HÌNH ẢNH NGƯỜI PHỤ NỮ TRONG TRUYỆN NGẮN CỦA WILLIAM SOMMERSET MAUGHAM - THE IMAGE OF WOMEN IN WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM’S SHORT STORIES

William Somerset Maugham was a British playwright, novelist and short story writer. He was among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest paid author during the 1930s. He devoted his whole life to literature with a legacy of numerous works. Maugham achieved success such fields as novels, plays and short stories. The history of English literature dignified him as the eminent writer of the novel. In addition, with famous author such as James Joyce, Rudyard Kipling, Katherine Mansfield and so on, Maugham was recognized as the shortstory statue in the early twentieth century in English literature. These short stories were considered as epitome of traditional art writing. Maugham’s short stories: The luncheon, The escape, Mr know all, The letter, Rain etc. were always on the anthology of typical works in the world. In his contemporary time, the talent of Maugham was not highly appreciated by literary critics, he even had to deal with negative comments and sarcastic remarks because he followed traditional writing while English literature at that time expected a new trend of writing style. However, when “literature fever” passed by, the true values still existed with time. The talent and value of Maugham’s works were gradually recognized and attracted generations of readers in the world and gained the high appraisement of the critics. So far, there have been many worthy studies focusing on Maugham’s novels. However, there is a fact existing in literature approaches is that readers and critics mainly pay attention to famous novels but show little concern about short stories the genre that brings the success to this English writer. Several anthropology books and websites introduce Maugham’s works; however, they do not absolutely approach and deeply evaluate the values of his writing. Maugham’s short stories seem to be the potential land for researchers to explore. Today, there have been studies about Maugham’s short stories in several aspects including time and space reflected in his works, human nature and so on. Most articles by critics about Maugham’s short stories are collected in the book “The legacy of critics”. For instance, Yue conducted a study on W. Somerset Maugham and his use of the Chinese landscape as a means to forward his views on this issue. His papers pointed out the significance of landscape depiction in Maugham narratives and considered its relevance to the understanding of Maugham as an antiimperialist writer. This article would be more persuasive if Yue can combine the analysis of the landscape with the characters as well as Chinese culture. The lack of characters analysis leads to the superficial content. At the University of International Language and Studies, there are only two studies about Maugham, but both of them analyze the two famous novels “The moon and sixpence” and “The Human Bondage”. In his short stories, the depiction of women is usually distorted with satire attitude. This drives the researcher to conduct a study on “The portrayal of women in Maugham’s short stories”.

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

GRADUATION PAPER

THE IMAGE OF WOMEN IN WILLIAM SOMERSET

MAUGHAM’S SHORT STORIES

Supervisor:Đỗ Thu Hương Student:Nguyễn Mỹ Linh Course: QH2010.F1.E1

HÀ NỘI - 2014

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮKHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

HÌNH ẢNH NGƯỜI PHỤ NỮ TRONG TRUYỆN NGẮN

CỦA WILLIAM SOMMERSET MAUGHAM

Giáoviênhướngdẫn:Đỗ Thu Hương Sinhviên:Nguyễn Mỹ Linh

Khóa: QH2010.F1.E1

HÀ NỘI - 2014

I hereby state that I: Nguyen My Linh from 10.E1, being a candidate for the degree

of Bachelor of Arts ( TEFL) accept the requirements of the university relating to theretention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in thelibrary should be accessible for the purpose of study and research, in accordance withthe normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction ofthe paper

Signature

This thesis could not be completed without the wholehearted assistance andencouragement from many people I would like to take this opportunity to thank all ofthem

I would like to express my deep gratitude to Mrs Đỗ Thu Hương, M.A for herstimulating suggestions and critical comments since the beginning to the end of thestudy

Also, I want to offer my sincere thanks to my family and my friends who alwaysgive me support to finish my thesis

As an attempt to contribute to gaining more insights into Maugham’s works, thisresearch aims to investigate the portrayal of women at the early twentieth centurydepicted in his short stories Specifically, the study focuses on both similar anddifferent characteristics amongst the female characters in the five short stories Theyhave three main similar characteristics including selfishness, hypocrisy and adultery.Besides, the attitude of the writer, Maugham on these characters is also analyzed based

on moral aspects and humanistic viewpoints

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Statement of research question 1

2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

3 Significance of the study 2

4 The scope of the study 3

5 Research methodology 3

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1 Critics and related studies on Maugham’s work 4

2 The images of women in the English society in the early twenties 7

2.1 The English society in the early twenties 7

2.2 Women in the English society in the early twenties 8

3 The portrayal of women in English literature 8

Chapter 3: WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM AND HIS SHORT STORIES 11

1 William Somerset Maugham 11

2 Maugham’s short stories 13

2.1 The luncheon 13

2.2 The promise 14

2.3 Louise 14

2.4 The letter 15

2.5 The judgment seat 16

Chapter 4: DEVELOPMENT 17

1 The portrayal of women in Maugham’s short stories 17

1.1 Selfishness 17

1.2 Hypocrisy 19

1.3 Adultery 24

1.4 Other characteristics 27

2 The attitude of Maugham towards female characters in his stories 28

2.1 The attitude of Maugham based on moral aspects 28

2.2 The attitude of Maugham based on humanistic viewpoints 33

Chapter 5: CONCLUSION 36

1 Conclusion 36

2 Limitation of the study 38

3 Recommendation for further study 39

REFERENCE 40

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1 Statement of research question

William Somerset Maugham was a British playwright, novelist and short storywriter He was among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highestpaid author during the 1930s He devoted his whole life to literature with a legacy ofnumerous works Maugham achieved success such fields as novels, plays and shortstories The history of English literature dignified him as the eminent writer of thenovel In addition, with famous author such as James Joyce, Rudyard Kipling,Katherine Mansfield and so on, Maugham was recognized as the short-story statue inthe early twentieth century in English literature These short stories were considered asepitome of traditional art writing Maugham’s short stories: The luncheon, The escape,

Mr know all, The letter, Rain etc were always on the anthology of typical works in theworld In his contemporary time, the talent of Maugham was not highly appreciated byliterary critics, he even had to deal with negative comments and sarcastic remarksbecause he followed traditional writing while English literature at that time expected anew trend of writing style However, when “literature fever” passed by, the true valuesstill existed with time The talent and value of Maugham’s works were graduallyrecognized and attracted generations of readers in the world and gained the highappraisement of the critics So far, there have been many worthy studies focusing onMaugham’s novels However, there is a fact existing in literature approaches is thatreaders and critics mainly pay attention to famous novels but show little concernabout short stories- the genre that brings the success to this English writer Severalanthropology books and websites introduce Maugham’s works; however, they do notabsolutely approach and deeply evaluate the values of his writing Maugham’s shortstories seem to be the potential land for researchers to explore

Today, there have been studies about Maugham’s short stories in several aspectsincluding time and space reflected in his works, human nature and so on Most articles

by critics about Maugham’s short stories are collected in the book “The legacy of

critics” For instance, Yue conducted a study on W Somerset Maugham and his use ofthe Chinese landscape as a means to forward his views on this issue His paperspointed out the significance of landscape depiction in Maugham narratives andconsidered its relevance to the understanding of Maugham as an anti-imperialistwriter This article would be more persuasive if Yue can combine the analysis of thelandscape with the characters as well as Chinese culture The lack of charactersanalysis leads to the superficial content

At the University of International Language and Studies, there are only two studiesabout Maugham, but both of them analyze the two famous novels “The moon andsixpence” and “The Human Bondage” In his short stories, the depiction of women isusually distorted with satire attitude This drives the researcher to conduct a study on

“The portrayal of women in Maugham’s short stories”

2 Aims and objectives of the study

This thesis aims at investigating the portrayal of women in Maugham’s shortstories Consequently, the researcher also hopes to explore the reason why thesefemale characters are described like that By analyzing these points, this thesis isexpected to reveal Maugham’s attitude to women To achieve these aims, theresearcher carries out the study to address the following questions:

 What are the typical portrayals of women in Maugham’s short stories?

 What is the attitude of Maugham to women?

3 Significance of the study

The researcher hopes that this thesis will help explore in details the contents ofMaugham’s short stories by analyzing his female characters It is due to the fact thatMaugham’s work are considered as one of the greatest masterpieces of the twentiethcentury short-stories in the world, while, the studies on his writing is rather limited.Therefore, this thesis expects to provide more information and data as well as a newoutlook on the topic of “women” for who recognize Maugham’s short stories In

general, the researcher expects that this thesis will provide useful references forstudents at ULIS who have to study Maugham’s works in the syllabus of the subject

“English Literature”

4 The scope of the study

The characters in Maugham’s short stories are various but this thesis just focuses

on female characters In addition, there are hundreds of short stories in Maugham’slegacy, however, the researcher only explores the five main short stories including:The luncheon, Louise, The letter, The judgment seat and The promise

5 Research methodology

This thesis will implement methods of interpreting and comparing or contrastingprimary sources The researcher will also use biographical and historical materials inorder to understand the social settings mentioned by critics In addition, analyzing andevaluating the viewpoints of the critics are also another way for me to conduct thisresearch on Maugham’s short stories By studying the comments of the critics, theresearcher will grasp their viewpoints and examine whether they are reliable opinions

or just their subjective ones

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

1 Critics and related studies on Maugham’s work

According to Murphy (p.379), throughout a career which lasted more than fivedecades of commercial and artistic success, raging debate revolved about the quality of

W Somerset Maugham’s work and the nature of his character Several famous criticscavalierly dismissed Maugham’s masterpieces Edmund Wilson, for instance, oncecommented, “I have never been able to convince myself that he was anything butsecond-rate,” while others, among them Carl and Mark Van Doren and ChristopherIsherwood, have respected Maugham and highly appreciated Maugham’s work Thedebate has become difficult to understand by the strict control which the well-knownauthor exerted over his personal and professional relations The critic and biographerRobert Calder has proposed, “Willie’s Maugham, the man, was an enigma: W.Somerset Maugham, the literary artists, remains a mystery.” Calder (1989) makes abig effort to settle these questions by finding a logical connection among all ofMaugham’s works to his main themes Despite being hindered by a common tendencyamong Maugham’s critics to firmly link the writer’s work to biography, Calder’simportant study is totally different It conveys almost necessary information aboutMaugham, which seems to be the most complete and unified opus However,combinations of biographical and New Critical approaches that make Calder’s workseem conservative today Murphy (2000, p.379) remarked, “Maugham’s tendency toadapt the topic of his writing to whatever style was dominant at the time” Therefore

an unsatisfied statement frequently raised by those who would reject his work-isconsidered as “incidental to the powerful unifying theme of a quest for freedom”,Murphy ( 2000, p.379) Calder disputes that this freedom is the freedom to neglectsociety’s criticism, which in Maugham’s last great work, The Razor’s Edge, is seen asthe probability of freedom from desire and identity Besides based on the biography ofMaugham to analyze and give criticism on his works, many critics find out common

themes in Maugham’s masterpieces, usually novels to analyze his style of writing and

P Bayapa Reddy is an example

As Reddy ( 2008, p.25) writes in his book “ Aspects of Contemporary WorldLiterature”, “ An X-ray or MRI of Maugham’s world can outline a still anatomy forwriters who believe in human nature, a stubborn and obdurate social environment, and

a cosmos based on traditional religion” Joseph Epstein states the main point in hisarticle “Is it all right to read Somerset Maugham?” He makes effort to protectMaugham’s reputation by naming some impressive supporters, by proving that withoutMaugham’s concept of “Human nature”, the world collapses As Joseph Epsteinremarks, Maugham highly emphasizes on “Human nature” in his works Nevertheless,the viewpoint of “human nature” was not fairly appropriated in the intellectual history

in Maugham’s time Besides, Reddy (2008, p.26) also claimed that another essentialelement in Maugham’s work is “his ability to observe a real world” This createsspecial attraction of Maugham’s words to the reader and is the key point for the critics

to re-evaluate him Throughout his writing, Maugham contributes to helping readers

go beyond the restrictions of “city caverns, village two paths or suburban malls” andtake them to his worldliness of “ocean line or sampan“ According to Reddy (2008,p.26), one thing that cannot be forgotten when referring to Maugham is his plain stylewith his famous priority of “lucidity, simplicity, and euphony” like his equivalentworldview Reddy (2008, p.26) states that “Maugham’s sturdy, deceptively lyrical andpainterly style serves him well as a travel writer and a writer who travels (closer towhat he does)” It seems that he gives the reader the camera to record the “visualimpression” but what he observes tend to be much better and more vivid than others Because of the faithfulness in reflecting reality, “Maugham casts a cold eye onhimself as observer and his character”, Reddy (2008, p.26) He is basically opposed toRomanticism and makes himself and his experience to be representative Closer toDefoe than Wordsworth, he controls the role of the self-observer in order to prevent itfrom becoming over indulgent Maugham makes himself the civil and cordial

converser he failed often enough to be in life In writing, he succeeded in dealing withhis stutter and his unbridled passions He compelled himself to speak for, and toobserve common humanity The reader can understand his social intelligence, not hispeculiar desires This is at once a valuable thing and legal responsibility, particularly

in Maugham’s travel writing Maugham specializes, in his illustration in “On aChinese Screen”, on finding “types,” although types belong to the author’s subject tospecific pressures Maugham is not stressed on in uniqueness of character but he wants

to show the nature of the human being to be illustrated on certain conditions

In addition to common themes P Reddy (2008) finds out about Maugham’s work,Askew (2012) explores that a plenty of Maugham’s plays describe love and marriage

as “suffocating” It implies that passion is degraded by marriage relationship and isliberated from the traditional ideas about social and sexual behavior For Maughamemploys metaphor to express the change from safe, traditional and obviously boringmarriage to unorthodox, liberating passion by means of elopement, flight and travel

“The Moon and Sixpence” portrays the character Charles Strickland who runs awayfrom his family and peruses his passion of art and bohemian lifestyle Meanwhile,Philip Carey in “Of Human Bondage” coming from the respectable middle classchooses to travel as a way to escape from the reality

It seems that the critics mainly focus on the biography of Maugham and his known novels but his unique short-stories have not been investigated deeply.However, the critics contribute to guiding the researcher to conduct a research acommon themes in Maugham’s work including human nature and adulterous affair aswell as his style of “being faithful to reality” Thanks to that, the researcher wouldhave an overall view to base on in the process of finding the similarity and differencesamongst the female characters in his short stories There are several studies aboutMaugham’s short stories but they are just related to his style and colonial life Forexample, Victoria Condrat conducts a research on Intersexuality in William SomersetMaugham short story, “A friend in need” Based on only one short story while there

well-were has been no study thorough on Maugham’s short stories in general Therefore,the researcher expects to become a pioneer to explore a new topic on the portrayal ofwomen in Maugham’s short stories

2 The images of women in the English society in the early twenties

2.1 The English society in the early twenties

According to Wilson (1995, p.301), at the dawn of the twentieth century, the factthat King Edward was the heir to the throne ended Victoria era and brought new things

to the English society Edwardian era was recognized by the important changes inpolitics as it was the time when women and the working class had opportunities tobecome increasingly involved in political activities This was a significant eventbecause in the past, they were rejected from exercising power

Despite great changes, the class system still existed in the Edwardian era with strictrules However, the development of economics and the changes in society contributed

a lot to social mobility A variety of issues including increasing interest in socialism;the life of the poor, the position and status of women as well as women's suffrage werepaid more attention as the consequences of the flourishing of the industrial revolutionand considerable economic opportunities Those things were more accelerated due tothe outcome of World War I This era also witnessed the degradation in the spirituallife and morality The adulterous affair made people’s dull life become more excitingwith more hedonistic pleasures To protect the honor and prestige of the upper class, apeculiar social code was given to whoever had lovers but still had to assume theirresponsibility As long as the outward happiness of a family was maintained, extra-marital affairs were prepared to be neglected by most husbands and wives Besides,the wives had to fulfill their duty and offered some heirs This attitude became morecommon end even King Edward had affairs with different women, not only the noblebut actresses and others as well

2.2 Women in the English society in the early twenties

According to Mate (1999, p.98), the turn of the twentieth century brought greatchanges to women’s lives in almost aspects from home to the public These changesinvolved as active movement for equal rights, a form of new female organizations aswell as an increasing number of women participating in art Due to the influences ofWorld War I which led to social shifts, women had more chances to work in the officeinstead of just staying at home as housewives before, as well as taking part in politicalsituations which were dominated by men in the past

The end of the Victoria era witnessed the incredible change in the suffragemovement in Britain, especially in England Women fought for justice in the societyand achieving political equality as men In contrast to what were depicted for thewomen with the delicate, demure, feeble images, the suffragists had militant spiritwhich was shown by their expression of protest As a result, English women gainedthe right to vote which marked significant event in the history of feminism World War

I played a very important part in the recognition of women’s ability as well as the newopportunities for women in the workplace It is due to the fact that men had to enroll inWorld War I, male employees decreased dramatically; therefore women were givenmore job opportunities Several jobs were considered as female work includingnursing, telephone operation, teaching and so on Besides, women also actively tookpart in the social and political life in England The turn of the twentieth centurywitnessed a new image of women compared to ideas of Victoria era Women usuallyhad short hair and wore skirts Fashion partly expressed the renovation in theperception of commerce at that time It seemed that women overcame the barriers andbroke social rules and lived for themselves They even smoked, danced and did manythings that women in Victoria era were not permitted

3 The portrayal of women in English literature

As stated in Greenfield (1986, p.59), English literature focused on women as themain characters with different portrayals throughout eras In the medieval time,

women were depicted either as saints who were able to subdue passion or as theepitome of temptation The worship of the Virgin Mary increased along with theviewpoint that even though child-bearing was an important factor, sex was considered

to be not a good thing and women were seen as dangerous lure The courtly love couldgive women higher status; therefore, several women did something against morality toachieve this The great romantic love story but “adulterous relationship” betweenLancelot and Guinevere, or Tristram and Isolde, resulted in tragedy

By the sixteenth century, other stereotypes of women appeared, reinforced by thetraditional courtly love in the Arcadian idylls and sonnet The ideal women in theworks of that time did not have similar characteristics as the real women By the time

of Shakespeare, cynicism could be recognized through his sonnets For instance, insonnet 130, this great author wrote “my mistress eyes are nothing like the sun ” tobegin turning the traditional image of women in his mind With the appearance ofdrama in the late sixteenth century, the portrayal of female characters on the stage wasshown more clearly and achieved climax in the women depicted by Webster andShakespeare in particular In Shakespeare’s plays, women were portrayed as thepossession of their fathers or employers The differences existed in the way hedescribed the high-born women and the low status women The female charactersdepicted as the bawdy women usually came from the low class They gained morefreedom in expressing their sexuality because they were not afraid of losing socialstatus These characters were portrayed as cheeky, flirtatious and sexualized personwho usually used sexual allusion in their conversation with men Another depiction ofShakespeare’s women was the high-born one who was described as “possessions” to

be passed between fathers and husbands These women were controlled and sociallyrestricted; therefore, they did not have much right to explore the world around them.Besides, Shakespeare depicted powerful but ambiguously moral women who, in order

to gain their benefits, ignored morality and did wrong things Webster’s femalecharacters were described to be more openly sexual rather than the possession of

someone’s desire The portrayal of women in English literature was marked withdifferent nuances thanks to the rise of the novels in the eighteenth century with famousmasterpieces Female characters in Dickens have been portrayed as stereotypes such asbad-temped unpleasant women, the foolish wives or beautiful and sexually attractivewomen who brought men more trouble than happiness Besides, women were thecentral characters in Brontë sisters’ novels In “Jane Eyre”, Charlotte Brontë portrayed

a woman who could take control of her own destiny, which was very different fromthe female characters in Jane Austen’s works

The turn of the new era witnessed a change in the style and content of women'swriting, as well as an increase in the depiction of feminine images and themes inliterature The dawn of the new century witnessed considerable changes in the writingstyle and plot about women as well as an increase in the portrayal of female imagesand themes in literature Male writers like D H Lawrence and W D Howells focused

on issues relating to sexuality and the extramarital political affairs between men andwomen In contrast, female authors such as Katherine Mansfield, Dorothy Richardson,and May Sinclair and so on explored themes involving the ordinary lives of womenand the difficulties they had to endure to define their distinctive identity in changingpeople’s awareness of the world

CHAPTER 3: WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM AND HIS

SHORT STORIES

1 William Somerset Maugham

W Somerset Maugham was born on January 25th , 1874 in Paris He is a known English novelist, playwright, and short-story writer whose works arerecognized by plain style, cosmopolitan settings, and profound understanding ofhuman nature Maugham had lost both his parents when he was ten years old and then

well-he was fostered by an uncle and educated at King’s School, Canterbury Afterspending a year at Heidelberg, he attended St Thomas’ medical school, London, andwas trained to become a doctor in 1897 Maugham provided experiences as a doctor inhis first novel, Liza of Lambeth (1897), and the initial success of this novel inspiredhim to renounce medicine and pursuit literature He spent most of his life for travellingaround the world so he also used his cosmopolitan experience in his works Readersare too familiar with Maugham’s famous novels such as “Of Human Bondage” (1915),

“The moon and sixpence” (1919), Cakes and Ale (1930), Theater (1937), and “TheRazor’s edge” (1944) Maugham was also considered as short-story statue in Englishmodern literature with masterpieces such as Rain, The unconquered, The luncheon,The letter, etc He was also well-known as a playwright with a variety of plays such as

“A man of honor” (1903), “Sheepy” (1933) and etc

Maugham was profoundly influenced by De Maupassant and Chekov in hiswriting Like realistic writers, he created characters of various occupations that belong

to different social class Furthermore, Maugham also expressed his sympathy towardcommon people; for example, Philip Carey in “Of human Bondage”, Sadie Thompson-

a prostitute in “Rain”, and characters of working class in “Liza of Lambeth”

His works bore the hallmark of Realism, however, Maugham’s writing style wasalso influenced by Naturism, Neo-Romanticism and Modernism Although Maughamdoes not describe specifically about an extensive panorama of contemporary society or

go into the details of social problems, he depicts different aspects of life Maugham’s

works are divided equally into two types, tragic stories and humorous ones Both ofthese two types express deep judgment, sharp observation and unique characterization.These features help Somerset Maugham become an outstanding writer in Englishliterature and in the hearts of attentive readers Realism in literature may be generallyunderstood as the effort to present matters in life sincerely and avoiding artisticprinciples, unbelievable, exceptional and supernatural components Literary realismtrend appeared in mid nineteenth-century French literature and lasted to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century writers who portrayed contemporary life andsociety as it was It could be said that realist writers offered portrayals of daily andordinary activities instead of romantic scenes Besides, “Naturalism” was a literarytrend lasting from the 1880s to 1940s that described detailed factors in reality topropose that social conditions, heredity, and environment exerted strong effects onshaping human personality Literary naturalism movement was opposite toRomanticism and Surrealism which tended to use romantic and supernatural elements.Naturalism was a result of literary realism, a remarkable literary trend in Westerncountries in mid- nineteenth Naturalistic authors were influenced by Charles Darwin'stheory of evolution Therefore, these writers often supposed that one's heredity andsocial environment had important influences on determining one's character Whilerealism pursues to describe subjects and matters in life as they really are, naturalismalso makes effort to find out the scientific motives that lead to actions andphenomenon Readers can see that naturalistic works often contain uncivilized ordegraded matter; for instance, Émile Zola's works mentioned sexuality andunavoidable pessimism frankly Naturalistic writers depicted the social problems such

as poverty, racism, violence, prejudice, disease, corruption, prostitution, and filth As aresult, naturalistic authors were usually condemned for going too deeply into humanvices and miseries

It was dues to the fact that Realism and Naturism were reflected clearly inMaugham’s works so his writing style gained different judgments There were

different opinions about this British author Many readers claimed him as a great teller while; others just considered him as financially playwright rather than a seriouswriter Maugham’s plays were performed widely and his books were publishedrepeatedly and translated into different languages He was highly appreciated byvarious English writers such as R Aldington and J Aldridge Somerset Maugham wasdescribed by Cyril Connolly as “ the greatest living short-story writer.” Peopleconsidered him as “ Maupassant of England”.

story-In 1959, Maugham stopped writing in his last travelling around the world He spenthis last years in Nice (France) and died there on December the 15th 1965

he thought When the waiter came with the bill, the woman ordered asparagus, ahorribly expensive dish The inviter’s heart sank and he felt extremely angry with hisacquaintance To make the situation worse, she ordered ice-cream and then coffeedespite the fact that she repeatedly said that she never ate anything for luncheon- just abite Finally, when they prepared to leave the restaurant, the woman kept in orderingpeach to deprive the narrator of his last coin The end of the story is the image of awoman who weighs more than 125 kilos

2.2 The promise

The story begins with an accidental meeting between the narrator and ElizabethVermont in a restaurant after he waited for his wife but then she did not come.Elizabeth and the narrator had lunch and then she talked to him about her life.Elizabeth was a remarkable woman who was the daughter of the seventh Duke of StErth She got married at the age of eighteen to a very rich man and started at onceupon a career of astounding extravagance, lewdness, and dissipation She was tooproud to be cautious, too reckless to think of consequences, and within two years herhusband in circumstances of appalling scandal divorced her She married then one ofthe three co-respondents named in the case and eighteen months later ran away fromhim She had many lovers and then she became notorious for her profligacy At theage of forty, she married a boy of twenty–one and they had a happy marriage.However, after ten years living together, Peter, her husband fell in love with a verybeautiful young woman Elizabeth made a strange decision that she would file adivorce from Peter to set him be free from their marriage

2.3 Louise

The story is about the main character, Louise who always pretends to be weak andhas serious problems with her heart She cheated on everyone except the narratorbecause he knew her very so well, thus she hated him very much Louise was then afrail, delicate girl with large and melancholy eyes Her father and mother worshippedher with an anxious adoration, for some illness, scarlet fever had left her with a weakheart and she had to take the greatest care of herself When Tom Maitland proposed toher they were dismayed, for they were convinced that she was much too delicate forthe strenuous state of marriage But they were not too well off and Tom Maitland wasrich He promised to do everything in the world for Louise and finally they entrustedher to him as a sacred charge Louise outlived her husband He caught his death ofcold one day when they were sailing and Louise needed all the rugs there were to keepher warm He left her a comfortable fortune and a daughter Louise was inconsolable

It was wonderful that she managed to survive the shock However, a year after Tom’sdeath she allowed George Hobhouse to lead her to the altar He was a fine, upstandingfellow and he was not at all badly off For the next two or three years Louise managed,notwithstanding her weak heart, to go beautifully dressed to all the most lively parties,

to gamble very heavily, to dance and even to flirt with tall slim young men ButGeorge Hobhouse did not have the stamina of Louise’s first husband and he had tobrace himself now and then with a stiff drink for his day’s work as Louise’s secondhusband It is possible that the habit would have grown on him, which Louise did notlike at all, but very fortunately (for her) the war broke out He rejoined his regimentand three months later was killed After that event, in order to distract her mind sheturned her villa at Monte Carlo into a hospital for convalescent officers Her friendstold her that she would never survive the strain When the war came to an end Louisesettled in London She was now a woman of over forty, thin and frail still, with largeeyes and pale cheeks, but she did not look a day more than twenty–five Iris, who hadbeen at school and was now grown up, came to live with her Iris fell in love with anice man but then when he proposed to her, she refused because she had to take care ofher weak mother Later, the narrator talked with Louise and criticized her because ofher selfishness and mercilessness The end of the story was the death of Louise on thewedding day of her daughter, Iris

10000 dollar to have that letter At the end of the story, Leslie was cleared from acharge

2.5 The judgment seat

“The judgment seat” is about the relationship amongst three characters; John, Maryand Ruth John and Mary are husband and wife; they have a happy marriage for eightyears However, things start to go wrong when John meets Ruth, a very beautifulyoung woman John and Ruth fall in love with each other but they sacrifice theirpassion because of Mary All of them cannot feel happy although John and Ruthaccept to give up their affair Despite the fact that John hates his wife very much, hedies to save her in a shipwreck After John’s death, Ruth suffers great misery and shedecides to commit suicide After 30 years, they meet each other in paradise to tell theEternal about their life and expect to receive the gifts from the Eternal However, theend of the story is that the Eternal feels too angry after listening to their story and then

he annihilates them

“The luncheon” creates a situation in which people lose their dignity because ofmaterial self-interest Maugham builds a gluttonous female character who always saysthat “I never eat anything for luncheon,” but then she eats too much Apart fromsatisfying her appetite, she does not care about her acquaintance’s financial plight atall She orders expensive dishes to satisfy her hearty eating and drinking habit Whenbeing invited for the lunch, she makes use of the last coin of her acquaintance, a verypoor writer who “had eighty francs (gold francs) to last me the rest of the month” Theridiculous feature reflected in this story is that the gluttony is covered carefully byelegant appearance of attentive woman reader Eating is a common demand of everyhuman being However, when it is beyond the limitation, it becomes preposterous anddeserves to be criticized seriously The purpose of the luncheon is to discuss literaturebut this female guest turns it into a chance to satisfy her gluttony She eats a lot ofdishes but ridiculously she still advises the writer to follow her example, “and nevereat more than one thing for luncheon” This story is told with the purpose of