A General Note on: W. Somerset Maugham

 A Note on W. Somerset Maugham

• The intellectual influences in Maugham were many. The first influence is of the pessimistic philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer and then of a music composer Richard Wager and then up many writers. Among the writers, the first and great influence came of Maupassant. other writers were Henry Gibson, Anton Chekhov and Edgar Allan Poe.
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• The pessimism of Schopenhauer fitted the hand in the glove with the subsequent medical training the taught Maugham to view human beings with careful clinical detachment and tight reign of emotion.
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• Medical training also taught that careful observation is essential to an understanding of individual uniqueness. He observes in of "human bondage" that a human life forms a pattern and each pattern has unique elements and Idea adapted from Schopenhauer. But unlike Schopenhauer who believe that one could recognise the pattern only in retrospect, Maugham outlines his belief that an individual can influence his or her life. In coming up he professes to have done so with his own life.
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• His spend much of his literary life sketching the pattern he found in others life and exposing the ironic incongruities that simmered beneath the surface. For the pattern, with its subtle incongruities, is discovered only true careful observation. Maugham once confided that he viewed human beings only as the raw material of the world and elsewhere remarked that his ideas of his stories usually originated with a character that help his attention. 
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• In essence, a Maugham story is an exposition of human incongruity or interesting trait that exists within the pattern, within the ordinary human life. The exceptional is to be found everywhere.
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• Maugham's favourite type of narrative, the exotic portrays the life of the Europeans or American in an alien environment. His best non stories of this type of the Malays story where British nationals struggle against climate, foreign culture and loneliness.
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• Definition of the short story, by Maugham:
• "I should define the short story as a piece of friction that has unity of impression and that can be read at a single sitting. It is a piece of fiction, dealing with a single incident, material or spiritual; it is original, it must partial, excite or impress; and it must have unity of affect or impression. It should move in an even line from its exposition to its close."
•  He started and imitated the prose of Swift and he expressed his admission for Dryden. Simplicity lucidity and euphony (good quality sound) represented his ideal stylistic qualities.
• Maugham makes frequent use of a third person omniscient narrator though in letter stories this technique shades soothing into a characters' point of view. The most pervasive negative technique is the use of the Maugham personal, the character witnesses the action first hand, or here the narrative from a person he meets. He is an urban, worldly-wise traveller who keenly observes what others might miss and direct the readers' attention to something which is significant. He reveals little of himself and little influence of action but he establishes a friendly relationship with readers who enjoy seemingly candid comments. He is sceptical, clinical and keen observant of human-being, free of illusions and ideas, he is often cynical and ironic. He finds rogues and scoundrels more interesting than solid citizens and his tolerance causes him to try to understand rather than condemn human vices.
• The person may intervene with a brief comment or question during the narrative or he may resume a dialogue, but usually remains in the background. The persona's identity as a traveller only increases his reticence and detachment; it places him in the position of an observer reluctant to intervene. The format creates the impression that the reader is hearing a story as the narrator first hears it.
• Maugham's characters are often those, found just on the outside of the society or in an exotic setting. He believes that characters in modern urban societies were eventually worn smooth as pebbles in a stream are smoothed by constant interaction with water and sand. Those outside society or on its fringes have an opportunity to develop their individualism, to cling to and even increase the kinks in their characters.