculous. Most of
he came t o k n o w a b o u t are
those p r a c t i s e d
in
d i f f e r e n t c o u n t r i e s o f Asia. He met some Yogis and S p i r i t u a l leaders; and e v e n i f he kind
never
accepted t h e i r
of l i f e t h e s e
people
l e d was
h a p p i n e s s . By m e d i t a t i n g a n d made of t h e i r work,
lives
i t d i d not
b e l i e f s , at one
least, he
realized t h a t
o f peace a n d ,
maybe,
even
the of
b y h e l p i n g o t h e r people, these leaders had
something
mean t h a t
m e a n i n g f u l . Even i f w i t h him i t d i d it
could not
work with
other
people.
not He
r e a l i z e d t h a t F a i t h c o u l d also be a s o l u t i o n f o r t h e p r o b l e m of l i f e . A n d i t is w i t h these ideas t h a t he experiments i n The Razor's Larry's these
story
Yogis. As a
Ignacio
de
could matter
Loyola t h a t
n o v e l s : Don Fernando.
be
of f a c t , i t
Maugham
leads
from
the
moment
the us
biography of
describes
the
of one
of
biography
of
i n another
of
how he leaves h i s home , a n d
his sets
w i t h o u t k n o w i n g e x a c t l y w h a t i t i s . The l i f e he
leaves
sometimes b y w o r k i n g h a r d a n d o t h e r start t h i n k i n g about
as
reminds
himself
T h u s , we see
o f f i n s e a r c h of something he
considered
Edge.
his
home
is
one
of
hardship;
times b y m e d i t a t i n g . He does not
God f r o m t h e v e r y b e g i n n i n g ; i t is something
that
comes t o h i s m i n d a f t e r a w h i l e :
' I w a n t e d t o make something of my l i f e , b u t I d i d n t know w h a t . I ' d n e v e r t h o u g h t m u c h a b o u t God. I began t o t h i n k a b o u t Him now. I c o u l d n ' t u n d e r s t a n d w h y t h e r e was e v i l m the world'24.
The p r o b l e m w i t h
Larry
w a n t s t o believe i n Him, b u t he
is t h a t
he
does n o t
believe i n God;
he
cannot:
' I c o u l d n ' t believe, I w a n t e d to believe, b u t I c o u l d n ' t believe i n a God who w a s n ' t b e t t e r t h a n t h e o r d i n a r y decent man'25.
Through
his
contact
with
a l l these r e l i g i o u s people
he
does
not
l e a r n t o b e l i e v e i n t h e i r God, b u t he l e a r n s about t h e b e a u t y of a l i f e of Goodness a n d he comes t o t h i n k
the greatest perfection26.
We s h o u l d distress
ideal
that
man
can
n o t look f o r a p e r s o n a l
set
before
himself
is
self-
God t o whom we can t u r n
in
since
'God is w i t h i n me o r nowhere'27.
A l l he believes i n is t h e idea of t h e Absolute w h i c h
I s n o t a p e r s o n , i t is n o t a t h i n g , i t is n o t a cause. I t no q u a l i t i e s [ . . . ] I t is t r u t h a n d freedom28.
The
solution
lies
inside
ourselves;
to
make
o u r s e l v e s as p e r f e c t as we can, t h e w o r l d w o u l d be d i f f e r e n t . For
Larry
the ultimate satisfaction
lies i n t h e l i f e of t h e s p i r i t 2 9 .
if
we
only
tried
has
Once he has to l i v e .
He has
l e a r n t a l l t h i s he is p r e p a r e d to go back to America
f o u n d a meaning
useless. He is g o i n g t o dedicate
f o r l i f e ; his l i f e is not
g o i n g to
his l i f e to do as much good as he
a n d b y d o i n g t h i s he w i l l be h a p p y
be can,
since:
'my w a y of l i f e o f f e r s h a p p i n e s s and peace'30,
w h i c h is n o t l i t t l e . We
see,
then,
how
actions, is what L a r r y
what
Sheppey
wanted
to
get
by
his
good
gets b y his: peace a n d happiness. T h a t is w h a t a
l i f e of goodness o f f e r s . We also f i n d is the
idea
that
i n t h i s n o v e l something we saw i n ' S h e p p e y ' , and i t
t h e r e must
be
something
wrong with
a c t s i n s u c h a good way. T h u s we hear I s a b e l
'What do y o u t h i n k ( i t a l i c s mine).
i t can
be
the person
who
ask:
that
makes him so
queer?'
A n d Maugham's a n s w e r i s
' P e r h a p s something so commonplace t h a t one s i m p l y notice i t [ . . . ] Well, goodness, f o r i n s t a n c e ' 3 1 .
We have j u s t seen t w o of Maugham's W e s t e r n c u l t u r e : Goodness a n d
t r i a d of v a l u e s , and also of
T r u t h ; the other
being
Beauty w h i c h
s o m e t h i n g we m e n t i o n e d i n t h e o t h e r c h a p t e r , a n d w h i c h we s h a l l i n d e t a i l w h e n we t a l k a b o u t A r t .
doesn't
is
study
I f w a r was w h a t made L a r r y v/onder a b o u t l i f e , a n d w h a t made him t u r n t o F a i t h ; i t i s also w a r t h e p i a y The Unknown,
t h a t makes
John and
Mrs. Littlewood, i n
reject Faith.
J o h n , a t r u e b e l i e v e r w h e n he w e n t t o t h e w a r , comes back honie h a v i n g l o s t o f h i s f a i t h . What f o r h i m u s e d t o be
The r e a s o n a n d t h e b e a u t y o f l i f e ,
now
is
n o t h i n g b u t a lie32.
His f a m i l y , a v e r y r e l i g i o u s one, a n d his g i r l f r i e n d , S y l v i a , cannot understand
what
has
happened
to
him.
They
think
the
war
has
s h a t t e r e d h i m t e m p o r a r i l y a n d so t h e y t r y t o b r i n g h i m back t o h i s o l d f a i t h . As t h e y
cannot
c o n v i n c e h i m themselves,
they
make
the
Vicar
speak t o h i m . One o f t h e i r dialogues i s w o r t h q u o t i n g :
J o h n : " I c a n ' t b e l i e v e t h a t t h e r e i s a God i n Heaven.' V i c a r : ' B u t do y o u realise t h a t i f t h e r e i s n ' t , t h e w o r l d i s meaningless?'. J o h n : ' T h a t may be. B u t i f t h e r e i s i t ' s i n f a m o u s ' . V i c a r : 'What have y o u g o t t o p u t i n place of r e l i g i o n ? . What answer can y o u give to the riddle of the universe?', J o h n : ' I may t h i n k y o u r a n s w e r w r o n g a n d y e t have no b e t t e r one t o p u t i n i t s place [ . . . ] I d o n ' t see t h a t t h e r e i s a n y more meaning i n l i f e t h a n i n t h e statement t h a t t w o a n d t w o are f o u r ' 3 3 .
In
this
short
dialogue
there
are
a
few
interesting
ideas
to
comment on. I t is not surprising that John cannot believe i n God any more since he has without
having
seen many people, young people with families, die
done
any
wrong. I f God existed
he would
not have
allowed this to happen. A l l his ideas about a supernatural man who looks a f t e r his worshippers and to whom people can t u r n i n distress can no longer be sustained. Thus, his answer when the vicar suggests that i f there is not a God the world is meaningless. The vicar's
next
Starting by its second
statement
is
very
significant f o r our
topic.
part we can see that he admits that life is a
riddle and that we need something to give i t a meaning; which f o r him obviously is religion. I t is important to notice the words he uses f o r his f i r s t question: 'to put i n place of religion'. He does not even
question
the idea of having to f i n d something to keep you going. That is John's problem, that
he cannot
f i n d anything to give
meaning to his life:
'Life seems to me like a huge jig-saw puzzle that make any picture';
doesn't
but, at least, he can still see a narrow way-out
'but i f we like we can make little patterns, as i t were, out of the pieces'34.
This sounds v e r y familiar to us since i t takes us back to the idea we saw when talking
about love,that each one
had to make his own
pattern of life; that life was like a work of a r t and we were artists. Here life is metaphorically described as a 'huge jig-saw puzzle , that doesn't make any picture'; and we saw how in Of Human Bondage
i t was
described as a 'Persian r u g ' , which i n the end comes to mean the same thing. We hear John repeat the same idea with d i f f e r e n t words when he says:
' I t h i n k what I mean is that life i n itself has no value. I t ' s what you p u t i n i t that gives i t worth'35.
At least he is not as lost as Philip was i n Of Human Bondage.
It
took Philip years to learn what f o r John seems to be clear from the v e r y beginning. He also seems to know how he would like to be: like his f r i e n d who was killed i n f r o n t of him:
He had one quality which was rather out of the ordinary. I t ' s d i f f i c u l t to explain what i t was like. I t seemed to shine about him like a mellow hght. I t was like the jolly feeling of the country i n May. And do you know what i t was? Goodness, j u s t Goodness. He was the sort of man that I should like to be36.
The f a c t that he does not believe i n God, does not mean that he cannot lead a good life. He , like L a r r y , also aims at self-perfection, and a life of Goodness. Although apparently i t seemed that this play was going to defend a completely d i f f e r e n t philosophy of life from the one we found i n The Razor's
Edge;
however, the two heroes share v e r y similar ideas. Neither
of them believes i n God. L a r r y , who was an unbeliever goes on being one, but comes nearer to the life of the Spirit. John, a believer, loses his f a i t h but goes on t h i n k i n g that a life of Goodness is the best life. There is, however, a v e r y important difference between the novel and the play; and i t is their attitude towards religion. I n the novel i t is seen as something positive, as something which helps men make of their lives something beautiful. I n the
play, the
Religion is seen t h r o u g h its representatives
case is j u s t the
reverse.
and believers, who t r y to
direct other people's lives, as f o r example happens with Sylvia, John's g i r l f r i e n d . Although they love each other, once she learns about John's loss of f a i t h she can no longer marry him. This could be more or less understandable since as she says:
'How could we possibly be happy when all that to me is the reason and the beauty of life, to you is nothing but a lie?' 37.
What is not so easily understood is her insistence i n wanting to convert him into her f a i t h . He leaves her f r e e to t h i n k and believe i n whatever
she
wants;
however,
he
must
believe
i n what the
others
believe. When we close the book at the end of the play, we do so with a feeling that i t is going to be v e r y d i f f i c u l t f o r him to lead a life of Goodness because he is Thus,
his
love
for
going to f i n d a lot of obstacles
Sylvia
is
killed
when
she
forces
i n his way. him to
communion when she lies to him saying that this is his dying
take
father's
wish and that i f he did so his father would die i n peace. However, she knew all the time that his father was already dead.
John is not the only person i n the play who loses his/her
faith
a f t e r the war. Mrs. Littlewood also loses hers when her two sons, all she had i n the world, are
killed. She had
led a miserable
life after
her
husband abandoned her when her children were very young. However, all her misery had been worthwhile because she had her two sons. When God, as she says, takes them, she loses all she had and life ceases to be of any consequence:
' I feel that I have nothing more to do with the world and the world has nothing more to do with me. So f a r as I'm concerned i t ' s a f a i l u r e ' 38.
The strongest t h i n g Maugham dares to say against God is put i n Mrs. Littlewood's mouth when she says:
'Who is going to f o r g i v e God?' 39.
We said before that John saw a more or less clear solution f o r the problem of life; he knew that he, himself, had to give his life its value. Mrs. Littlewood's case is d i f f e r e n t . For her, life is
' j u s t like a play. I can't strangely detached'40.
take
i t very
seriously.
I feel
We wonder that i f she feels like this she does not put an end to i t , but she answer our question when she says:
' I don't feel that life is important enough f o r me to give i t a deliberate end. I don't trouble to kiU the f l y that walks over my ceiling"'41.
Christmas
Holiday is another of Maugham's novels i n which we f i n d
some religious ideas which are worth paying attention to. Life to Charley, the teenager son of a well-off family, had always been easy and comfortable. I t is w i t h his t r i p to Paris at Christmas to celebrate his f i r s t anniversary with his father's f i r m that he starts to discover that life has another side. He goes to Paris w i t h the intention of having a great time as a grown-up away from the family; but i t is not exactly f u n what he has when he is p u t into contact with the prostitvite Lydia, "the
princess".
Her life has been one of hardship, j u s t the opposite of what Charley's life has been. Although Charley could have l e f t Lydia, he cannot do so and spends all his holidays w i t h her. What is i t that makes him spend his time and
money
with
her,
since
he
is n.ot even
having
sexual
relations with her?. That is what Lydia, herself, wonders:
'Why do you bother about me? Why don't you j u s t t u r n me out into the street? [...] ShaH I teH you? Goodness. Just pure, simple, stupid goodness'42.
I t would only have been f a i r i f he had decided to ignore her and had t r i e d to have as much f u n as he could since, after all, when he went back home e v e r y t h i n g would go on the same f o r her. He is not really going to solve her problem, but, at least, he is going to give her a few days' rest. He is too good to t u r n his back on a person who needs him.
He is also conscious that he is enjoying a privileged position in l i f e , but that is not his f a u l t and, of course, he is not going to reject his privileges. As he tells his f r i e n d Simon:
'Don't you t h i n k it's enough i f I do my duty i n that state of life i n which providence or chance, i f you like, has placed me?'43.
He is not prepared nobody
acts
like
to do what Sheppey
this
in
real
life.
did, but , as we sav/,
However,
his
behaviour
is
irreproachable; that is how everybody should behave. Lydia is
the
other
person
i n the
novel i n which
we f i n d
a
religious belief. As a Russian she has suffered a lot i n her youth. She saw
the h o r r o r and misery and cruelty of the world44
but she managed to f i n d something to help her bear her misery:
Something that was greater and more important than all that, the s p i r i t of man and the beauty he created45.
Once again we f i n d the idea that out of the chaos of the world man can create beauty.
I t all depends on you, like when you see
a
painting (metaphor f o r life i n Maugham's works)
' I t ' s only you who count. So f a r as you're concerned the only meaning a picture has is the meaning i t has f o r you' 46.
Lydia's case is curious since she becomes a prostitute to pay f o r her husband's crime:
' I know that my s u f f e r i n g as well as his is necessary to expiate his sin' 47.
Perhaps, there would be much to say about her behaviour, but we cannot deny that there is a Christian meaning i n i t . I n the following quotation of hers we f i n d her religious belief:
' I don't believe i n the God of the Christians who gave his son i n order to save mankind. That's a myth. But why should i t have arisen i f i t didn't express some deep-seated i n t u i t i o n i n men?. I don't know what I believe, because i t ' s instinctive, and how can you describe an instinct with words?. I have an instinct that the power that rules us, human beings, animals and things, is a dark and cruel power and that e v e r y t h i n g has to be paid f o r , a pov/er that demands an eye f o r an eye and a tooth f o r a tooth, and that though we may writhe and squirm we have to submit, f o r the power is ourselves'48.
Maybe she does not believe i n the Christian God, but she does believe i n a supernatural power; which reminds us of the God of the Middle-Ages who was a God to be feared, who punished men instead of f o r g i v i n g them. As we said before, Maugham does not create 'religious' characters i n the real sense of the word but with some of them as the Yogi said to L a r r y i n The Razor's
Edge:
'The distance that separates you from f a i t h is no than the thickness of a cigarette paper'49.
greater
There Christmas
is
Holiday
a
common
characteristic
between
The
Unknown
and
which, at the same time distinguishes them from the
novels we studied i n our previous chapter. I n the latter the heroes and heroines came to see
the real side of life at the
beginning and
the
novels were their e f f o r t s and struggles to come to terms with life. I n the former, however, the heroes face the problem of life at the end and we f i n i s h the novel without a definite idea of what is really going to happen; although, of course, we can more or less guess. Thus, we leave John without Faith and without the love he f e l t f o r his g i r l f r i e n d , and w i t h the idea that life is meaningless. Charley's discovery of the meaninglessness of life is v e r y easily summarized with the sentence with which the novel finishes:
The bottom had fallen out of his worldSO.
A3: ART We come now to the t h i r d and last part of our main chapter. What we are going to study now is A r t as another way of t r y i n g to f i n d a meaning f o r life. The happiness one can f i n d through art is the result of one's f u l f i l m e n t when producing a work of art. A r t plays a v e r y important role i n Maugham's production since the metaphor which runs throughout his works is that of life being a work of a r t which men, the artists, produce out of the chaos of the Universe. Each one has to make his own pattern. This is something we saw when talking about
Of Human
Bondage,
when he uses a Persian r u g as
the
solution f o r the riddle of life:
'You were asking j u s t now what was the meaning of life. Go and look at those Persian carpets, and one of these days the answer will come to y o u ' l .
This idea is something Maugham shared with Nietzsche, f o r whom the world is
valueless, meaningless
chaos2,
but also
a work of art3.
I f we consider valid.
Eagleton's interpretation of Nietzsche's theory as
the world's lack of inherent value forbids you from taking a moral cue from i t , leaving you free to generate your own gratuitous values by hammering this brutely meaningless material into aesthetic shape4.
This is what we f i n d i n The Summing
Up when Maugham says:
He (the artist) creates his own values5.
and that
a r t , a r t f o r art's sake, was the only thing that mattered in the world; and the artist alone gave this ridiculous world significance6.
He uses almost the same words as Nietzsche:
I t is only as an aesthetic phenomenon and the world are eternally justified7.
[...] that existence
Maugham himself, i n his autobiographical novels also talks
about
this idea of having to make a pattern of life out of a meaningless life:
I have sought to make a pattern of my life. This, I suppose, might be described as self-realization tempered by a useless sense of irony; making the best of a bad jobS.
This quotation taken from The Summing
Up is not, however,
the
only one we f i n d i n his works with reference to this idea. I n this same
novel we have others from which I am only going to quote one i n which he talks about the things which are going to form this pattern:
I wanted to make a pattern of my life, i n which writing would be an essential element, but which would include all the other activities proper to man, and which death would in the end round o f f i n complete fulfilment9.
I n A Writer's
Notebook,
another
autobiographical work of his, he
reconsiders what his life has been, that is, he has a look at the pattern he has formed and seems to be satisfied with i t :
I do not t h i n k I can write anything more that will add to the p a t t e r n I have sought to make of my life and its activities. I have f u l f i l l e d myself and I am v e r y v/illing to call i t a daylO.
We feel,
however,
that
one
never
reaches
this
point though,
because as experience changes, so the pattern has continuously to be revised. And thus, he continued w r i t i n g . This idea of f u l f i l l i n g oneself, together with this other quotation from The Summing
Up :
The a r t i s t is the only f r e e m a n l l
takes us to The Moon and Sixpence
which is the novel we are going to
concentrate on f o r our study of a r t as the path to a happy life.
The Moon and Sixpence
is the f i r s t novel Maugham wrote after his
masterpiece Of Human Bondage,
and i t was from one of the reviews the
latter had that he got the title f o r his new novel. Philip, the hero of Of Human Bondage, sixpence
at
is so busy looking f o r the moon that he cannot see the
his feet.
However, this title
was
more
suitable
for
the
previous novel that f o r this one. This was not going to be the last time that Maugham took the
title f o r one of his novels from one of the
articles w r i t t e n about his work, since i n 1940 he used "the mixture as before" as
a
critic
described
one
of
his books
f o r the
title of a
collection of short stories. The Moon and Sixpence
is based on the life of the French artist
Paul Gauguin. Maugham wrote this where the
artist
spent the
novel after
having visited Tahiti,
last years of his life. This is a familiar
setting f o r Maugham, since, also as an artist, he shared with Gauguin his love f o r this place and its beauty.
I t was also to this part of the
world t h a t Maugham went to look f o r inspiration f o r his work; and as a result we have most of his best work: short-stories and novels. Art
is
represented i n
this
novel not only by the
artist-hero,
Strickland, but also by the anti-hero Strove. As we have j u s t said, Strickland is based on the French
artist
Paul Gauguin. This does not mean, however, that Maugham followed his life word f o r word. When we meet Strickland f o r the f i r s t time he is a and, i n his wife's opinion, quite boring:
stockbroker,
'He's on the stock Exchange, and he's t h i n k he'd bore you to death'12.
a typical broker. I
Next time we hear about him i t is to learn that he has
abandoned
his wife and has gone to Paris. And the only reason he gives f o r that is:
' I tell you I've got to paint. I can't help myself. When a man falls into the water i t doesn't matter how he swims, well or badly; he's got to get out or else he'll drown'13.
So f a r we can understand him, i n spite of his desire being too sudden. When he is not so easy to understand is when we realize that he does not care f o r anybody, not even his wife and children:
-'Don't you care f o r her (his wife) any more?.' -'Not a b i t ' . -'Damn i t all, there are your children to t h i n k of. They've never done you any harm. They didn't ask to be brought into the world. I f you chuck everything like this, t h e y ' l l be thrown on the streets.' -'They've had a good many years of comfort. I t ' s much more than the majority of children have. Besides, somebody will look a f t e r them'14.
Echoes here of Nietzsche's Beyond If
Good and Evil .
a man behaves like that towards
his own children, nothing
really much can be
expected from him. Maybe he is j u s t i f i e d i n his
reasons f o r q u i t t i n g
his job and abandoning his home, but i t is
his
unconcern f o r e v e r y t h i n g and his selfishness what make him detestable f o r the reader. When we see the life he leads i n Paris, where he almost starves, and even the death he has, we understand
that painting was
really something he had to do. Why is it" so is something which we are
going to analyse later. Maugham seems to want to create the effect that what Strickland experienced was
something similar to a spiritual call;
only i n t h i s case i t is a r t and not God that is calling him. I t is all r i g h t that he s u f f e r s i n order to get what he wants, what we cannot accept is that he sacrifices other people too, and he does not even care.
For him they have to be sacrificed f o r something which is
greater and more important: A r t . What we have here is what we f i n d in Shaw's The Doctor's
Dilemma:
How much should society tolerate from the anti-social artist i n order to benefit from great art?15;
which was also a dominant theme of the time and \\rhich can be found i n authors such as Ibsen and Joyce. He is l u c k y w i t h the people he comes into contact with, because either they understand Strove; or they j u s t
that a r t should come f i r s t , as i n the case of
help him out of pure disinterest and
goodness.
Actually, nobody behaves to him as he behaves with the others. A f t e r some years of real poverty he manages to get to Tahiti where he will spend the last years of his life. I t is here that he paints his best works and f i n a l l y paints his masterpiece:
With the completion of the work, f o r which all his life had been a p a i n f u l preparation, rest descended on his remote and t o r t u r e d soul. He was willing to die, f o r he had f u l f i l l e d his purposel6.
We note here, again, the presence of religious language . After so many hardships, he has succeeded; his life is complete and his sacrifices have not been i n vain. What this purpose was and how important i t was, is something we are going to see later on. A r t , then, comes to Strickland as a force he cannot control and which forces him to leave his comfortable, easy life in London and go to Paris and start his apprenticeship as a painter. He does not know why, but he has to paint:
' I seemed to feel i n him some vehement power that was s t r u g g l i n g within him; i t gave me the sensation of something v e r y strong, overmastering, that held him, as i t were, against his will'17.
Nobody, except Strove, considers him a good artist or thinks that he has genius; and yet, he does not care at all. We do not even
know what he thinks of himself
as an
artist.
However, what the author says about writers:
The w r i t e r should seek his reward i n the pleasure of his work and i n release from the burden of his thoughts; and, i n d i f f e r e n t to aught else, care nothing f o r praise or censure, failure or successlS,
which could be applicable to any artist, is the philosophy Strickland follows.
Although the narrator tells us that nobody t h i n k s Strickland is a good artist, yet no real opposition is found to his work, either. The narrator does not understand what i t is that makes Strickland paint.
'The only thing that seemed clear to me [...] was that he was passionately s t r i v i n g f o r liberation from some power that held him. But what the power was and what line the liberation would take remained obscure'19.
Strickland does not even wonder why he feels like that. I n other heroes, Philip (Of Human
Bondage),
Larry
(The Razor's
Edge),
we hear
them wondering about the meaning of life and what they can do to give meaning to theirs. However, i n The Moon and Sixpence
nothing like this
happens. We know he is t r y i n g to get something by painting, but what i t is we do not know t i l l we are told at the end:
He was willing to die, f o r he had f u l f i l l e d his purpose 20;
He had achieved what he wanted. His life was complete. He had made a world and saw that i t was good21.
The u n d e r l y i n g religious theme of the novel reaches its climax here with this God-like association. Although, as we have already seen, this idea is latent i n most of Maugham's works due to his theory that i t is man who has to create his own world. The creation of his work is a kind of catharsis f o r the artist; i t has value only f o r him and that is why he destroys i t afterwards.
Before we know that by painting Charles is f u l f i U i n g himself, we are
only
conscious
that
he is held by
a passion
which is no less
tyrannical than love
and the passion that held Strickland was a passion to create beauty,
and f o r that he
will shatter the v e r y foundation of (his) world22.
This is something which can also be found i n Wilde's The of Dorian
Gray
Picture
i n the person of the a r t i s t Basil Hallward. This artist
f u l f i l s himself t h r o u g h his art, to such an extent that he is afraid of showing the picture he has done of Dorian because he has put too much of himself i n i t leaving his soul bare to the public's eye:
'Every p o r t r a i t that is painted with feeling is a p o r t r a i t of the artist, not of the sitter. The latter is merely the accident, the occasion. I t is not he who is revealed by the painter; i t is rather the painter who, i n the coloured canvas, reveals himself. The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that I am a f r a i d that I have shown i n i t the secret of my own sour23.
As
I
mentioned
before,
important f o r our study
there
are
two ideas
of a r t i n this novel.
which
are
very
They are the idea of
f u l f i l m e n t and that of freedom. I n order to consider them we are initially going to take Calder's
W. Somerset
as the basis f o r our discussion.
Maugham
and the Quest for
Freedom
We saw when we studied Of Human Bondage searching
f o r freedom rather
how Calder saw Philip
than happiness (as I see i t ) . As the title
of his book indicates, all his analysis of Maugham's works will be based on the idea that freedom is the motor f o r all his heroes' actions. I
do not intend
to deny
that
However, as with Of Human Bondage,
freedom is important f o r them. so with The Moon and Sixpence,
I
would like to prove that Strickland is on the search f o r something else, something that I would call fulfilment. I would like to start w i t h the following quotation:
The Moon and Sixpence is an examination of freedom i n the form of an artist's search f o r liberty, and the simplest of his bondages- social pressures and conventional ties- are treated at the beginning24.
If
this were really the topic of the novel, i t would f i n i s h with
chapter V I I I when the artist-to-be leaves home and goes to Paris. I t is t r u e that Strickland runs away from 'social pressures and conventional ties', but once he goes he is never again subjected to any kind of ties, not even emotional ones, as we saw when he talks about his family. The only remaining bondage a f t e r he leaves home is his bondage to sexual desire; and he hates this weakness of his:
"I am a man, and sometimes I want a woman. When I've satisfied my passion I'm ready f o r other things. I can't overcome my desire, but I hate i t ; i t imprisons my spirit; I look f o r w a r d to the time when I shall be free from all desire and can give myself without hindrance to my work'25.
However, this tie is satisfied his appetite,
not really so important since, once he
has
he leaves his lover without caring at all about
what happens to her, as he does w^ith Blanche Strove. My theory might seem d i f f i c u l t to understand itself
we
Strickland
find
quotations
is
looking f o r
which is
seem
freedom.
to
imply
Two of
since i n the novel that,
the
actually,
quotations
what I am
r e f e r r i n g to are the following:
'The only t h i n g that seemed clear to me [...] was that he was passionately s t r i v i n g f o r liberation from some power that held him. But what the power was and what line the liberation would take remained obscure'26 (italics mine).
'Do you know how men can be so obsessed by love that they are deaf and blind to everything else i n the world? They are as little their own masters as the slaves chained to the benches of a galley. The passion that held Strickland in bondage was no less tyrannical than love [...] And the passion that held Strickland was a passion to create beauty' (italics mine) 27.
There are two words i n these quotations: liberation and passion, which clearly imply freedom. We also saw before, when talking
about
love, how passion was one of the worst bondages. And yet, i n spite of all this, f o r me, freedom is not the real motor of Strickland's actions. I t h i n k we should ask ourselves why i t is that he wants to, or has to, paint. I
am not going to enter
into Katherine
Mansfield's criticism
about the little insight we have into the painter's
mind or about
desire to become an a r t i s t being too sudden. What I really wonder
28 his is
why he needs to paint. For me the answer is clear: he needs to give a
meaning to his life; he needs to create an order. Maugham gives us a v e r y good picture of the life he leads i n London, and what a useless life i t is!. We could say that his wife's life is useless, too; but that is the k i n d of life she likes and she is satisfied with i t . And, as we know, that is what really counts. Strickland, however, does not seem to get v e r y much f u n out of life. Of course he needs to r u n away from all this i f he wants to start a new life; although there is no need f o r him to behave i n such a cruel way with the other people, especially his family. I f he does not stay i n Paris i t is because there, he has not found what he was looking
f o r . He has the
talent necessary to become
an
a r t i s t , b u t he is not one yet. He needs to admire the beauty of Tahiti to acquire what is lacking i n his art. And i t is not u n t i l he starts painting what satisfies him, not the rest of the world, that he feels content, that his life becomes meaningful. I f he destroys his masterpiece at the end, i t is not only:
as a supreme gesture of contempt f o r the world's opinion,
as
Kuner says 29,
since that
has
been
his attitude from the
very
beginning. He has made his own pattern of life and he is satisfied with i t ; and the others' opinion does not count because , as Maugham tells us i n The Summing
Up:
' I t was long before I realized that the only thing that mattered to me i n a work of a r t was what I thought about it'30.
This is something he insists on i n Christmas
Hohday
when Lydia
says:
'But i t ' s only you who count. So f a r as you're concerned the only meaning a picture has is the meaning i t has f o r you'31.
This
idea
becomes
more
significant when
we remember
that
Maugham uses a work of a r t as a metaphor f o r life. And we f i n d this again at the end of The Moon and Sixpence
when Dr. Countras says:
' I t h i n k Strickland knew i t was a masterpiece. He had achieved what he wanted. His life was complete. He had made a world and saw that i t was good'(italics mine)32.
Before going on with
my theory about
what i t is that
makes
Strickland paint, I would like to open a parenthesis to point out the importance of Beauty. We mentioned before Maugham's t r i a d of values and we said that Beauty was one of them. I t is i n this chapter that we can really see its importance.
'Beauty, which is the most precious thing i n the world [...] Beauty is something w o n d e r f u l and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world i n the torment of his soul'33.
This is Strove's description of beauty and i t is a v e r y significant description f o r us since i t includes something familiar to us which we pass to see now.
When talking
about
Of Human
Bondage
we saw how happy
and
relaxed Philip f e l t when admiring the beauty of the world, which is a characteristic shared
by most of Maugham's heroes. I f beauty is: 'the
most precious t h i n g i n the world' i t is because i t gives meaning to a chaotic world (Nietzsche's theory again); but, the most important thing is that 'the a r t i s t fashions
i t ' . And we know that i n Maugham's work v.-e
can, and we should, understand by a r t i s t man. As Strove goes on to say:
'To recognize artist'34.
it
you
must repeat
the
adventure
of
the
I t is beauty also which gives meaning to Strickland's life, and I would like to close this parenthesis
with a quotation i n which we f i n d
the three elements that, according to my theory, are the three
pillars
men use to build t h e i r lives: Love, T r u t h , Beauty; something which, I t h i n k , is also implied i n this quotation:
'Do you know how men can be so obsessed by love that they are deaf and blind to everything else i n the wox-ld?. They are as little their own masters as the slaves chained to the benches of a galley. The passion that held Strickland i n bondage was no less tyrannical than love [...] And the passion that held Strickland was a passion to create beauty [...] There are men whose desire f o r t r u t h is so great that to attain i t they will shatter the v e r y foundation of their world. Of such was Strickland, only beauty with him took the place of truth'35.
Going back to my idea of a r t as what gives meaning to life, I am going to use a quotation, which Calder himself uses i n his book, taken f r o m Maurice Beebe's Ivory
Towers
and Sacred
Founts:
'Quest for self is the dominant theme of the artist novel, and because the self is almost always i n conflict with society, a closely related theme is the opposition of art to life. The artist-as-hero is usually therefore the artist-asexile'(italics mine)36.
If I use this quotation i t is because there are a few things which are quite relevant f o r our study. The f i r s t one is the way he the
theme
of
the
artist
novel, his
calling
it
'quest
describes
for self
is
a
ratification of my idea that what the a r t i s t is searching f o r is fulfilment. Another important idea is society.
Maugham's
heroes
that
of the
always
a r t i s t being
escape
from
i n conflict
their
with
environments.
However, I do not agree with his idea of art as opposed to life since, as I have j u s t said, a r t is life. I t is true that the a r t i s t is an exile, but i t is j u s t because he does not accept this life that he creates his own; and i t is then that a r t and life become one. Finally, I would like to use another quotation from Calder's bock, which I am i n disagreement with:
I n his e f f o r t s to f r e e himself from many restrictions social, familial, physical, sexual and spiritual - Strickland would appear to be like many other characters i n Maugham's f i c t i o n . He stands apart from the rest, however, because his real bondage is to something d i f f e r e n t - the passion to paint. His denial of family, home, honour, comfort and love therefore comes not from a voluntary choice but from the force of a stronger obligation. There is within him an obsession, a possessing spirit, which can only be liberated t h r o u g h the medium of paint, and this overshadows all else f o r him37.
Obvious Freudianism underlying this, as we can see.
The f i r s t p a r t of this statement is true; what I do not agree with is the second p a r t of i t . I t is precisely the fact that his action is not a voluntary Larry's
choice what brings
quest
in
The
Razor's
Strickland closer Edge
could
to the other
also
be
heroes.
described
as
a
bondage. He could v e r y well have accepted the good job he was offered and could have married Isabel and he would have led a v e r y comfortable life. However, he has to solve the doubts he has i n his mind; he needs to f i n d out what is the purpose of our existence:
-'You've had your f l i n g . Come back with us to America.' - ' I can't darling. I t would be death to me. I t would be the betrayal of my soul'38.
We could also say the same of Philip i n Of Human could
have
won a
scholarship to go to
Oxford and
Bondage.
he would
He have
managed to lead an easy life. And yet, he abandons everything and sets off i n search of his self. Theirs is also a bondage, they cannot but leave everything and move around u n t i l they f i n d self-fulfilment. We said before that a r t i n The Moon and Sixpence
was represented
not only by Strickland, but also by the anti-hero Strove. I t is him we pass to comment on now. The p o r t r a i t we have of Strove is that of a buffoon. He is a f i g u r e f o r whom, even when he is s u f f e r i n g most, we can only feel at the most p i t y . We meet him t h r o u g h a f r i e n d of his, our narrator, when he is in Paris.
He is a v e r y
good person
who feels
kindly f o r everybody
no
matter how the others treat him. Goodness is second nature i n him; he could be described
as
the perfect, non-existent
Christian who always
r e t u r n s good f o r bad. He is a bad a r t i s t himself, but he can recognize real art when he sees i t . He is the f i r s t person to see Strickland's genius. For him:
' a r t is the greatest t h i n g i n the world'39.
For
it
he
endures
everything;
even
after
the
death
of
his
wife,
i n d i r e c t l y caused by Strickland, he cannot destroy a picture the latter did of Strove's wife:
' I don't know what happened to me. I was j u s t going to make a great hole i n the picture, I had my arm all ready f o r the blow, when suddenly I seemed to see [...] the picture. I t was a work of art. I couldn't touch i t . . . I t was a great, a wonderful picture. I was seized with awe, I had nearly committed a d r e a d f u l crime'40.
Strove's Carey
with
relationship with his wife reminds us of that of Philip
Mildred
in
Of Human
Bondage.
I n this
novel,
Philip
is
infatuated w i t h Mildred even when he sees her real nature. She dislikes him completely and shows i t . She goes out with other men and she
is
only nice with him when he brings her presents. I n Strove's
case even
when Blanche
abandons him to go with
Strickland, he still adores her and is ready to take back to him.
her i f she
goes
10.
Both Philip and Strove punish themselves by pi-oviding the means f o r their beloved's happiness with other men. Philip gives Mildred money so
that
she
can
go
on
holidays
with
Griffins.
apartment to his wife and Strickland so that s u f f e r more than can.>
she
Sti'ove
leaves
his
does not have to
be helped. Both present a masochistic attitude
towards love. In Bondage.
Strove
we
find
an idea
which we also f i n d
i n Of
Human
A f t e r his pilgrimage i n life Philip realizes that the best pattern
of life is the commonest one; that is, that i n which men are born, grow up, get married and die. There is no need to look f o r anything else. Strove when he is saying goodbye to the narrator says:
'Perhaps that is the wisdom of life, to tread i n your father's steps, and look neither to the r i g h t nor to the left'41.
However,
i n the
first
case the
acceptance
of
the
commonest
pattern comes as a welcome t h i n g , and is accepted optimistically. After all the things he has seen that life o f f e r s , this one is the best f o r him. I n The Moon and
Sixpence
Strove's acceptance of this idea is like a
defeat. A r t f o r him is the most important thing in life and yet he is obliged to accept an o r d i n a r y life. He knows that beauty gives meaning to life, but unfortunately, he has not got enough talent to get f u l f i l m e n t from i t . This is also what happens w i t h
Philip and
Fanny i n Of Human
Bondage.
Philip, in his
search f o r self, tries a r t b u t he does not have the necessary aptitudes f o r i t . He could become a mediocre a r t i s t but never a f i r s t - r a t e one; and
101
if he became an a r t i s t he would not be happy since he would not get complete satisfaction from his work, as his art teacher knows:
' I t is cruel to discover one's mediocrity only when i t is too late. I t does not improve the temper'42.
Fanny, one of the other persons who t r y their luck with art, is more
unfortunate than
Philip
and
when she
discovers
that
she
will
never get from a r t what she was expecting she commits suicide; as we shall see when we come to that chapter. Maugham also uses other musician i n The Alien
Corn,
kinds of artists
i n his works, like a
or a w r i t e r i n Cakes
and Ale and many
other works, since the narrator, Maugham, is one. I do not t h i n k i t really matters what kind of artist one is, what I have been t r y i n g to show applies to any kind of artist and to art in general. We might, however, painter
feel inclined to think
because of Maugham's
use of the
pattern of life like a painting i n a canvas.
metaphor
of the artist as a of the
making a
B: SUICIDE
We mentioned above that there were two ways-out when facing the problem
of
the
meaninglessness
'happiness', understanding solution
was
to
negate
of
life:
one
was
the
quest
for
by happiness a relative one; and the other life
by
committing
suicide.
I t is
this
last
'solution' that we are going to study now; but our study will be closely related to the d i f f e r e n t alternatives the heroes chose f o r a happy life. There is no way of knowing f o r certain i f Maugham was conscious of the perfect scheme he was forming with his works, as we shall soon see. My guess is that he knew he was o f f e r i n g a philosophy of life with d i f f e r e n t alternatives and maybe, he also knew that
the solutions
o f f e r e d to the riddle of life were not infallible. For each of the
he
three
alternatives he gives he o f f e r s cases i n which they work and others in which they do not work. However, f o r me, the pattern we can form by a detailed study of his production is something he never saw. He was j u s t w r i t i n g about his experiences; he did not want to, and could not, o f f e r a definite solution since he knew there wasn't any. We have j u s t seen three ways t h r o u g h which men can be happy: Love,
Faith
, and
A r t . I n each
case
we have
seen
'positive' and
'negative' experiences; people f o r whom Love, Faith, or A r t was the way to Happiness, and others who were so unfortunate as not to be able to f i n d contentment t h r o u g h any of these three things. When this happens i t is not because the solutions are not good, but because they cannot be loved, or they cannot believe, or they have no aptitudes f o r becoming artists. However, they know that i f they could
have these things they would be happy. When this happens, the only solution is, as we saw, resignation. I f they cannot resign themselves to a life without these things, then, the only thing f o r them to do is to commit suicide. And of this alternative Maugham also o f f e r s examples. We are
going to start with a suicide as a result of the hero's
failure to get his beloved's
love. The play to which we are going to
make reference is The Hero (London: Hutchinson, 1901). This play reminds us of another The Unknown,
play we have already
studied.
since both plays stai"t when their heroes come back home
a f t e r the war, i n the former, and i n the middle of i t i n the latter. Both heroes
return
completely
d i f f e r e n t from
when
they
left
,
to
the
annoyance and disappointment of their families. We have just seen how i n The Unknown
i t happened because of John's loss of f a i t h . I n the play
we are concerned w i t h now i t is because James is no longer i n love with his g i r l f r i e n d , who has
been waiting f o r him to come back f o r many
years, having lost her youth i n her waiting. While he was fiin the f r o n t he met the wife of one of the officers and he f e l l i n love with her. Before meeting her he thought he was i n love w i t h
his
g i r l f r i e n d , Mary, but once he learnt what love is,
he
realized that what he f e l t f o r Mary was only loving-kindness:
James knew what love was, a f i r e i n the veins, a divine a f f l i c t i o n , a passion, a f r e n z y , a madness. The love he knew was the love of the body of flesh and blood, the love that engenders, the love that kills. At the bottom of i t is sex, and sex is not ugly or immoral, f o r sex is the root of l i f e l .
He knows his love is not returned, and that he should not love this woman, since she
belongs to somebody else. Thus, he tries to k i l l
his feeling:
t i l l he t r i e d to crush i t , he did not know how strong was this passion; he did not realize that i t had made of him a d i f f e r e n t man; i t was the only thing i n the world to him, beside which e v e r y t h i n g else was meaningless2.
When he goes back home he is still more disenchanted with Mary because although acting w i t h good intentions, yet she tries to impose her views:
'They have no r i g h t to be happy under such circumstances. I want to make them feel their wretchedness'3.
I t is not that he cannot love her because of the way she is; after all, she is a v e r y good g i r l . Besides, when one loves one loves i n spite of , or even because of the lover's faults. James knows that the woman he loves is not perfect, but :
What did he care that the woman lacked this and that?. He loved her because he loved her; he loved her f o r her faults4.
He cannot pretend he is still i n love with her, although he intends to keep his promise and marry her:
' I will do all I can to make you happy. I can give you affection and confidence- f r i e n d s h i p ; but I can't give you love'5.
But as he would have done i n her case, and as he knows:
'What are affection and esteem to me without love?'6.
As he himself says:
' I t is only the lover who lives, and of his life every moment is intense and f e r v i d ' 7 .
When
he
reveals
his
feelings
to
his
parents,
they
cannot
understand him. The fact that he does not love her is not important f o r them; she is a good g i r l , she has been engaged to him f o r many years and he must
act as a gentleman and an officers
and marry her. I t does not matter
that he feels that a marriage
without love is
' p r o s t i t u t i o n ' ; all they want is that he keeps his promise. I f afterwards he is not happy that is not important. They love him 'tyrannically' he must do what they want. James feels imprisoned i n a cage whose bars are
loving-kindness and t r u s t , disillusion, and old age9.
tears,
silent
distress,
bitter
He cannot go on l i v i n g like this, w i t h everybody's , especially his parents', disapproval. He tries to make them happy and becomes engaged to Mary again. He even conceives the illusion, f o r a short while, that they might be happy together. I t is much easier to
f a l l back upon the ideas of all and sundrylO;
which is a common idea
among Maugham's works. However, he
soon
realizes that is not what he wants, that he is acting as the others want him to act. I f only he were not conscious of this, he might be happy but he feels imprisoned. Love had ruined his life, but i t had also shown him
that life was worth living 11.
Without this love, and with people who love him on condition that he behaves 'nicely', he does not t h i n k his life is worth living. He cannot live like a b i r d i n a cage, he needs his freedom and he goes i n search of i t when he decides to k i l l himself :
' I t is the beginning of my freedom'12.
We pass now to two suicides committed because these two people did not have the aptitudes necessary to become artists, and this was the only t h i n g that could make them feel f u l f i l l e d and that their lives
were
not
Bondage
useless.
I
am r e f e r r i n g to
Fanny's
suicide
in
Of
Human
, and to George's i n the short story The Alien Corn .
Fanny Price is an English g i r l who goes to Paris with the idea of becoming an artist. She attends lessons at a School of A r t where she is one of the 'oldest' students. I n order to pay f o r her lessons she almost starves but , u n f o r t u n a t e l y f o r her, she has no talent and although she refuses to admit i t , at the end she cannot but accept that what the teachers tell her is true. All her s u f f e r i n g is not worth i t , she
will
never be an a r t i s t . Her illusion to become an a r t i s t was all she had i n l i f e , since she has no f r i e n d s due to her bad character, and her family does not care f o r her. Once she learns that there is no f u t u r e f o r her i n A r t she kills herself. Something similar
happens to the
hero of
The Alien
Corn. His
circumstances are d i f f e r e n t from Fanny's since he is the elder son of a rich Jewish family, and thus the heir to a v e r y considerable fortune. And yet, he spends a few years without knowing what to make with his life. His family t h i n k s he is lazy because he does not work; but the t r u t h is that i f he does not work i t is because he does not see any purpose i n i t . I n time he realizes that what he wants to do is play the piano; he wants to become a pianist, to the annoyance of his family. He goes to Germany and works like mad on his piano, he has seen that doing this he feels f u l f i l l e d and happy. As he says:
' A r t is the only thing that matters. I n comparison with art, wealth and rank and power are not worth a straw'13.
He not only says so but also means i t . He is prepared to renounce '. J his f o r t u n e i f only they can give him a few pounds so that he can go on with his piano lessons. On his family's initiative, he reaches a compromise with them: after he has been two years studying piano they will ask f o r the opinion of a v e r y good pianist; i f the a r t i s t thinks George is good his family will not i n t e r f e r e with his work. I f , on the contrary, he/she thinks that he has no talent he will go back home and work with his father. Once the two years are over, he is told that he has no talent. I f he cannot f u l f i l himself i n what is, f o r him, the only valuable thing i n life , there is nothing else f o r him to do. His life is over and he commits suicide. I t is only i n the case of Faith that Maugham does not provide us w i t h any example of a suicide due to the inability to accept Faith as the motor of life. The character who comes the nearest to suicide f o r this reason is Mrs. Littlewood
i n the play
The
Unknown;
but, as we
saw
before,
' I don't feel that life is important enough f o r me to give i t a deliberate end. I don't trouble to k i l l the f l y that walks over my ceiling'14.
Life, after her two sons' death, has
failed her
i n too many
has
nothing to o f f e r her.
occasions f o r her
to t u r n to i t i n
Faith her
distress. I n any case, she will pass t h r o u g h life u n t i l her time comes to leave this world.
We might say that all these cases we have j u s t considered
are
extreme cases, since these people could have t r i e d to look f o r something else to give meaning to their lives. As a matter of fact, some of these characters had something that f o r other people is the aim of their lives. Thus, i n the case of James i n The Hero, he rejects what Philip is happy to get i n Of Human Bondage: j lo-ving-kindness f o r him.
from somebody who cares
'
However, t r u t h is that i t takes all sorts to make the world, and what
f o r one
person
is
of
the
utmost
importance,
f o r another
is
meaningless. I n any case, we know that i n this case Maugham was also talking from what he had seen and knew and we cannot deny that many people commit suicide to escape from a life which does not seem to offer anything meaningful to them. We could also say
that life
experiences
many changes and that circumstances can change, and that after a time, things which we did not t h i n k could improve suddenly change. So, we could v e r y easily t h i n k that suicide is a silly action. However, one thing we have to grant Maugham and i t is that i n his works he never offers suicide as an easy way-out. People who commit suicide are usually those f o r whom life really seems to have nothing better to o f f e r . We f i n d some quotations i n his works i n which suicide is presented as an action which needs a lot of courage to do. Thus, i n Mrs. Craddock
we f i n d :
'People say i t requires no courage to commit suicide. Fools!. They cannot realize the h o r r o r of the needful preparations, the anticipation of the pain, the t e r r i b l e fear that one may r e g r e t when i t is too late, when life is ebbing away. And there is the dread of the Unknown, above all, the awful fear of h e l l - f i r e ' 15.
We also f i n d significant quotations i n his autobiographical works. Thus the following f r o m The Summing
Up :
I wonder why so many people t u r n with horror from the thought of suicide. To speak of i t as cowardly is nonsense [...] Putting aside those who regard suicide as s i n f u l because i t breaks a divine law, I think the reason of the indignation which i t seems to arouse i n so many is that the suicide flouts the l i f e - f o r c e , and by setting at nought the strongest instinct of human beings casts a t e r r i f y i n g doubt on its power to preserve theml6.
We should not conclude that Maugham is suggesting
suicide as an
easy way-out since he , himself, put up with his life although he had intended to k i l l himself when he reached the age of sixty. The philosophy he o f f e r s is , f o r me, as I suggested before, that of Resignation, of t r y i n g to make the best of life. This is something we shall see i n greater detail i n our next chapter when we study the role of Maugham as a character i n his works.
11;:.
CHAPTER I I : MAUGHAM AND HIS MASKS
That mentioned
Maugham is
present
i n his works
is something
we
before and which, I hope, is obvious after what was
said i n the previous chapter. However, so f a r , his presence
has
been f e l t only i n as f a r as Maugham is behind the philosophy he transmits
i n his works. What we are
interested
in now is
the
Maugham persona present i n his w r i t i n g s . As i t was to be expected, we f i n d him as the narrator of his stories; but he is also a character, and sometimes more than one, i n them. I t has been mentioned before that Maugham was a complex person who was always hiding behind a mask. He was a f r a i d of showing his real self to the public. I f this was the case i n his real
l i f e , i n his
works he
also t r i e d
to hide
behind
a
mask,
although i n this case the mask was not as impenetrable because as he v e r y well knew and told us i n The Moon and
Sixpence:
Sometimes people c a r r y to such perfection the mask they have assumed that i n due course they actually become the person they seem. But i n his book, or his picture the real man delivers himself defenceless [...] to the acute observer no one can produce the most casual work without disclosing the innermost secrets of his souU.
And this was what happened w i t h him as we pass to now.
see
Maybe the best way of dealing with our topic is by looking at his works according to their nature. The plays are going to be l e f t out since there is no narrator be i d e n t i f i e d with any
i n them and Maugham
of the characters i n them. The
cannot author's
presence i n them is f e l t at a d i f f e r e n t level, but this is something we saw before when talking about his philosophy of life. We pass now to analyse his
works, and f o r this we
going to divide them into three groups: novels, short-stories,
are and
t r a v e l books. Let us concentrate on the novels f i r s t . As we are interested
i n studying the d i f f e r e n t forms under
which Maugham appears i n his novels, what we are going to do is select some representative ones and study Maugham's role i n them. Perhaps the Bondage, child
and
best we can
do is to start
with
Of
Human
since i n this novel we are going to meet the author as a accompany
him i n his apprenticeship
years u n t i l
he
reaches adulthood. Since this is an autobiographical novel, i t is obvious the protagonist
has
to be the author
himself, seen through
that the
eyes of the person he has become now. Although we talked about some of the similarities between Maugham , the w r i t e r , and Philip, the hero of the novel, i n our previous chapter ; hoxi^ever, mention of this fact is compulsory here again. I n spite of being autobiographical, the story is not told i n the f i r s t person
singular. The narrator, a mature Maugham, tells
Philip's story as though he were talking not about
himself, but
about a stranger; somebody whom he refers to as 'he'. Thus, we find
an
omniscient
narrator
who has
all the
reasons
to
be
omniscient since what he is telling is his own story. Since we have already talked about Philip's, i.e. Maugham's, life as i t is described in Of Human Bondage, back
to
it
again
when
we
study
and as we shall come
Cakes
and
Ale,
another
autobiographical novel of Maugham's; we are going to concentrate now on the narrator, that is to say, the mature Maugham. He is not merely telling a story; he is r e - l i v i n g i t , and he allows
himself
to
comment
on
his
inexperience
when
he
was
younger; even making f u n of himself:
He was strangely grotesque when he ran2.
Through his comments we see that the narrator, who i n this case we have Willie
Ashenden
to i d e n t i f y with as
completely detached
it
is
the
W. Somerset case
with
Maugham, not
other
from his other self, the one
novels; he is
is
with not
talking
about. His comments usually serve several purposes.
On one hand
they show us his inexperience at that time:
A greater experience than Philip's would have guessed from these words the probabilities of the encounterS;
inexperience that the narrator seems to p i t y and sympathize with:
He was so young, he did not realize how much less is the sense of obligation i n those who receive favours than i n those who grant them4.
He seems to be asking us to understand that at that time he was learning how to walk i n life; that he was not really to blame^^ However,
he
not
only
pities
himself, he
can
also
afford
laughing at his ingenuousness; and when one can laugh at oneself i t is only because he has overcome his shortcomings and he is not a f r a i d of people laughing at them:
I n his ingenuousness he doubted her story as little as he doubted what he read i n books, and he was angry that such w o n d e r f u l things never happened to him5.
Sometimes his comments tell us that the author-narrator
has
been reflecting on his life t r y i n g to discover what was wrong with i t , what were the mistakes he made. Thus, he tells us about
the
negative influences he had:
The companionship of Hayward was the worst possible t h i n g f o r Philip6.
The mature Maugham also comments on things and
events
that happened i n his youth and whose importance he has come to realize w i t h the passing of the years. Thus, we hear him saying:
At f i r s t life seemed strange and lonely without the belief which, though he never realized i t , had been an unfailing support?.
And i t is here that he clearly distinguishes between his self at the moment of narrating the story, and his younger self, the one he is telling us about. We see this when he says 'he realized i t ' ; maybe Philip, the younger Maugham, never
never
did; but
the mature Maugham does. We mentioned i n another Bondage
is
a
part of our study that Of Human
Bildungsroman, a
novel
about
a
young
man's
apprenticeship i n life , and t h r o u g h the narrator's comments we come to realize that Philip's apprenticeship has been a successful one. The mature Maugham, the famous author and narrator of this novel has definitely learnt; at least now his eyes are more open. The
novel
we
pass
to
Maugham's presence is needed
study
now
is
and
Ale.
i n this novel because, though not
an autobiographical novel (as Of Human Bondage the events, or better,
Cakes
is), yet, some of
some of the people i n the story were his
contemporaries and then , who better than him to talk about them. Besides, and as he admitted, he had not said i n Of Human
Bondage
all he had to say about his youth i n Whitstable:
Old recollections r e t u r n e d to me, I found I had not said all I wanted to say about the W. of the note, which i n Of Human Bondage 1 had called Blackstable. A f t e r so many years I did not see why I should not get closer to the facts. The Uncle William, Rector of Blackstable, and his wife Isabella, became Uncle Henry,
vicar, and his wife, Sophie. The Philip Carey of the earlier book became the I of Cakes and Ale8.
Thus, we f i n d a f i r s t person narrator, under the name of Willie Ashenden. The former being Maugham's f i r s t name, and the latter the name he adopted f o r his role of narrator f o r som.e of his works; collected World
this being
short-stories
also the about
his
title
he
chose f o r a book of
experiences
as
a spy
during
War I . We have here then, the f i r s t difference between this novel
and the one we have j u s t studied. I n Cakes and Ale the narrator is also going to tell us about his youth, and , consequently, he is also going to appear as a character i n the novel; but i n this case the story is told by a f i r s t person narrator who is not the main character of the story, since this is not his story. Another difference is that the narrator appears i n the story as such; he is conscious of the f a c t that he is not only telling a story, but w r i t i n g i t . This, however, is not going to prevent him from being as objective as possible, no matter whether by doing this he makes himself appear ridiculous. I t is this that makes us have confidence i n him. He will tell us whatever he has to say; to such an extent that at one point i n the story he wishes he had not been w r i t i n g the story i n the f i r s t person singular because:
I t is all v e r y well when you can show yourself i n an amicable or touching l i g h t [...] i t is charming to write about yourself when you see on the reader's eyelash the g l i t t e r i n g tear and on his lips the tender smile;
but i t is not so nice when you have yourself as a plain damned fool9.
to
exhibit
The narrator, then, appears in the story not only as
the
young Willie Ashenden, but also as a mature person, his real self at the time of telling the story. So, we can conclude that i f the young
Willie, as
young; the
we shall see
narrator
of
Cakes
later, is Maugham when he and
was
Ale is the mature Maugham,
Maugham the w r i t e r , as cynical as he was i n real life; who does not miss any chance to be ironic even at his own expense. This happens especially when he is talking about his j'^outh, i n which he p o r t r a y s himself as a biased boy:
' I was not going to r u n the risk of being spoken to by a chap who wore knicker-bockers like a gamekeeper, and I resented the familiarity of his goodhumoured expression'lO.
The
most
important
characteristic
of
this
narrator
is,
perhaps, that he not only tells a story but that he comments on it:
' I t sounds a little b r u t a l to say that when he had got all he could get from people he dropped them; but i t would take so long to p u t the matter more delicately' 11.
I t is usually i n his comments that irony is found:
I could not do my old f r i e n d the injustice of supposing him so barren of devices as not to be able to cope w i t h such a situationl2.
I f e l t f r i e n d l y disposed toward Roy. I was happy to t h i n k that I had not misjudged him when I suspected that i t was not merely f o r the pleasure of my company that he had asked me to luncheonlS.
I t is the best way of destroying Alroy; maybe i f his attack had
been
a
serious
one
the
effect would
not
have
been
as
successful. We must be careful w i t h what the narrator tells us, because he is always consciously playing with what he merely says and what he shows and comments on. I t is in the comparison
between
what he says and what he shows and his comments that irony is mainly found. This is the real, ironic Maugham at work. He can tell a serious story as well as anybody else; but he can also be v e r y ironical, but always i n a subtle way; his irony is not a direct one. This contrast
between
his
telling
and
showing is
mostly
used when dealing with people he dislikes, especially with Alroy Kear. Thus, he tells us:
I had also a considerable affection f o r Royl4-; and then.
120
I could not t h i n k of one among my contemporaries who had achieved so considerable a position of so little a talentlS.
Is that really affection?. I t is not that Maugham is inconsistent here, as some people would consider him; this is only the way his irony works. However, he does not want the reader to miss his point and thus, sometimes we f i n d comments on a dialogue which has
just
taken place:
I do not know whether, as I wished, I have indicated by my r e p o r t of his dialogue with the waiter that his conversation was not as a rule brilliant or w i t t y , but i t was f l u e n t and he laughed so much that you sometimes had the illusion that what he said was funnyl6.
Before passing to see Willie Ashenden as a character i n the novel, there is one other point we have to mention. I t is the use of
the
first-person
narrator.
Why
did
Maugham
choose
this
method?. We have already talked about one of the reasons: as a kind of catharsis. A f t e r Of Human points that feelings, and
needed the
Bondage
developing. They were best
way of dealing
there were still some his impressions
with
himself, n a r r a t i n g them. He had already used
them
was
the t h i r d
by
and he,
person
point of view i n his other autobiographical novel, and i f he had used i t again here, i t would have meant repeating himself. Besides,
his choice of narrator i n Of Human Bondage
was perhaps the r i g h t
one since with i t he managed to detach himself from his younger self , providing at the same time a less biased p o r t r a i t of himself. I n Cakes
and Ale, the real story is not that of himself, but of
Rosie, and he can use the f i r s t person narrator because, actually, he is acting as a witness i n the novel, and so he has to give his own testimony.
Another reason according to Calderl? is that:
The f i r s t person singular, a handicap i n many respects, is here the perfect device to facilitate the smooth transference from one point in time to another. Most of the action takes place within Ashenden's memory, and the reader follows his mental wanderings w i t h hardly an awareness of a l i t e r a r y technique.
Besides,
The use of the f i r s t person [...] gives the story an indefeasible u n i t y by the mere act of telling i t l 8 ,
u n i t y that Cakes and Ale undoubtedly has. Once we have studied Willie Ashenden as the narrator of the novel, we have to see him as a character i n i t . We f i n d two d i f f e r e n t Willies i n the story, and both can be identified
with
W.
Somerset
Maugham.
The
young
Willie
is
a
p o r t r a i t of Maugham when he was young, and of whom he had not said all he had to say i n Of Human Bondage;
and the older one ,
who can also be identified with the nai-rator of the story, is the mature Maugham, the one who is looking back on his life. When
we
first
meet
Willie
Ashenden
in
the
novel,
he
identifies himself as a w r i t e r who
was not i n the public eyel9,
and as we go back i n time we are told that he studied medicine i n London. His address i n London, Vincent Square as Mrs. Hudson's
, was
a lodger
at
Maugham's real address when he lived i n
London. I f we go to what is really the beginning of the story, his youth i n Blackstable, we are told:
I lived with an uncle and aunt on the outskirts of a little Kentish town by the sea20.
Another important t h i n g is the name he adopts i n the story: Willie Ashenden. The former was his real name, and as i n real life, he disliked i t v e r y much:
I resented i t vastly when people called me Master Willie. I thought i t a ridiculous name f o r anyone to have. I n fact, I did not like either of my names21.
We wonder
now
whether
this
'either'
refers
to
Willie
Ashenden or to Willie Somerset; the latter being his real middle name which he disliked, too.
Willie Ashenden is, as we have already seen, a v e r y biased and i n his own words:
very respectable youth [...] I accepted the conventions of my class as i f they were the laws of Nature22.
Of the grown-up Ashenden
what we know is what we have
said when talking about the narrator, since both are one and the same person.
He is, then,
a well-off
w r i t e r who moves
in the
higher spheres of society; v e r y ironical and cynical, through the eyes of whom we see all the other characters, including himself. For Alroy
Kear
and
Amy D r i f f i e l d , he
is only
important
because he was a f r i e n d of Rosie's, Driffield's f i r s t wife; and they need
him to get
information about
this writer's
life when
he
started w r i t i n g . For us, he is important f o r the picture of society he portrays, but mainly f o r the great information he gives about himself and the good time he makes us have by reading his novel. Before f i n i s h i n g w i t h Cakes that my intention i n much as
I can
about
and Ale, and since I said before
w r i t i n g this chapter is to t r y to discover as Somerset Maugham through
his works, I
cannot but mention the importance of Rosie i n Maugham's life. I f Maugham wrote this novel i t was because of her:
But I had long had i n mind the character of Rosie. I had wanted f o r years to write about her, but the opportunity never presented itself23.
And this is clearly her story as the subtitle of the novel indicates: 'The Skeleton i n the Cupboard'. When
Maugham
was
young
he
had
an
affair
with
the
daughter of the playwright A r t h u r Jones, an a f f a i r which lasted f o r eight years and which could have ended with she had accepted
a wedding i f
him. Maugham really loved her, and Cakes
and
Ale is Maugham's homage to her. As Calder says:
Maugham obviously loves his heroine, and this love tends to suffuse the whole book, so that even characters such as Alroy Kear are treated with a degree of affection. Rosie is 'all gold', as Ashenden says, and this colours the rest of the novel24.
The Moon and Sixpence is w r i t t e n i n the f i r s t - p e r s o n singular [...] the narrator i n this case, however, is not the well-developed 'Ashenden' persona of Ashenden, or the narrator of Cakes and Ale, The Razor's Edge and the short-stories. Whereas the latter is w i t t y , tolerant, and amused by the behaviour of his fellows, the former is y o u t h f u l l y p r i g g i s h , rather stiff and self-conscious. The ease and mellowness of the later persona are not present i n The Moon and Sixpence25.
We agree with Calder that the narrator of this novel is not as well-developed as i n other later novels; however, and although he is not given a name, we can i d e n t i f y him with Maugham the author,
as
information
we the
Maugham's life:
do
w i t h Ashenden.
narrator
gives
us
I n the about
story, some of himself
belongs
the to
I was v e r y young when I wrote my f i r s t book. By a lucky chance i t excited attention, and various persons sought my acquaintance26.
I adopted the clergyman 27.
tone
used
by
my
uncle
Henry,
a
Another reference is made to this uncle of his whom we met i n his previous novel, Of Human
My uncle Henry, Whitstable28.
Bondage:
for
twenty-seven
years
Vicar of
The curious t h i n g here is that he no longer disguises the name of the village as he did i n the other novel and as he will do i n 1932 w i t h
Cakes
and Ale
where
, as we saw, i t is called
Blackstable. Thus, we know that the narrator
is a writer, and
perhaps
also a doctor like Maugham?:
I gave him a s u f f i c i e n t dose of veronal to ensure his unconsciousness f o r several hours29.
Another t h i n g which the
narrator
and
Maugham
share is
t h a t both go to Paris and participate i n the Bohemian life there. However, i n this part of the story, we can v e r y easily distinguish between the two of them. I t is the w r i t e r who is showing us the way artists live i n Paris by taking the narrator there. The latter
is unconscious of the role he is playing; he is only interested i n telling us Strickland's story. Maugham hints i n this novel at something which he will deal w i t h i n length i n another of his later novels, Cakes tea-parties
that
rich
women
organize
for
and Ale: the
artists
i n London.
Maugham participated i n some of these afternoon meetings, and so does our narrator. Finally, and more important, Maugham visited Tahiti i n the trips
he
made
to
the
South
Seas. Only a person
sensitive
to
beauty, as we have seen Maugham was; only a writer or an a r t i s t could describe the beauty of the place i n which Strickland spends the
last
years
of
his
life,
and
which
inspired
so
many of
Maugham's stories. There are also some things which the
narrator says
that
make us i d e n t i f y him with the author:
I was perhaps a little lonely, and i t was with a touch of envy that I thought of the pleasant family life of which I had had a glimpseSO.
I t is a well-known f a c t that
Maugham's
youth was
lonesome. We have a similar example of this i n Of Human
quite Bondage
when Philip, the hero, gets to know the Athelny family:
I f e l t i n such an existence, the share of the great majority, something amiss, I recognized its social value. I saw its ordered happiness, but a fever i n my blood asked f o r a wider course [...] I n my heart was a desire to live more dangerouslySl.
With reference to the identification between n a r r a t o r / w r i t e r , Calder32 says that:
Maugham seems to i d e n t i f y , not with the narrator of the story, but with Strickland [...] and a number of critics have suggested that there is more of the author i n the character of Strickland than is commonly recognized. I t may be that Strickland is i n many ways what Maugham would have liked to have been; i n any case, p a r t of the author is undoubtedly represented i n the rebel painter [...] Strickland is in many ways a f i g u r e of the i d , a projection of that p a r t of the w r i t e r which was well hidden by his mask.
Although overall we agree with Calder, however, and after what we have j u s t seen about the identification between narrator and w r i t e r , we cannot agree with the f i r s t sentence of the above quotation, which is also i n contradiction with what he goes on to say and which is worth quoting:
Repeatedly, he (Strickland) is presented as brutal, savage and l u s t f u l . I n this, his character is mostly balanced by that of the narrator, and they represent two poles of the author's personality. The painter is that part of Maugham which would like to ignore society, convention and critical opinion, to f i n d a garden where he can achieve artist liberation. The narrator, on the other hand, represents the part of the author which feels constrained to follow the safer path of moderation and com.promise with the dictates of civilisation33.
There is still another characteristic of the narrator which I would like to consider. He is something more than j u s t
another
character of the story; someone who lived what he is telling
us
about. He is also a conscious narrator; he knows he is telling us about Strickland's life, thus he knows that what he tells us about Captain Nichols i n chapter XLVI is nothing but a digression:
So my digression moral 34.
So
far,
narrator/author
we
have
and
also
has
at
seen
least the
the
advantage of
relationship
hinted
at
that
between between
Strickland/Maugham; however, the author, as author of the novel, is also present i n the book. He knows that after all i t is him who is w r i t i n g a novel, not the narrator; the latter is only telling i t . This is especially the
case of chapter
XLIII
where he justifies
himself f o r what may seem an unsatisfactory story:
Looking back, I realize that what I have written about Charles Strickland must seem v e r y unsatisfactory35.
The following quotation is worth paying attention to :
Strickland, according to Captain Nichols, did not use exactly the words I have given, but since this book is meant f o r family reading I have thought i t better, at the expense of t r u t h , to p u t into his mouth expressions familiar to the domestic circle (italics mine)36.
At
this
point of
the
story
it
is
the
narrator
who
is
speaking, not the w r i t e r and yet he knows that the story he is
telling
is f o r a
book. Why is i t
so?.
It
might be
a slip
Maugham's part, otherwise we cannot really understand
on
i t since
here i t is not Maugham who is talking. This quotation takes us back to what we said before about the conscious narrator. This characteristic is also present when he says:
I f I am rhetorical i t was because Strove was rhetorical (Do we not know that man i n moments of emotion expresses himself naturally i n the terms of a novelette? )37.
The real Maugham is present here; always afraid of showing feeling, of seeming ridiculous. He cannot but be the cold man he is when he has his mask on.
He (Maugham) appears i n the novel as the urbane, w i t t y , tolerant narrator, a character f r a n k l y r e f e r r e d to as 'Mr. Maugham', with enough autobiographical features to make the p o r t r a i t superficially convincing. However, 'Mr. Maugham', while a triumph of the f i c t i o n - w r i t e r ' s art, is designed to conceal rather than reveal the author's t r u e self [...] He is , i n many important aspects, both the saintly L a r r y Darrell and the worldly, disappointed Elliott Templeton. Through the device of fragmentation, he was able to represent three stages of his character development or, more accurately, decline the y o u t h f u l L a r r y , the middleaged narrator, 'Mr. Maugham', and the aging Elliott38.
This quotation taken from Brunauer's article 'The Road not taken:
Fragmentation
Razor's
Edge'
next novel.
as
a
Device f o r Self-Concealment i n
The
serves us as the starting point f o r the study of our
As we learn from this quotation, Maugham appears i n the novel under three d i f f e r e n t disguises. Being the enigmatic person he was he could not present
a direct p o r t r a i t of himself i n the
person of the narrator, who even appears under his own name; diffei-ing from the other novels we have studied so f a r . He not only uses his real name, but also introduces himself as the author of one of his novels:
Many years ago I wrote a novel called The Moon and Sixpence39,
Once again, we f i n d a narrator conscious of the task he is i n charge
of, and who starts the
book by apologizing f o r the
short-comings i t may have since as he says:
This book consists of my recollections of a man with whom I was thrown into close contact only at long intervals, and I have little knowledge of what happened to him i n between40.
Although there are quite a lot of similarities between the narrator and the author of the novel, like f o r example his b i r t h and education in Paris, the fact that
he
had a house on the
French Riviera, or the dates of his travels; however, there
are
many facts which he does not mention. Thus, he does not mention the f a c t that at that time he was married and had a daughter.
We could not really expect so much from Maugham, and, i n any case, i t is not really important f o r the development of the story. The
Razor's
Edge
has
not
been
regarded
as
an
autobiographical novel, i n spite of the critics having recognized that L a r r y is clearly a p o r t r a i t of the author as a young man. For me, however, i t is as autobiographical as, f o r example. Cakes
and
Ale is. I t is clearly the story of his search f o r happiness through religion, mixed on the one hand with his social f i g u r e as a well-off w r i t e r i n the person of Elliott Templeton; and on the other hand w i t h the observant narrator, the one who has already experienced what L a r r y is going t h r o u g h at the time of the novel. Thus, we f i n d i n three
characters,
three
d i f f e r e n t sides of the Maugham
persona. We mentioned, when talking about T r u t h , how Larry's quest f o r happiness was one of Maugham's experiments to get his own. L a r r y has can we f i n d
neither Maugham's
i n him as
physical characteristics,
nor
many biographical similarities with
the
w r i t e r as was the case with the narrator. L a r r y represents the Maugham who travelled around the world looking f o r an answer to the
riddle
of
life.
And i t is
curious
to
notice
how i t is
a
conversation about L a r r y ' s spiritual search Maugham the narrator has w i t h him, that is with his other self, t h a t made him write the novel:
I feel i t r i g h t to warn the reader that he can very well skip this chapter without losing the thread of such story as I have to tell, since f o r the most part i t is nothing more than the account of a conversation that I had w i t h L a r r y . I should add , however, that except f o r this conversation I should perhaps not have thought i t w o r t h while to write this book41.
As f o r Elliott Templeton, the only thing to be said about him is that he represents Maugham, the successful writer who moves among v e r y healthy people and who leads a v e r y useless life. I t is not that Maugham has become an Elliott Templeton, but he may be in danger of becoming like him. We started our analysis of this novel with a quotation from Brunauer's
article,
and
I
would like
to
finish
with
another
quotation from the same article:
I n a real sense. The Razor's Edge v/as his swan-song. I n i t he took the stock of his l i f e - what i t was, what i t could have been. The lost ideal, he incorporated into L a r r y ; the actuality into Elliott42.
He was v e r y easy to get on with. He was much liked. But he had no f r i e n d s . He was an agreeable companion, but neither sought intimacy nor gave i t . There was no one i n the world to whom he was not at heart i n d i f f e r e n t . He was self-sufficient. His happiness depended not on persons but on himself43.
This is the
description the narrator of The Narrow
Corner
gives us of Dr. Saunders, who is the character i n w h i c h Maugham can be recognized.
This time Maugham is no longer the narrator the story
is told
i n the
third
person
of the storj^;
by a narrator
who
has
nothing to do w i t h the story. All the information we get in the story about Dr. Saunders that might make us t h i n k of Maugham is that he is a doctor who, due to some problems islands i n the
South
i n his country,
has
fled to one
of
the
Seas. And we know that Maugham was
a
doctor and that he travelled to that part of the world. However, what makes us t h i n k of him as our author is his attitude towards life. He appears i n the story as a character who does not want to get involved i n the action of the story; he is a mere spectator of i t ; and what he sees confirms him that his attitude is r i g h t . We mentioned
i n our
previous chapter that Maugham
been t r y i n g to reach an understanding
had
of life by using d i f f e r e n t
paths. We seemed to reach the conclusion that f o r him the only solution was to come to accept life as i t is and to t r y and make the most of i t . One of his arguments
was that one has to create
his own life; that one's life depends only on what one makes of i t . We f i n d these two ideas i n the mouth of Dr. Saunders:
'But life is what you make it'44;
"My dear boy, you must take life as you f i n d it'45.
He does not seem to care about what happens around him;
'The world consists of me and my thoughts and my feelings; and everything else is mere fancy. Life is a dream i n which I create the objects that come before me'46.
He gives
the
idea
of being
a
man
who
has
had
many
experiences and who is never surprised by what happens i n life. He does not talk much, b u t people go to him f o r advice and to tell him his problems; as young Fred does. However, the latter rebels against the doctor's attitude; he still wants to f i g h t f o r a better life. Thus, when the doctor advices him to accept life as i t is , he answers:
'I'm f e d up with life as I f i n d i t . I t f i l l s me with horror, I ' l l either have i t on my own terms or not at all' 47.
Fred reahzes that Dr. Saunders' attitude to life is a passive one:
'You've lost heart, hope, f a i t h and awe. What i n God's name have you got left?'48.
The doctor's
answer
is verj^ significant since i t confirms
that we were r i g h t i n what we thought was Maugham's attitude to life:
'Resignation'49.
This seems to be the solution Maugham o f f e r s to the problem of life. A f t e r experimenting with d i f f e r e n t things he reaches the conclusion that all we can do is resign to the fact that life is as i t is. However, we should
not
t h i n k that
he
is
telling
us
we
should resign without p u t t i n g up a f i g h t f i r s t . He has t r i e d and
'The most valuable t h i n g I have learnt from life is to regret nothing' 50.
Theory which ratifies the following quotation:
I t may be a stroke of luck, and when you look back years later you may say to yourself that you wouldn't f o r anything i n the world exchange the new life disaster has forced upon you f o r the dull, humdrum existence you would have led i f circumstances hadn't interveneSl.
Before passing to see Maugham's role i n the short-stories
I
would like to say a few words about what happens with his two travel Parlour.
books:
On a
Chinese
The former derives
China between
1919 and
Screen and
The
Gentleman
in
the
from two visits Maugham made to
1921; and the latter is a record of his
j o u r n e y f r o m Rangoon to Haiphong.
The
Gentleman
in the
Parlour
is told i n the f i r s t
person
singular since all that Maugham tells in the book are his own experiences. However, we do not really learn much about the real Maugham, only how he lived and behaved when he embarked on one of his t r i p s to Asia i n search of material f o r his works. On a Chinese
Screen
is partly told i n the f i r s t person and
the rest are j u s t vignettes and brief sketches with no narrator. I n both instances the Maugham we f i n d is the famous writer who
travels
widely
and
enjoys
certain
privileges due
to
his
position. We come now to
the
short-stories
and
we are
going
to
divide them into three groups: those told i n the t h i r d person, and i n which Maugham does not appear; those told i n the t h i r d person but i n which the main character
is Ashenden, Maugham's self i n
the short-stories; and, f i n a l l y , those told i n the f i r s t person by Maugham, the w r i t e r to whom they have been told. We are going to concentrate, then, on the last two groups. The f i r s t person narrator is
every inch the man of the world, a cool hand, a clear head, an observer of philosophical temper who has seen e v e r y t h i n g and is shocked by nothing. He is the sympathetic gentleman i n the beautifully made suit to whom, at the club over brandy and soda, you confess that you harbor murderous thoughts about your wife or have been the cause of your business partner's death or have been sleeping with your dearest f r i e n d ' s mistress. He is of the world yet slightly above i t , detached yet not devoid of feeling, a man who holds out the prospect of understanding unaccompanied by harsh judgment52.
He is usually described
as the w r i t e r who is ti-avelling i n
search of new material, as happens i n the stories set i n the South Seas; or as the w r i t e r i n the London society who attends meetings w i t h l i t e r a r y people and who likes to go to his club. These are two sides of the same Maugham. We also f i n d Maugham under the name of Ashenden; name he also uses Ashenden active
in
Cakes
and
appears he is
Ale, as
we have
not the narrator
participant i n i t . These stories
already
seen. When
of the story, but
deal with
stories
an
whose
action takes place d u r i n g the war i n which Ashenden is a spy. As Maugham says in the preface of
Ashenden:
This book is founded on my experiences i n Intelligence Department during the war, rearranged f o r the purposes of fiction.
Ashenden
the but
is also a w r i t e r and, as Maugham did, uses his
w r i t i n g as an alibi f o r his secret a f f a i r s . Thus, i n the story 'A Domiciliary Visit', when a policeman asks him what he is doing i n Geneva, he answers:
' I am w r i t i n g a play' 53;
and his reason f o r w r i t i n g i t there and not i n England is:
'There is war. My country is i n a turmoil, i t would be impossible to sit there quietly and write a play'54.
We
mentioned
before
that
Maugham
offered
a
lot
of
information about himself i n his works and that we do not really need to read any biography on him to learn about
his life, his
character and thoughts. I hope this chapter has helped to r a t i f y this.
CHAPTER I I I : PHILIP CAREY AND ANDRES HURTADO I come now to the last chapter of my thesis, which I have decided to dedicate to a comparison between Of Human Bondage century Spanish novel. El arbol
de la
and a twentieth-
ciencia.
Some explanation is needed as f o r why I have chosen El arbol la ciencia
and
Human Bondage
not one
of the
English Bildungsromane
de
with which Of
shares many characteristics. Being an English literature
student maybe i t was to be expected that I concentrated
exclusively on
the literature w r i t t e n i n the English language; however, the reasons f o r my choice are, I hope, quite
understandable.
The most important reason, and the reason f o r which this chapter has a special significance f o r me, is that the thought that there were some similarities between
these two novels was the real origin of my
research on Maugham. Of Human Bondage
was the f i r s t novel I read by
Maugham, and at that time I did not know anything about this English author. A f t e r reading this
novel f o r the f i r s t time I realized that i t
reminded me v e r y much of another
novel I had read a long time befoi^e
and which was one of my favourites among the novel I am r e f e r r i n g to is, of course. El arbol
Spanish
novels.
de la ciencia.
The
Thus, the
f i r s t idea f o r ray thesis was that i t was to be a comparison between the two
authors.
As
I
became
acquainted
with
Maugham's
production
I
decided to change the topic of my thesis, but always contemplating the idea of dedicating a chapter to this comparison. Another important factor which made me compare these two writers is that throughout my research on Maugham I have come across studies dedicated
to
compare
this
autobiographical
novel of
his
with
other
140
English novels of the same time, or w i t h simOar characteristics. I t has also been compared w i t h , or related to, some German Bildungsromane, as f o r example Goethe's
Wilhelm
Meistev,
or even w i t h American authors
such as Jack London. However, I have no knowledge of any study on Maugham and a Spanish author; and being Spanish myself, I cannot miss the chance of c o n t r i b u t i n g to the f i e l d of comparative literature with j u s t a h i n t f o r a possible f u r t h e r and
deeper study on the common
characteristics which, I t h i n k , exist between these two authors, specially between t h e i r novels, Of Human
Bondage
and El arbol
and de la
ciencia.
Of
Human
Bondage
and
El
arbol
de
la
ciencia
are
two
autobiographical novels, though not two autobiographies, i n the history of
European
Literature. The
former is
not
highly
regarded
in
the
c o u n t r y i n which i t appeared, i n spite of having been considered as the masterpiece of its author. The latter is highly regarded i n Spain, but i t does not seem to be considered so i n the rest of Europe. Maybe the case would be d i f f e r e n t i f t h e i r contemporaries were not novels such as A
Portrait
of
the
Artist,
Sons
and
Compared w i t h them, Of Human Bondage
Lovers
and
and El arbol
Wilhelm
Meister.
de la ciencia
seem
too simple and superficially unambitious. And yet, there is i n them a philosophy of life as important and as well-developed as the one we f i n d i n the novels j u s t mentioned. And t h i s is what we pass to see now.
Maugham's novel is about three times longer than Baroja's and so we may
expect
to
have
more
explicit
information about
Maugham's hero than we have of Baroja's Andres Hurtado .
the life of Of course,
this is also
due
to the
whereas Philip's Carey's
nature story
of the
Enghsh
author's
novel. Thus
starts when he is only nine, we meet
Andres when he is eighteen , on his f i r s t day at the University. Both children are deprived from an early age
of the only love i n the world that is quite unselfishl:
a mother's love. However, their circumstances
are
d i f f e r e n t . With
the
death of his mother, Philip loses all his family since he is an only child, his mother dying when giving b i r t h to a second
boy, and his father
having died a few months before. He has to go to live with his father's brother
and
his wife,
a middle-aged
childless
couple. When
Andres'
mother dies he is not l e f t an orphan since his father is still alive and he also
has
three
brothers and
a sister.
mother is going to have as great an
However, the
death of his
effect on Andres as
i t had on
Philip:
La muerte de su madre le habia dejado u n gran vaclo en el alma y una inclinacion por la tristeza (His mother's death had l e f t him w i t h an empty heart and a tendency to sadness)2.
He does not get on w i t h his family, and so they are his family only i n the sense that they provide f o r his material needs; f o r the rest, he feels as lonely as though he had no family:
Se sentla aislado de la familia, sin madre, muy solo, y la soledad le hizo reconcentrado y t r i s t e [...] preferfa msterse en su cuarto y leer novelas (He f e l t isolated from his family, without a mother, v e r y lonely, and loneliness made him hide
his feelings and become sad [...] he p r e f e r r e d to stay in his room and read novels)3.
Something similar happens with Philip. With the Reverend and his wife he
Carey
f i n d s only a house but not a home; and like Andres, he
is also going to f i n d refuge from his lonehness i n reading:
Philip had few f r i e n d s . His habit of reading isolated him; i t became such a need that after being i n company f o r some time he grew t i r e d and restless4.
Here we hear
Maugham's voice warning them of the danger of
such an action :
He did not know that thus (reading) he was providing himself w i t h a refuge from all the distress of life; he did not know either that he was creating f o r himself an unreal world which would make the real world of every day a source of b i t t e r disappointments.
I n Maugham's novel there is a detailed account of the childhood of its hero, specially of his wretchedness
miserable
at school. Philip is
going to be more sensitive to all the misery of life because Maugham has given him a club-foot, which helps to distance him from the others:
Because he could not join i n the games which other boys played, t h e i r life remained strange to him [...] i t seemed to him that there was a barrier between them and him 6.
Philip's
life,
both
at
the
Vicarage
and
at
school,
is
quite
unsatisfactory and helps him to decide that he has to do something to change i t . He quits the school and goes to Germany f o r a year. I t is
here that he gets into contact with Science , two years earlier (he is sixteen now) than Andres at the beginning of El arbol
de la
ciencia.
Up to this point neither of the two heroes has wondered
about
life; they do not like the life they lead and they want to change i t , but they start hy
changing i t i n their minds. They make plans, idealistic
most of the time, f o r the f u t u r e :
Su imaginacion galopaba, lo consumia todo de antemanc. Hare esto y luego esto- pensaba-. despues?. Y resolvfa este despues y se le presentaba otro y otro. (His imagination worked v e r y fast, consuming everything beforehand. I ' l l do this, and then t h i s - he thought-. And then? And he solved this problem and new ones would come up)7.
A new life is going to start f o r them both. Philip's change comes as an act of will, he breaks with everything and goes, a new life awaits him. Andres' change is more an illusion than a reality:
Ese paso del bachillerato al estudio de al estudiante ciertas ilusiones, le hace que su vida ha de cambiar (The change u n i v e r s i t y always gives the student makes him t h i n k he is more of a man, change)8.
facultad siempre da creerse mas hombre, from High School to certain illusions, i t that his life has to
Besides, he does not make any e f f o r t to change; the change comes as natural evolution: he has the age now to start going to university. This
could
protagonists.
be
considered
Both are
as
the
first
difference between
dissatisfied with life; however,
the
Philip tries
two to
change i t , mainly by moving to d i f f e r e n t places looking f o r a better life, whereas all that Andres does is complain about i t and wonder about its
meaning. I f he moves to d i f f e r e n t places i t is not as a result of an act of will, but only because circumstances force him to move. Their f i r s t contact with Science is d i f f e r e n t too. Andres is a f u l l time student at u n i v e r s i t y i n Madrid; whereas Philip is not registered as a student i n Heidelberg; he only attends lectures there sporadically. Kis contact with Science comes t h r o u g h the guests at the boarding house i n which he lives. However, i n Andres' case what we see is the state of the universities i n Spain: the old-fashioned system and the inefficiency of the teachers of whom the students make f u n . What we f i n d i n Of Human Bondage
is more the
intellectuality of the students; they gather
and
discuss important topics. At this point Philip is not an active participant in these conversations,
he
jvist listens; but these talks are going to
make him t h i n k and wonder about things he had not considered so far, such as Religion and Philosophy:
I t occurred neither to Hayward nor to Weeks that the conversations which helped them to pass an idle evening were being t u r n e d over afterwards i n Philip's active brain. I t had never struck him before that religion was a matter upon which discussion was possible9.
What Philip f i n d s i n these two f r i e n d s is what Andres f i n d s i n his uncle I t u r r i o z , but on a smaller scale. Philip does not belong to this intellectual world yet; he is a mere spectator, though not a passive one. Besides,
the
discussions
Hayward and
Weeks
have are
more akin to
battles:
Hayward could never resist the opportunity which Weeks o f f e r e d him of regaining ground lost on a previous occasion, and Weeks was able with the greatest ease to drav/ him into
a discussion. Though he could not help seeing how small his attainments were beside the American's , his British pertinacity, his wounded vanity [...] would not allow him to give up the strugglelO.
These
conversations
are
Philip's
awakening
to
the
world
of
consciousness. From now on he is going to start wondering about things which u n t i l
then
he
had
accepted
as
true
without
giving
them any
thought. Andres' conversations w i t h I t u r r i o z are of a d i f f e r e n t nature. Tc start w i t h , Andres is an active participant i n them. These conversations help
him to voice
his
doubts
battles; neither of them has
about
life. These
are
not intellectual
nor wants to win. The uncle, with more
experience, gives his opinion about these delicate matters which worry Andres, t r y i n g to orientate him. These talks between uncle and nephew are the kernel of the novel and so I am going to leave them f o r later on because, actually, they belong to a later stage i n the development of the hei'o's character.
The f i r s t t h i n g Philip and Andres question on their
way to maturity is religion. Both heroes are brought up i n a v e r y s t r i c t religious atmosphere. Catholic family at the
Andres' family is a typical example of a Spanish end of last century, and Philip lives with
uncle who is a reverend.
his
I n both cases Religion is imposed on them;
they have no choice b u t to follow the doctrines of the religion their relatives believe i n ; and that is what they do i n their childhood. At that age nobody asks questions, you believe what you are told. The most one can do is dislike what one sees; and this they both do. Andres is never a real believer, since his h u r r i e d f i r s t confession at an early age had a great effect on him. Soon a f t e r this he starts not
to attend Mass. All the references to religion i n the novel are negative ones:
'Eres u n verdadero catolico- le decla Andres- te has fabricado el mas comodo de los mundos' ("You are a real catholic- Andres told him- you have created f o r yourself the most comfortable of w o r l d s ' ) l l .
Priests do not escape from his criticism , either:
'Yo no puedo seguir asi. No voy a tener mas remedio que lanzarme a la calle a decir misa en todas partes y tragarme todos los dias catorce hostias' ( ' I cannot go on like this. I won't be able to help going out onto the street to say Mass everywhere and swallowing fourteen wafers every day') 12.
Andres never looks f o r refuge i n Religion. The attack is always against the i n s t i t u t i o n itself, never against Faith. Philip's case is d i f f e r e n t ; Andres merely lives i n a Catholic family, Philip has Religion at home at all times. From an early age he realizes that being a believer is not always pleasant:
He was beginning to realize that he was the creature of a God who appreciated the discomfort of his worshipperslS.
Although as a child he s u f f e r s from having to accept the dictates of the Church, and although he is not blind to its contradictions:
He had learned already that i n the Bible things that said one thing quite clearly often mysteriously meant another 14,
he has f a i t h i n i t and expects his f a i t h to help him with his misfortune. At one point he even considers dedicating his life to the service of God:
He wanted to surrender himself entirely to the service of God, and he made up his mind definitely that he would be ordainedl5.
Philip's disenchantment with religion comes as a result of a series of
factors.
The
first
one
is
the
failure of
religion
to
fulfil
his
expectations. I t never comes to his rescue. I f he did not s u f f e r from a club-foot his life at school would not be so miserable, so he prays f o r i t to be cured. I t is not, and then the shock is quite an important one. Another important factor is the way i n which Philip is taught to consider Religion. I t is something to be feared:
Mr. Watson read prayers i n an impressive manner, and the supplications thundered out i n his loud voice as though they were threats personally addressed to each boy 16.
He absorbed insensibly the feeling about him that the Tempter was ever on the watch to gain his immortal soull7.
Related to this is the fact that he is made to beheve that:
the unbeliever was a wicked and vicious manl8.
and as he grows up he realizes that
i t was evidently possible to be virtuous and unbelievingl9.
However, what is really going to make him open his eyes is to see the behaviour of his uncle, the Reverend:
black stove [...] lighted i f the weather was v e r y bad and the Vicar had a cold. I t was not lighted i f Mrs. Carey had a cold20,
or
when her husband wanted a holiday, since there was not money f o r two, he went by himself21.
I f he, who should give example and who is the representative of what
he
preaches,
behaves i n
such
a
way, Faith cannot really
be
anything w o r t h bothering about. And f i n a l l y , the
bad treatment
Philip receives
at school, where
there exists a v e r y religious tone, also contributes v e r y much to his rejection of Faith. When Andres is seen f o r the f i r s t time, he has already decided what he wants to be: a doctor. Philip will also come to decide the same t h i n g , but a f t e r having t r i e d other things f i r s t . Thus, a f t e r r e t u r n i n g f r o m Germany, he goes to work i n London f o r a while and then, goes to Paris to study art. A l l these comings and
goings are
going to help
Philip to mature and to see that life is the same everywhere. The life of these bohemian a r t students
is as miserable as his was i n Blackstable.
He starts wondering now what is wrong with life, whether i t has any
meaning. Once again his idealistic plans f o r the f u t u r e have failed. He expected the life of the a r t students i n Paris to be similar to
what he
had read i n books, and the contrast makes i t even more miserable. Disillusioned, he
goes back
home and
starts
his training
as
a
doctor. I t is not that he , particularly, wants to be a doctor, but he has to do something and medicine is what he dislikes least. His decision to become a doctor is another way he tries of coming to terms with life . All his dreams
of intellectuality, of boheraian life, of t r y i n g
to f i n d
abroad what he could not f i n d at home, have failed. He is more down tc earth now and tries an easier way out. El arbol
de la ciencia,
day Andres attends
as I have said before, starts with the f i r s t
lectures at the University. Thus, i t is not known
what has made him decide to be a doctor. All that is stated is :
Cuando concluyo el bachillerato se decidio a estudiar Medicina sin consultar a nadie. (When he finished his Alevels he decided to study Medicine without consulting anybody)22.
Although, like Philip, one could suspect he might have done other things, since he does not really like what he is doing :
- I t u r r i o z : ' ^Tienes aficion a la carrera?'. -Andres: ' Muy poca'. (-Ituri'ioz: 'Are you keen on your studies?'. -Andres: 'Very little')23.
Andres wanders
does
about
not
doing
act,
he
nothing to
is
simply change
dissatisfied with i t . He does
life
and
not show
any
interest i n his studies , not even i n anything else, either. However, life
does not seem to treat him as badly as i t does Philip. Hurtado gets his degree without much d i f f i c u l t y , and is soon given a post as a doctor in a village. The only t h i n g he can really complain about is his family, i n whom he does not f i n d any support. Yet, even i n his family he finds people
whom he loves:
his younger
brother,
Luisito,
and
his
sister
Margarita. I f he really wanted he would be able to f i n d i n his sister a substitute f o r his mother. The only bad experience he has, apart from the death of his mother, is the death of his younger brother. Much as he loved Luisito , yet, when he learns of his death he cannot feel too much pain; due, as Mary Lee Bretz suggests, to Andres' attitude:
Se crea un aislamiento comodo, impermeable al sufrimiento ajeno (He creates f o r himself a comfortable isolation, insensitive to the s u f f e r i n g of the others)24.
I n Andres I cannot Bondage
see
what
I f i n d i n Philip. I n Of Human
the reader accompanies the hero i n his search f o r the meaning
of life. He only falls to a state similar to Andres' when he loses all his money and has to give up his studies. Only then does he feel completely lost. And i n this case only he is to blame f o r having wanted to force a relationship with Mildred which from the v e r y beginning he saw was only h u r t i n g
him. However, and as
previous chapters
I have
mentioned i n one of the
, this attitude is due to the lack of love i n his life
and to his absurd pride. I n Philip there is a struggle to come to terms v;ith life. He is, and has
always been,
an outsider;
however, and like most outsiders,
he
wants to stop being one25, he wants to integrate into society. He envies people because they are happy and he is not:
He looked at the people walking about and envied them because they had f r i e n d s ; sometimes his envy turned to hatred because they were happy and he was miserable26.
They live i n the same world as him, and yet they are happy. How can i t be so? . Have they found the meaning of life?. Philip has travelled and has seen that there are a lot of miserable people i n this world and that there are also others, like his uncle, who make the world not a v e r y nice place to live i n . However, he has also seen happy people, usually poor, plain people, like the Athelnys and Norah, who have managed to make of t h e i r lives something worth living for. Finally he comes to solve the riddle of the Persian r u g , which his f r i e n d Cronshaw had told him contained the answer to the question of the meaning of life. But he had also told him that
it's worthless unless you yourself discover it27.
At long last he comes to discover i t :
There was no meaning i n life, and man by living served no end [...] Life was insignificant and death without consequence [...] His insignificance was t u r n e d to power, and he f e l t himself suddenly equal with the cruel fate which had seemed to persecute him; f o r , i f life was meaningless, the world was robbed of its cruelty. Failure was unimportant and success amounted to nothing28.
This sounds v e r y Nietzschean, and not s u r p r i s i n g l y since, as we have
already
seen,
Maugham's works.
Nietzsche's
philosophy is v e r y
much present
in
Philip had spent all his life searching f o r happiness and as
he
could not f i n d i t his life was miserable. But now he comes to see that, now he is happy
life might be m.easured by mattered as little as pain29.
something
else.
Happiness
From now on he is not going to ask, he is not going to expect, anything extraordinary from life. Life is not going to give him anything; if he wants his life to be something good, i t is he who will have to make an e f f o r t to get i t . He has come to learn that your life is what you make of i t . Life is the same f o r everybody; i t depends on the pattern you make of i t f o r your life to be happy or miserable. He finishes his studies
and is given his f i r s t post as a doctor;
however, he is decided to give i t up to go on travelling and chasing an ideal f u t u r e which he knows will never come true. Unconsciously, he is still looking f o r the happiness he had always wanted to f i n d ; but he seems to be still l i v i n g i n a world of dreams:
He had no ties i n England, no f r i e n d s ; he could go up and down the world f o r years, learning the beauty and the wonder and the variedness of lifeSO.
At the v e r y end of the novel, with his proposal of marriage to Sally, he comes to accept that
the simplest pattern, that i n which a man was born, worked, married, had children, and died, was likewise the most perfect?31.
However, his marriage is not another ideal dream; he does not go to i t w i t h the idea of a b l i s s f u l happiness. He knows he does not love Sally, what he feels f o r her is only loving-kindness but that
promises
more than passion, f o r when passion finishes there is nothing left, lis comes to realize that what makes him t h i n k of marriage is
the desire f o r a wife and a home and love. He v.-anted all that more than anything i n the world32.
He can no longer confront
the loneliness and the tempestSS.
He is
down to earth now, he
has
given up all his dreams of
greatness, of extraordinariness, but as he realizes at the end:
I t might be that to surrender to happiness was to accept defeat, b u t i t was a defeat better than many victories 34.
Andres' case is completely d i f f e r e n t from Philip's. Like the latter, he also wonders about life :
Uno tiene la angustia, la desesperacion de no saber que hacer con la vida, de no tener un plan, de encontrarse perdido, sin b r u j u l a , sin luz donde dirigirse. iQue se hace con la vida? iQue direccion se le da? (One has the agony, the despair of not knowing what to do with life, of not having a plan, of f i n d i n g himself lost, without a compass, without a l i g h t where to direct one's steps. What can one do w i t h life?. What direction can we give to it?)35.
And as Wilson would say36:
the man who is interested to know how he should live instead of merely taking life as i t comes, is automatically an Outsider.
Andres' problem is his inactivity; he does not seem to want to belong to his society. Contrary to what happened with Philip, w^e never see him envying anybody f o r his/her happiness. I t seems that there is nobody happy i n this world. Philip had his dreams of an ideal world; Andres not even this. He resorts to Science as a salvation
but i t fails him. According to him
'la filosofia [...] le convence a uno de que lo m.ejor es no hacer nada' ('philosophy[...] convinces one that the best thing is to do nothing')37.
and that is how he behaves. What we f i n d i n this attitude is the notion of
ataraxia
which
was
so
important i n
Schopenhauerian attitude, a pessimistic
Baroja's
production.
I t is
a
view of life. His uncle I t u r r i o z
warns him of the dangers of such an attitude, of taking Science as the solution f o r the riddle of life:
No comais del arbol de la ciencia, porque ese f r u t o agrio os dara una tendencia a mejorar que os destruira (Do not eat from the tree of science, because that bitter f r u i t will give you a tendency to improve yourselves which will destroy you)38.
I t u r r i o z is more i n favour of Kant's philosophy , of the idea of combining the
tree
of life with
the
tree of Science; Schopenhauer
,
however,
'aparta esa rama (de la ciencia) y la vida aparece como una cosa oscura y ciega, potente y jugosa sin justicia, sin bondad, sin f i n ' ('removes that bi-anch (of science) and life appears like an obscure, blind t h i n g , powerful and succulent without justice, without goodness, without end')39.
I t u r r i o z is as sceptical of a possibility of f i n d i n g a solution to the problem of the present world as Andres or even Schopenhauer are:
'i,Y para que descomponer la scciedad?.
