William Somerset Maugham: An Intermingling of Life and Literature
A veteran English playwright, novelist, and short story writer, William Somerset Maugham, distinguished himself in the art of story-telling through his lucidity and straightforwardness. A keen observant, Maugham was able to spot the extraordinary lying behind the commonest.
Maugham’s mother Edith Mary had tuberculosis and was prescribed childbirth by the then doctors as a cure. Consequently, Maugham had three older brothers. Robert Ormond Maugham, Maugham’s father, a prominent English lawyer, used to handle the legal matters of the British embassy in Paris, France. He planned for the birth of Maugham to be at the embassy to save him from any possible conscription for military service as declared by the French law that all children born on French land could be conscripted for French wars. Thus, Jan. 25, 1874 brought Maugham to this earth. But, fortune did not favour him much longer, and he was orphaned at the age of 10. Willie was taken into custody of his uncle Henry MacDonald Maugham, the vicar of Whitstable, Kent.
The pernicious move showed the indifferent and implacable attitude of Henry Maugham as well as the unfriendly ambience of The King’s School, Canterbury. While being a boarder at the school, Maugham developed occasional stammer. Besides, he had short stature, which he inherited from his father. As French was his first language, he was not skilled in English. For these, he was teased. He could hardly express his feelings and emotions as he was prohibited to do so. Hence, a calm but curious child, Maugham, experienced a miserable life both at the vicarage and the school. But the very misfortune paved the way to his successful writings, especially his character-sketching full of sharp comments to those who hurt and disappointed him.
At the age of 16 on Maugham’s refusal to continue at The King’s School, his uncle permitted him to travel to Germany where he became interested in German literature and philosophy. He studied those at the Heidelberg University.
When he came back to England, Maugham’s uncle found a job for him at an accountant’s office. And Maugham left it after a month, which was quite complaining for his uncle, who was worried about Maugham’s profession. His stammering voice did not work for a church minister, and his uncle did not consider the civil service suitable for a gentleman like Maugham as entrants required to qualify in the examination. At the end of the day, Maugham’s uncle unwillingly approved the local doctor’s suggestion for Maugham to go for the medical profession.
Consequently, Maugham concentrated on earning the MBBS and spent the next five years in London as a medic.
Man proposes and God disposes. Since he reached 15, Maugham started writing unwaveringly. He was destined to become a prominent literary figure although his grandfather, father, and three older brothers enjoyed a distinctive legal career.
Some of his readers and critics opine that all his medical endeavours go futile in respect of producing literary outcome, while reality lies in contrary to this assumption. In 1897, Maugham master-crafted ‘Liza of Lambeth’- a summation of his experiences as a medical student engaged in midwifery in Lambeth, a slum in South London.
His utterances quite close to the opening of the novel leave a lingering impression, “…it is impossible always to give the exact unexpurgated words of Liza and the other personages of the story; the reader is therefore entreated with his thoughts to piece out the necessary imperfections of the dialogue.”
In fact, Maugham did not miss even a single opportunity that life provided him with to prove his works as literary excellence. He utilized what experiences taught him. He realized how sickness made people succumb to hostility. He felt the helplessness of people fast-approaching to death. As he remembered the significance of his life as a medical student, “I saw how men died. I saw how they bore pain. I saw what hope looked like, fear and relief…” And his realization helped him a lot in story-telling. Literature mirrors life after all!
For the next decade, he remained the ceaseless traveller to places like Spain and Capri. And the peerless fascination of ‘Liza of Lambeth’ was shared by the production of his play ‘Lady Frederick’ in 1907. The principle character of Maugham’s supernatural thriller ‘The Magician’ (1908) is based on Aleister Crowley, the widely known English occultist, poet, novelist, and mountaineer, who was offended at Maugham’s treatment of Oliver Haddo, his caricature. Crowley evaluated the novel and accused Maugham of plagiarism. ‘Vanity Fair’ published the write-up in a review although Maugham outlived the appraisal.
Autobiographical elements reign in many of Maugham’s works as is reflected in Of Human Bondage, where the vicar of Blackstable and Philip Carey are based on the vicar of Whitstable and a medical student respectively.
Both England and the US badly criticized Of Human Bondage. The passion of its leading character Philip Carey was outlined by the New York World as “the sentimental servitude of a poor fool.” It was Theodore Dreiser, an eminent American novelist and critic, who considered the novel as a work of genius and compared it to Beethoven music of excellence full of symphony thus saving the reputation of both Maugham and Of Human Bondage.
The piece is also remarkable for the close relationship between the fictional and the nonfictional elements, which is also a dominating feature of Maugham’s writing. He confessed in 1938, “Fact and fiction are so intermingled in my work that now, looking back on it, I can hardly distinguish one from the other.”
Maugham’s spying experiences nurtured his short story collection Ashenden: Or the British Agent speaking of a spy, who is courteous, knowledgeable, and withdrawn at the same time. Later, Ian Fleming’s series of ‘James Bond’ novels are said to have been influenced by this character.
Maugham’s travel experiences boosted his writing a lot. His The Moon and Sixpence is developed much by his journey that undertook in 1916. The story derived its inspiration from the life of Eugene Henry Paul Gaguin, a 19th century French post-impressionist artist, who enjoyed a distinguishing career of experimental art and style.
On A Chinese Screen, a collection of vignettes sketches that might have been arranged for the unwritten stories, owes much to Maugham’s 1920 travel experiences through China and Hong Kong. His proficiency as the inter-war period travel writer is best reflected in his The Gentleman in the Parlour, portraiture of the journey through Burma, Siam, Cambodia, and Vietnam.
The absolute impact of colonialism in India, Southeast Asia, China, and the Pacific largely enhanced his literary career. He spent the most of the rest of his life at his Villa La Mauresque on 3.6 hectares at Cap Ferrat on the French Riviera, which he bought in 1926. It became the hosting place for one of the great literary and social gatherings in between 1920–30s.
Maugham’s Cakes and Ale derived its inspiration for characterization from Thomas Hardy and Hugh Walpole although in a long letter to Walpole, Maugham clarified the situation, “I certainly never intended Alroy Kear to be a portrait of you. He’s made up of a dozen people and the greater part of him is myself.” But, his self-contradictory nature is clearly visible in the introduction, which he wrote for the 1950 Modern Library edition of the work, where he put his acknowledgment to Walpole as the inspiration for Kear, although he opposed that Thomas Hardy inspired the novelist Driffield.
Maugham’s last significant novel The Razor’s Edge set in Europe deals with the American characters. It depicts the disappointment of the protagonist veteran of World War I renouncing his wealthy friends and lifestyle. He travelled to India in search for enlightenment. Readers during the World War II were drawn towards the story mainly for its themes of war-exhaustion and the Eastern approach of spiritual apprehension of knowledge inaccessible to the intellect. The story released as a motion picture in 1946 and again in 1984.
His plain style, cosmopolitan settings, and profound understanding of human nature flavoured his works including his short stories. Maugham presented man’s quest for happiness as a theme in his short story ‘The Lotus Eater’, which is a perfect blend of his usage of foreshadow, irony, contrast, and simile. Images are wonderfully drawn through simple but significant wording as appears in, ‘He has grey hair and his face was burnt brown by the sun’ or ‘I could see the red smoke coming from the top of the Vesuvius.’
Symbolism is also vital in the story, where ‘moon’ and ‘moonlight’ may stand for calmness, tranquility, and peacefulness. Apparently, the moon is beautiful but it has also harshness. Maugham depicts irrationality too through the moon at the same time.
Maugham’s third person narration ‘The Verger’ presents appearance, opportunity, dedication, independence, and humility. He is a little bit different while opting for wealth, appreciation, loss, racism, bitterness, arrogance, and fear in ‘The Taipan’, where the protagonist enjoys earning money although he does not appreciate the life he leads. This is also a third person narration accompanied by symbolism inducing a frightful dream that the protagonist sees the native labourers digging his own grave. The dream-grave may symbolize that he actually dies; he also writes a letter to let others know that he wishes to be buried back to his home in England. Finally, the protagonist is an ordinary man feverish with fear fostering the hope that his family should visit his grave in England, his dear home sheltering his memories. On the other hand, he has showed nothing but arrogance towards people in China, his business place. In ‘The Promise’, Maugham thematised independence, strength, courage, love, honesty, change, and acceptance. Here, Maugham presents the protagonist Lady Elizabeth as a strong and independent woman, who never submitted to social inclinations.
Readers are drawn towards Maugham’s ‘The Escape’ by its illustration of pity, dishonesty, escape, selfishness, dignity, and freedom. This first person narration sketches Ruth as a person having priority concern about her own requirements. The story ends up in presenting Roger as a free man. Maugham’s another first person narration ‘The Ant and the Grasshopper’ nurtured by the themes of justice, trust, fear, morality, embarrassment, happiness, and struggle presents main characters George and Tom as the ‘Ant’ and the ‘Grasshopper’ respectively. Undoubtedly, Tom is depicted here as a selfish person caring for his own happiness even at others’ expense; he never looks attentively at others. In comparison to this, Maugham depicted the protagonist in ‘Salvatore’ as much more responsible and dignified. Salvatore represents calmness and patience. He is not grumbling, instead happy with what life has put him in. He is blessed with the ability to find joy in the simple thing like bathing his children in the sea. He works as if to indicate how Maugham projected every fraction of practical experiences into his stories.
Maugham, the hair-splitter of human psychology, arranged for the plots and treated the characters presenting appearance, class, jealousy, materialism, equality, independence, morality, letting go, respect, connection, doubt, and honesty as he did in his two short stories- one is ‘A String of Beads’, and the other is ‘Home’. Maugham’s ‘Mr. Know-All’ throws insights into contempt, control, honour, change, ego, appearance, and honesty.
Maugham’s other notable works are The Hero, Mrs. Craddock, The Merry-Go-Round, The Explorer, The Trembling of a Leaf, and The Painted Veil.
Maugham founded the Somerset Maugham Award for the best British fiction writer/writers under the age of 35 for his/her work published in the previous year.
Anthony Burgess and Ian Fleming acknowledged Maugham’s work as the inspiration for their works Earthy Powers and Quantum of Solace respectively. George Orwell confessed that Maugham was “the modern writer who has influenced me the most, whom I admire immensely for his power of telling a story straightforwardly and without frills.”
Personally Maugham lost much but artistically gained more though life “isn’t long enough for love and art” (The Moon and Sixpence, Chapter 21).
