LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 20:3 March 2020
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

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Somerset Maugham:
Mirroring Human Life and Human Weaknesses

Dr. C. Ramya, M.B.A., M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.

Somerset
Courtesy: Maugham photographed by Carl Van Vechten in 1934
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Somerset_Maugham

Abstract

This paper tries to present Somerset Maugham neither as an idealist nor a moralist but a realist who mirrors ‘human life and human weaknesses’ to the core. This paper analyses how he excelled his contemporaries in his varied and picturesque narration of characters. Thus, this paper projects how Maugham by his elaborate narration, simple style, lucid and euphonic dialogues and ironic endings, displayed himself as a realist in mirroring life and human weakness.

Keywords: Somerset Maugham, Realistic, human values, sufferings, humanistic, narration, characterization.

It is generally understood and accepted that William Somerset Maugham is a popular playwright, a well-known short story writer and an entertaining novelist of the twentieth century. Due to the death of his mother in 1882 and father in 1884, he lived like an orphan. During his school days, he read and observed his fellow human beings and he suffered from the whips and scorns of the teaching faculty. Whatever the problems at school might be, Maugham developed his power of observation ever since he entered the school. Such was his power of observation that he related his experience admirably. As Curtis puts it, “He soon discovered where his real power lay, in the accuracy of his insights. If I suggested wounds, he was capable of inflicting them. His tongue was sharp if not, sharper than anyone’s” (P 35).

Maugham learnt German, attended Kuno Fisher’s lectures at the University of Heidelberg, saw performances of Ibsen and listened to Wagner. As he was a voracious reader, his reading broadened and expanded as little drops of water that make a mighty ocean. He read Fielding, Meredith, Swinburne, Verlanie, Pater, Matthew Arnold, Dante and Fitzgerald’s Omar Khayyam. Maugham did suffer, despite of all his reading, loneliness to a great extent. This affected his personality considerably. Though he received his MD degree, he had no intention to practise. He wanted to be a writer and so he chose his career himself. He started to consider about man at the age of twenty-five and he wanted to find out solutions for his troubled personality which was affected with the problems of good and evil and the immortality of the soul. He was continuously babbled and bewildered with problems till the end of his life. His first successful novel is Cakes and Ale. His craftsmanship as a narrator began to improve then. Of Human Bondage seems to be his master-piece. His philosophical novel The Razor’s Edge attracted the attention of his readers by his skilful narrative technique. It was considered as a prelude to the narrator’s conversational style.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Dr. C. Ramya, M.B.A., M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.
Asst. Professor, Department of English
E.M.G. Yadava College
Madurai – 625 014
rramyachelliah@gmail.com
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