The genre of novels & short stories

Definition of Short Stories/Novels

Novel: an invented prose narrative of considerable length and a certain complexity that deals imaginatively with human experience,
usually through a connected sequence of events involving a group of persons in a specific setting. Within its broad framework, the
genre of the novel has encompassed an extensive range of types and styles: picaresque, epistolary, Gothic, romantic, realist, historical
—to name only some of the more important ones.

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Components of Short Stories/Novels

Theme -- The idea or point of a story formulated as a generalization.
Character -- Imaginary people created by the writer, perhaps the most important element of literature.

  Protagonist--Major character at the center of the story.

  Antagonist--A character or force that opposes the protagonist.
  Minor character--0ften provides support and illuminates the protagonist.
  Static character--A character who remains the same.
  Dynamic character--A character who changes in some important way.
  Characterization--The means by which writers reveal character.
  Explicit Judgment--Narrator gives facts and interpretive comment.
  Implied Judgment--Narrator gives description; readers make the judgment.

Plot--The arrangement of ideas and/or incidents that make up a story.

  Causality--One event occurs because of another event.

  Foreshadowing--A suggestion of what is going to happen.
  Suspense--A sense of worry established by the author.
  Conflict--Struggle between opposing forces.
  Exposition--Background information regarding the setting, characters, plot.
  Complication or Rising Action--Intensification of conflict.
  Crisis--Turning point; moment of great tension that fixes the action.
  Resolution/Denouement--The way the story turns out.

Structure--The design or form of the completed action. Often provides clues to character and action. Can even
philosophically mirror the author's intentions, especially if it is unusual.

Setting--The place or location of the action, the setting provides the historical and cultural context for characters. It often can
symbolize the emotional state of characters.

Point of View--Again, the point of view can sometimes indirectly establish the author's intentions. Point of view pertains to
who tells the story and how it is told.

Short story: a brief fictional prose narrative that is shorter than a novel and that usually deals with only a few characters. The short
story is usually concerned with a single effect conveyed in only one or a few significant episodes or scenes. The form encourages
economy of setting, concise narrative, and the omission of a complex plot; character is disclosed in action and dramatic encounter but
is seldom fully developed. Despite its relatively limited scope, though, a short story is often judged by its ability to provide a
“complete” or satisfying treatment of its characters and subject.

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  Narrator--The person telling the story.

  First-person--Narrator participates in action but sometimes has limited knowledge/vision.
  Objective--Narrator is unnamed/ unidentified (a detached observer). Does not assume character's perspective and is not a
character in the story. The narrator reports on events and lets the reader supply the meaning.
  Omniscient--All-knowing narrator (multiple perspectives). The narrator takes us into the character and can evaluate a
character for the reader (editorial omniscience). When a narrator allows the reader to make his or her own judgments from
the action of the characters themselves, it is called neutral omniscience.
  Limited omniscient--All-knowing narrator about one or two characters, but not all.

Language and Style--Style is the verbal identity of a writer, oftentimes based on the author's use of diction (word choice) and
syntax (the order of words in a sentence). A writer's use of language reveals his or her tone, or the attitude toward the subject
matter.

Irony--A contrast or discrepancy between one thing and another.

  Verbal irony--We understand the opposite of what the speaker says.

  Irony of Circumstance or Situational Irony--When one event is expected to occur but the opposite happens. A discrepancy
between what seems to be and what is.
  Dramatic Irony--Discrepancy between what characters know and what readers know.
  Ironic Vision--An overall tone of irony that pervades a work, suggesting how the writer views the characters.

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William somerset Maugham (1874 - 1965)

W.S. Maugham is a famous English writer, well-known as a novelist, playwright and short story writer. In his writings he kept to the
principles of Realism, but his method of writing was also influenced by Naturalism, Neo-romanticism and Modernism.

His life

W. S. Maugham was born in Paris where his father worked as solicitor for the English Embassy. His childhood was awful for him. The
death of his mother when he was eight and that of his father when he was ten left him to the care of his uncle, a clergyman. He went to
a class given by an English clergyman attached to the Embassy in Paris.

Later he was sent back to England for schooling. In 1890 he went to Germany and studied medicine at the University of Heidelberg,
and then, when he returned to England, he worked at Saint Thomas’s Hospital. Maugham became a qualified doctor but he devoted his
life to literature.

Like his father he took a great interest in traveling. He had been to Spain, Russia, America, Africa and Asia. Wherever he was, he
always sought materials for his books. “The Trembling of a Leaf’ has its background in China and the Polynesian islands.

His literary works

W. S. Maugham tried his hand at novel then play and short story. The most mature period of his literary career began in 1915 when he
published the novel ‘Of Human Bondage’ in which a great deal of details were taken from his own life.

His rich experience of life and his acute insight into human nature provide ground for the analytical and critical quality of his works.
This quality keeps his readers in suspense and his stories fresh with every new reading. Maugham shows us people of various strata
and occupations but he is not critical about the contemporary social order. He is concerned with many a bitter truth of the modern
society. Maugham’s sympathy lies invariably with the common people. Although he does not always give a clear cut assessment to his
characters, readers can acquire their own judgment and conclusion about them. Maugham is said to be influenced by Maupassant and
Chekhov, and he was once named ‘English Maupassant’.

W. S. Maugham wrote 24 plays, 19 novels and a large number of short stories. He is primarily a writer of short stories and novels
which are characterized by narrative facility, simplicity of style, and a disillusioned and ironic point of view.

The important novels are ‘ Liza Of Lambeth’ (1897), ‘Of Human Bondage’ (1915) ‘The Moon and Sixpence’ (1919), ‘The Painted
Veil’ (1925), ‘ Cakes and Ale’ (1930), ‘Razor’s Edge’ (1944), ‘Theatre’ (1937).

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‘Of Human Bondage’, partially an autobiography, was written in 1915. It is about the life of an Englishman, Philip is left to the care of
his childless uncle, a clergyman, who knows nothing about the psychology of a child, and his wife, who tries to be in the place of
Philip’s mother clumsily, is rejected. Philip, a clubfooted boy is thrown into the hostile world. He is a boy of reading, energetic and
boisterous and lusty in his life, who receives a cold answer of the society. His love for Miss Wilkinson is frustrated at seeing her in her
room. His love for Mildred is not returned. ‘The reality which was offered to him differed

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too terribly from the ideal of his dreams’. The popularity of the novel lies in the fact that Philip’s fate is also the one of many young
Englishmen. Philip learns much about human bondage, cruelty unhappiness, grief and pain which so any human beings have to
experience.

In many of his stories, Maugham reveals to us the unhappy life and the revolt against the set social order. ‘The Moon and Sixpence’
was written in this line. It is a story of the conflict between the artist and the conventional society based on the life of a French painter,
Paul Gauguin.

1. What are the main features of his works?

2. In which novel is Maugham’s life reflected best?
3. “The Moon and Sixpence” reveals to us the unhappy life or the revolt against the set social order?

The moon and sixpence

The principal character is Charles Strickland, a prosperous stockbroker who is a good, dull, honest, plain man. He is
probably a worthy member of society, a good husband and father, an honest broker, but ‘there was no reason to waste one’s
time over him’. Charles’ wife is a pleasant hospitable woman and they have two nice looking and healthy children, a boy and
a girl.

Suddenly, Strickland disappeared leaving his wife and children behind. A supposition is put forth: Charles walks out upon
his wife to run after some woman. A friend of Strickland is sent to Paris (where he is said to be) to find out who the woman
is, and if possible to persuade him to come back to his wife. After a long talk with Strickland, the man understands that the
real reason that inspires him to run away is not woman. Charles said: ‘I’ve got to paint’. He does not care for his wife and
children any longer, they should try to support themselves and his wife can get married again. Strickland has a hard life in
Paris where he goes to painting classes. People are surprised at a man of forty like him starting to learn painting without any
innate talent for

it. He doesn’t care for his hardship of life, nor does he care for people and their opinion about him. “When there was no food to be had
he seemed capable’. It seems that he ‘lived a life wholly of the spirit’. As an artist Strickland doesn’t care for fame or wealth. He never
‘sold a single picture and he was never satisfied with what he had done’. It seems that he is seeking something new not existing in the
world yet in order to satisfy his love for art.

Living in Paris, Strickland comes into contact with a Dutch painter, Dirk Stroeve, another important character of the novel. Stroeve is
presented as an antipode to Strickland. Stroeve is a kind hearted man but a bad painter. He is the first to discover the real talent of
Strickland. He cares for the artist and sees it his responsibility to help him in his distress. When Strickland falls seriously ill, it is
Stroeve who comes to help. Stroeve persuades his wife to let him bring the artist home to look after him. To his surprise, his wife falls
in love with Strickland who she holds in disgust. Later his wife, a housemaid rescued by Stroeve, kills herself by drinking acid after
Strickland leaves her. What Strickland wants from Blanche is not sexual relations but the nude picture of her beautiful figure.

Leaving France for Tahiti, Strickland is in search of a world of his own. In Tahiti, he marries a native girl and he has about three years
of happiness. He has two children. Strickland contracts leprosy and later becomes blind. He has achieved what he longs for on this
land. He has painted his masterpiece. Knowing that he is going to die, he makes his wife promise to burn down his masterpiece after
his death in fear that it will be contaminated by the commercial world of money.

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‘The Moon and Sixpence’ touches upon another problem of the bourgeois society: the fate of the intellectual in a society where the
values of man are measured in terms of money. As a short story writer W. S. Maugham demonstrates brilliant mastery of the form. He
exposes the contemporary society with its vices such as snobbishness, money worship, pretence, self-interest, complacency and above
all, the hypocrisy in the people’s way of life. He published more than ten collections of stories. ‘Rain and Other Stories’ is known far
and wide.

What does Maugham want to say to us through the novel?

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The moon and sixpence Chapter xii

BRIEF CONTENT OF THE CHAPTER

Strickland, an honest stockbroker, a good husband and a good father of two wonderful children disappeared unexpectedly. A friend of
the family was sent to Paris where he had been thought to run away with some woman, to find him and if possible, persuade him to
come back. To his surprise, the friend found out the real purpose of the escape: Strickland had run away to learn to paint.

Through the conversation of the two men, the character of Strickland was clearly described, and the bourgeois concepts of happiness,
responsibility, art and talent were all well revealed by the author.

The Avenue de Clichy was crowded at that hour, and a lively fancy might see in the passers-by the personages of many a sordid
romance. There were clerks and shopgirls; old fellows who might have stepped out of the pages of Honore de Balzac; members, male
and female, of the professions which make their profit of the frailties of mankind. There is in the streets of the poorer quarters of Paris
a thronging vitality which excites the blood and prepares the soul for the unexpected.

"Do you know Paris well?" I asked.

"No. We came on our honeymoon. I haven't been since."

"How on earth did you find out your hotel?"

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"It was recommended to me. I wanted something cheap."

The absinthe came, and with due solemnity we dropped water over the melting sugar.

"I thought I'd better tell you at once why I had come to see you," I said, not without embarrassment.

His eyes twinkled. "I thought somebody would come along sooner or later. I've had a lot of letters from Amy."

"Then you know pretty well what I've got to say."

"I've not read them."

I lit a cigarette to give myself a moment's time. I did not quite know now how to set about my mission. The eloquent phrases I had
arranged, pathetic or indignant, seemed out of place on the Avenue de Clichy. Suddenly he gave a chuckle.

"Beastly job for you this, isn't it?"

"Oh, I don't know," I answered.
"Well, look here, you get it over, and then we'll have a jolly evening." I hesitated.
"Has it occurred to you that your wife is frightfully unhappy?"
"She'll get over it."

I cannot describe the extraordinary callousness with which he made this reply. It disconcerted me, but I did my best not to show it. I
adopted the tone used by my Uncle Henry, a clergyman, when he was asking one of his relatives for a subscription to the Additional
Curates Society.

"You don't mind my talking to you frankly?"

He shook his head, smiling.
"Has she deserved that you should treat her like this?" "No."

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"Have you any complaint to make against her?" "None."

"Then, isn't it monstrous to leave her in this fashion, after seventeen years of married life, without a fault to find with her?"

"Monstrous."

I glanced at him with surprise. His cordial agreement with all I said cut the ground from under my feet. It made my position
complicated, not to say ludicrous. I was prepared to be persuasive, touching, and hortatory, admonitory and expostulating, if need be
vituperative even, indignant and sarcastic; but what the devil does a mentor do when the sinner makes no bones about confessing his
sin? I had no experience, since my own practice has always been to deny everything.

"What, then?" asked Strickland.

I tried to curl my lip.
"Well, if you acknowledge that, there doesn't seem much more to be said."
"I don't think there is."
I felt that I was not carrying out my embassy with any great skill. I was distinctly nettled. "Hang it all, one can't leave a woman
without a bob."
"Why not?"
"How is she going to live?"
"I've supported her for seventeen years. Why shouldn't she support herself for a change?" "She can't."
"Let her try."

Of course there were many things I might have answered to this. I might have spoken of the economic position of woman, of the
contract, tacit and overt, which a man accepts by his marriage, and of much else; but I felt that there was only one point which really
signified.

"Don't you care for her anymore?"

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"Not a bit," he replied.

The matter was immensely serious for all the parties concerned, but there was in the manner of his answer such a cheerful effrontery
that I had to bite my lips in order not to laugh. I reminded myself that his behaviour was abominable. I worked myself up into a state of
moral indignation.

"Damn it all, there are your children to think of. They've never done you any harm. They didn't ask to be brought into the world. If you
chuck everything like this, they'll be thrown on the streets.

"They've had a good many years of comfort. It's much more than the majority of children have. Besides, somebody will look after
them. When it comes to the point, the MacAndrews will pay for their schooling."

"But aren't you fond of them? They're such awfully nice kids. Do you mean to say you don't want to have anything more to do with
them?"

"I liked them all right when they were kids, but now they're growing up I haven't got any particular feeling for them."

"It's just inhuman."

"I dare say."
"You don't seem in the least ashamed."
"I'm not."
I tried another tack.
"Everyone will think you a perfect swine."
"Let them."
"Won't it mean anything to you to know that people loathe and despise you?" "No."

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His brief answer was so scornful that it made my question, natural though it was, seem absurd. I reflected for a minute or two.

"I wonder if one can live quite comfortably when one's conscious of the disapproval of one's fellows? Are you sure it won't begin to
worry you? Everyone has some sort of a conscience, and sooner or later it will find you out. Supposing your wife died, wouldn't you
be tortured by remorse?"

He did not answer, and I waited for some time for him to speak. At last I had to break the silence myself.

"What have you to say to that?"

"Only that you're a damned fool."

"At all events, you can be forced to support your wife and children," I retorted, somewhat piqued. "I suppose the law has some
protection to offer them."

"Can the law get blood out of a stone? I haven't any money. I've got about a hundred pounds."

I began to be more puzzled than before. It was true that his hotel pointed to the most straitened circumstances.

"What are you going to do when you've spent that?" "Earn some."

He was perfectly cool, and his eyes kept that mocking smile which made all I said seem rather foolish. I paused for a little while to
consider what I had better say next. But it was he who spoke first.

"Why doesn't Amy marry again? She's comparatively young, and she's not unattractive. I can recommend her as an excellent wife. If
she wants to divorce me I don't mind giving her the necessary grounds."

Now it was my turn to smile. He was very cunning, but it was evidently this that he was aiming at. He had some reason to conceal the
fact that he had run away with a woman, and he was using every precaution to hide her whereabouts. I answered with decision.

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"Your wife says that nothing you can do will ever induce her to divorce you. She's quite made up her mind. You can put any
possibility of that definitely out of your head."

He looked at me with an astonishment that was certainly not feigned. The smile abandoned his lips, and he spoke quite seriously.

"But, my dear fellow, I don't care. It doesn't matter a two penny damn to me one way or the other." I laughed.

"Oh, come now; you mustn't think us such fools as all that. We happen to know that you came away with a woman."

He gave a little start, and then suddenly burst into a shout of laughter. He laughed so uproariously that people sitting near us looked
round, and some of them began to laugh too.

"I don't see anything very amusing in that."

"Poor Amy," he grinned.

Then his face grew bitterly scornful.

"What poor minds women have got! Love. It's always love. They think a man leaves only because he wants others. Do you think I
should be such a fool as to do what I've done for a woman?"

"Do you mean to say you didn't leave your wife for another woman?" "Of course not."
"On your word of honour?"
I don't know why I asked for that. It was very ingenuous of me.

"On my word of honour."

"Then, what in God's name have you left her for?" "I want to paint."

I looked at him for quite a long time. I did not understand. I thought he was mad. It must be remembered that I was very young, and I
looked upon him as a middle-aged man. I forgot everything but my own amazement.

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"But you're forty."

"That's what made me think it was high time to begin." "Have you ever painted?"

"I rather wanted to be a painter when I was a boy, but my father made me go into business because he said there was no money in art. I
began to paint a bit a year ago. For the last year I've been going to some classes at night."

"Was that where you went when Mrs. Strickland thought you were playing bridge at your club?" "That's it."
"Why didn't you tell her?"
"I preferred to keep it to myself."

"Can you paint?"

"Not yet. But I shall. That's why I've come over here. I couldn't get what I wanted in London. Perhaps I can here."

"Do you think it's likely that a man will do any good when he starts at your age? Most men begin painting at eighteen."

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"I can learn quicker than I could when I was eighteen." "What makes you think you have any talent?"

He did not answer for a minute. His gaze rested on the passing throng, but I do not think he saw it. His answer was no answer.

"I've got to paint."

"Aren't you taking an awful chance?"
He looked at me. His eyes had something strange in them, so that I felt rather uncomfortable. "How old are you? Twenty-three?"

It seemed to me that the question was beside the point. It was natural that I should take chances; but he was a man whose youth was
past, a stockbroker with a position of respectability, a wife and two children. A course that would have been natural for me was absurd
for him. I wished to be quite fair.

"Of course a miracle may happen, and you may be a great painter, but you must confess the chances are a million to one against it. It'll
be an awful sell if at the end you have to acknowledge you've made a hash of it."

"I've got to paint," he repeated.

"Supposing you're never anything more than third-rate, do you think it will have been worthwhile to give up everything? After all, in
any other walk in life it doesn't matter if you're not very good; you can get along quite comfortably if you're just adequate; but it's
different with an artist."

"You blasted fool," he said.

"I don't see why, unless it's folly to say the obvious."

"I tell you I've got to paint. I can't help myself. When a man falls into the water it doesn't matter how he swims, well or badly: he's got
to get out or else he'll drown."

There was real passion in his voice, and in spite of myself I was impressed. I
seemed to feel in him some vehement power that was struggling within him; it
gave me the sensation of something very strong, overmastering, that held him,
as it were, against his will. I could not understand. He seemed really to be
possessed of a devil, and I felt that it might suddenly turn and rend him. Yet he
looked ordinary enough. My eyes, resting on him curiously, caused him no
embarrassment. I wondered what a stranger would have taken him to be,
sitting there in his old Norfolk jacket and his unbrushed bowler; his trousers
were baggy, his hands were not clean; and his face, with the red stubble of the
unshaved chin, the little eyes, and the large, aggressive nose, was uncouth and coarse. His mouth was large, his lips were heavy and
sensual. No; I could not have placed him.

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"You won't go back to your wife?" I said at last. "Never."

"She's willing to forget everything that's happened and start afresh. She'll never make you a single reproach."

"She can go to hell."

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"You don't care if people think you an utter blackguard? You don't care if she and your children have to beg their bread?"

"Not a damn."

I was silent for a moment in order to give greater force to my next remark. I spoke as deliberately as I could.

"You are a most unmitigated cad."

"Now that you've got that off your chest, let's go and have dinner."

QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY

1. Where was Strickland's staying? What was the place like?

2. Does Strickland care for his wife and his children anymore? What are his reasons?
3. What are all his answers like? Why?
4. What is his attitude to love?
5. What is his attitude to art? What is his purpose to pursue art?
6. When did he start to have the intention of becoming an artist? What obstacles has he met since

then?

7. How many times was "I've got to paint" repeated? What does it mean?
8. What can you say about his appearance? Give comments about the artist.
9. What is the subject matter of the novel?
10. What is the bourgeois concept of happiness you can gather from the novel?
11. What is their attitude towards art? How do they react to Strickland's escape?
12. What do you think of Strickland as an ordinary man and as an artist?
13. How do you understand the title? What do these two things embody? What is the similarity

between them?

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