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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.
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W. Somerset Maugham and a philosophy of life Linares, Francisca Sempere

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Linares, Francisca Sempere (1992)

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Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, 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?.