2. THERE ARE THREE
RULES FOR WRITING A
NOVEL.
UNFORTUNATELY, NO
ONE KNOWS WHAT THEY
ARE.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

3. WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM CH (25 JANUARY 1874 – 16 DECEMBER 1965)
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.

4. •Born in Paris,
France
•Died in Nice,
France
•Gender male
•Genre
Literature &
Fiction, Short
Stories,
Classics
• William Somerset Maugham was
born in Paris in 1874. He spoke
French even before he spoke a word
of English, a fact to which some
critics attribute the purity of his
style.
• His parents died early and, after an
unhappy boyhood, which he
recorded poignantly in 'Of Human
Bondage' , Maugham became a
qualified physician. But writing was
his true vocation. For ten years
before his first success, he almost
literally starved while pouring out
novels and plays.
• During World War I, Maugham
worked for the British Secret Service
. He travelled all over the world, and
made many visits to America. After
World War II, Maugham made his
home in south of France and
continued to move between England
and Nice till his death in 1965.

5. Education

 Attended at The King’s
School,Canterbury
 Studied literature,
philosophy & German
at Heidelberg
University
 Studied medicine at St
Thomas’ Hospital,in
Lambeth,London
 qualified as Member of
the Royal College of
Surgeons and licentiate
of the Royal College of
Physicians, London in
1897 although he never
practiced

6. Marriage and family
O Although homosexual, (had a sexual affair with John Ellingham
Brooks) Maugham entered into a relationship with Syrie Wellcome,
the wife of Henry Wellcome, an American-born English
pharmaceutical magnate. They had a daughter named Mary
Elizabeth Maugham, (1915–1998).Henry Wellcome sued his wife for
divorce, naming Maugham as co-respondent.
O In May 1917, Syrie Wellcome and Maugham were married. Syrie
Maugham became a noted interior decorator who in the 1920s
popularized "the all-white room." Their daughter was familiarly
called Liza and her surname was changed to Maugham.
O The marriage was unhappy, and Syrie divorced him in 1929, finding
his relationship and travels with Frederick Gerald Haxton too
difficult to live with.

7. Significant works
 Liza of Lambeth's – The book created a great deal of controversy as
it dealt with Liza, a fun-loving factory worker, and her affair with Jim,
a married man.
 Lady Frederick - a comedy about money and marriage
 A cartoon by Bernard Partridge in Punch - showed a worried
Shakespeare in front of the playbills.
 Of Human Bondage - is considered to have many autobiographical
elements. Maugham gave Philip Carey a club foot (rather than his
stammer); the vicar of Blackstable appears derived from the vicar of
Whitstable; and Carey is a medic.
 Ashenden: Or the British Agent - a collection of short stories about
a gentlemanly, sophisticated, aloof spy. This character is considered to
have influenced Ian Fleming's later series of James Bond novels

8.  On A Chinese Screen - dedicated to Syrie.This was a collection of
58 ultra-short story sketches, which he had written during his 1920
travels through China and Hong Kong, intending to expand the
sketches later as a book
 The Letter
 The Casuarina Tree
 An Appointment in Samarra - is based on an ancient Babylonian
myth: Death is both the narrator and a central character. The
American writer John O'Hara credited Maugham's novel as a creative
inspiration for his own novel Appointment in Samarra
 The Razor's Edge - was a departure for him in many ways. While
much of the novel takes place in Europe, its main characters are
American, not British. The protagonist is a disillusioned veteran of the
First World War who abandons his wealthy friends and lifestyle,
traveling to India seeking enlightenment. The story's themes of
Eastern mysticism and war-weariness struck a chord with readers
during the Second World War

9.  Cakes and Ale - contains what were taken as thinly veiled and
unflattering characterizations of the authors Thomas Hardy (who had
died two years previously) and Hugh Walpole
 Rain - charts the moral disintegration of a missionary attempting to
convert the Pacific island prostitute Sadie Thompson, has kept its
reputation
 Footprints in the Jungle
 The Outstation
 The Magician - is based on British occultist Aleister Crowley

10. The Moon and Sixpence
 The Moon and Sixpence,
told in episodic form by a
first-person narrator, in a
series of glimpses into the
mind and soul of the
central character Charles
Strickland, a middle-aged
English stockbroker, who
abandons his wife and
children abruptly to pursue
his desire to become an
artist. The story is said to
be loosely based on the life
of the painter Paul
Gauguin.

11. *Settings
* London
* When Crabbe meets the Stricklands,
they are living in London, in a nice
apartment.
* Paris
* Charles Strickland goes to Paris to
study painting and stays there for six
years.
* Rome
* Crabbe meets Dirk Stroeve in Rome,
where Dirk paints Italian peasants
against the beautiful scenery. Later,
Dirk continues painting Rome, even
after moving to Paris.
* Marseilles
* After leaving Paris, Strickland goes to
Marseilles for a while.
*Tahiti
*All his life, Strickland has longed
to live in a quiet island paradise,
so he settles in Tahiti when he
can finally get a ship to take him
there.
*Papeete
*Papeete is a small village in
Tahiti, where Strickland meets
Ata. It is the nearest village to
Ata's house.
*Ata's Hut
*Ata and Strickland live in a tiny,
two-room hut in the jungle,
along with several others. When
Strickland is dying, he paints the
entire hut with his masterpiece.

12. STRUCTURE: FLASH BACK,FLASH
FORWARD
ERA: LATE XIX CENTURY AND EARLY
XX CENTURY
CHARACTERS:
Charles Strickland – main character of the novel, a middle-aged
English strokebroker who abandons his comfortable life
for to pursue his desire to become an artist
Mrs. Amy Strickland – Strickland’s first wife in London
Ata – Strickland’s second wife in Tahiti
Rose Waterford – the narrator stays in her house and and she
declares to the narrator about Strickland’s abandonement his
wife and children
Colonel MacAndrew –Amy’s brother-in-law

13.  Dirk Stroeve – a fat nonsense friend of the narrator's, who
immediately recognises Strickland's genius
 Blanche Stroeve – Dirk’s wife but then falls in love with Strickland
 Capt. Nichols – meets Strickland in Marseilles and causes him to go
to Tahiti
 Tough Bill - a huge mulatto, with heavy fist who gives the stranded
mariner food and shelter him but he is beaten by Strickland for 2
times
 Dr. Coutras –treats Strickland and helps to Ata to bury his corpse
under a mango tree
 Tiare Johnson –a middle-aged lady who the proprietress of the Hotel
de la Fleur
 Capitan Brunot – takes narrator to Dr.Coutras because he has
witnessed Strickland’s death

14. Mood: pessimistical
Theme: It is well-known for being inspired by the story of the
famous post-impressionist artist Paul Gauguin, but Maugham isn’t
as concerned here about telling Gauguin’s life-story as he is in
exploring the nature of someone who could be driven to leave the
comfort of society by an obsession to create art. Strickland is
essentially a sociopath. He cares for no one or nothing other than
painting. He lives with hunger and illness to achieve this end, and
despises anyone who tries to help him. The message delivered us by
this novel is nobody or nothing would prevent the love of creating.

15. Quotes

 “Impropriety is the soul of wit.”
 “As lovers, the difference between men and women is
that women can love all day long, but men only at
times.”
 “When a woman loves you she's not satisfied until she
possesses your soul. Because she's weak, she has a rage
for domination, and nothing less will satisfy her.”
 “It is one of the defects of my character that I cannot
altogether dislike anyone who makes me laugh.”
 “Women are constantly trying to commit suicide for love,
but generally they take care not to succeed.”
 “There is no cruelty greater than a woman's to a man who
loves her and whom she does not love; she has no
kindness then, no tolerance even, she has only an insane
irritation.”

16. 
 “She loved three things — a joke, a
glass of wine, and a handsome man.”
 “I could have forgiven it if he'd fallen desperately in love
with someone and gone off with her. I should have thought
that natural. I shouldn't really have blamed him. I should
have thought he was led away. Men are so weak, and
women are so unscrupulous.”
 “A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her...but
she can never forgive him for the sacrifices he makes on her
account.”
 “Life isn't long enough for love and art.”
 The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.”
 “They say a woman always remembers her first lover with
affection; but perhaps she does not always remember
him.”

17. 
 “Perhaps that is the wisdom of life, to tread in your father's
steps, and look neither to the right nor to the left.”
 “art is a manifestation of emotion, and emotion speaks a
language that all may understand.”
 “To my mind the most interesting thing in art is the
personality of the artist; and if that is singular, I am willing
to excuse a thousand faults.”
 “Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they
have assumed that in due course they actually become the
person they seem.”
 “Because women can do nothing except love, they've given
it a ridiculous importance. They want to persuade us that
it's the whole of life. It's an insignificant part.”

18. PLOT
SUMMARY
The novel is written largely from the point of view of the narrator,
who is first introduced to Strickland through the latter's wife.
Strickland strikes him (the narrator) as unremarkable. Certain
chapters entirely comprise stories or narrations of others, which
the narrator recalls from memory (selectively editing or
elaborating on certain aspects of dialogue, particularly
Strickland's, as Strickland is said by the narrator to be limited in
his use of verbiage and tended to use gestures in his
expression).
Strickland is a well-off, middle-class stockbroker in London
sometime in late 19th or early 20th century. Early in the novel, he
leaves his wife and children and goes to Paris. He lives a
destitute but defiantly content life there as an artist (specifically
a painter), lodging in run-down hotels and falling prey to both
illness and hunger. Strickland, in his drive to express through
his art what appears to continually possess and compel him on
the inside, cares nothing for physical discomfort and is
indifferent to his surroundings.

19. He is generously supported, while in Paris, by a commercially successful
but hackneyed Dutch painter, Dirk Stroeve, a friend of the narrator's,
who immediately recognises Strickland's genius. After helping
Strickland recover from a life-threatening condition, Stroeve is repaid
by having his wife, Blanche, abandon him for Strickland. Strickland
later discards the wife; all he really sought from Blanche was a model
to paint, not serious companionship, and it is hinted in the novel's
dialogue that he indicated this to her and she took the risk anyway.
Blanche then commits suicide – yet another human casualty in
Strickland's single-minded pursuit of art and beauty; the first ones
being his own established life and those of his wife and children.
After the Paris episode, the story continues in Tahiti. Strickland has
already died, and the narrator attempts to piece together his life there
from recollections of others. He finds that Strickland had taken up a
native woman, had two children by her, one of whom dies, and started
painting profusely. We learn that Strickland had settled for a short
while in the French port of Marseilles before traveling to Tahiti, where
he lived for a few years before finally dying of leprosy. Strickland left
behind numerous paintings, but his magnum opus, which he painted
on the walls of his hut before losing his sight to leprosy, was burnt
after his death by his wife per his dying orders.

20.  If I were the author I would finish the novel not
burning the pictures by his wife. I would describe that
his pictures had been famous all over the world,
launched at all museums. Or I would finish the novel
where he marries with Ata and be happy, I wouldn’t
depict his death and end the novel sorrowfully.
 The title of novel means a person’s love of creating,
his unobtainable genius’s light as the moon and
comparing it with the corny philistinism of wealth
that not to deserve a sixpence.
 My lovely character in the novel is Ata who
C.Strickland’s second wife. I like her because she
is a very honest ,loyal, beautiful woman. She
never leaves her husband though he suffered from
the leprosy and makes her promise which has
given to her husband to burn all his paintings
after his death. If she wanted she could sell this
paintings and would be rich.