� � Title W.サマセット・モームの人間観 Author(s) 脇田, 勇 Citation 北海道學藝大學紀要. 第一部, 10(2): 75-88 Issue Date 1960-02 URL http://s-ir.sap.hokkyodai.ac.jp/dspace/handle/123456789/3739 Rights Hokkaido University of Education Vol. 10, No.2 Journal of Hokkaido Gakugei University Feb., 1960 W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM'S VIEW OF HUMAN BEING Isamu WAKITA Asahigawa Branch, Hokkaido Gakugei Universicy Wj EB M : W. -^-^ 1- . -^-AoArRm I. Preface 3. His View of Life II. ]Maugham's View of Human Being 4. His View of Human Bein^ 1. His Career Ill, Conclusion 2. His Cultural Background & IV. Bibliography Position in English Literature I. Preface I love travelling. I should like to spend all my time in travelling, if possible, like a Japanese poet who travelled incessantly, searching for the land where his loneliness would be annihilated. I once had the opportunity to stay in the U. S. for one year. In spite of various kinds of critical words, I believe even now that I was lucky in having this opportunity and, in future, too, this conviction will not be changed. When I reflect where on earth my interest was, I notice that it was not because I could visit many places of scenic beauty and historical value, but because I could observe men and their society that I have never seen before. Maugham has been travelling round the world and choosing the themes of his creation out of these experiences, but it may safely be said that the purpose of his travel existed not in the appreciation of the natural beauty and noted places but in the pursuit of the human being. It is in this point that I am attracted by his works. Though I could not always agree to his viewpoints, he lefcs me recognize through his ample experiences various phases of the human being which I have not been acquainted with. It is often said that the renaissance is the rediscovery of the human being, but it seems to me that the idea is not original at all. The road on which literature has been treading means after all the efforts to catch the realities of such a mysterious existence, that is, the human being. In this short thesis I have tried to investigate into Maugham's view of the human being, but, knowing that I am too incompetent to study his voluminous works closely, I have only picked up characteristic points in his novels and representative essays, and short stories. Maugham as a dramatist or the style of his prose is an interesting and important theme of study, but I have left them for my future study. Isamu Wakita In the episode of an Eastern King that appears in Of Human Bondage, his logest novel, the Eastern King was told by a sage that the essence of life was this : he was born, he suffered, and he died. The essence of life may be expressed in such a short aphorism, but we cannot but recognize that there are endless probabilities of the way of living between birth and death. I cofess that the discovery of any new aspect of the human nature is more shocking than the news of the arrival of a Russian rocket in the moon. Even if I were given the chance to visit the moon, I should be the last man to accept the proposal, because I love man and his circles. I want to consider his view of the human being, but the process in which his view has been formed cannot be separated from his life and also his view of life must be considered at the same time. I have also referred to his position in the English literature. Indeed, it is interesting to study who and what kinds of works have exerted influence upon the formation of IVtaugham as a writer, but it is not so easy a subject to handle. Such being the case, I took a chapter in which I explained the influence of other writhers upon him, abstracted from his works, especially from The Summing Up and A Writer's Notebook. The second reason why I was attracted by him is that he was always conscious of lucidity, simplicity, simplicity, and enphony in writing a prose. It is not too much to say that his style is a model of English prose. The third reason is that he is a genuine story-teller. In the Chap. 59 of The Summing Up he says as follows : As a writer of fiction I go back, through innumerable generations, to the teller of tales round the fire in the cavern that sheltered neolithic jmen-'-But the delight in listening stories is as natural to human nature as the delight in looking at the dancing and miming out of which drama arose-•• (Chap. 59, The Summing Up~) In another book he tells— Since the beginning of history men have gathered round the campfire or in a group in the market place to listen to the telling of stories. The desire to listen to them appears to be deeply rooted in the human animal, as the sense of property. I have never pretended to be anything but a story teller. It has amused me to tell stories and I have told a great many. It is a misfortuue for me that the telling of a story just for the sake of a story is not an activity that is in favor with the intelligentsia. I endeaour to bear my misfortunes with fortitude. (The Author Exucuses Himself, Creatures of Circumstances') I admire Maugham's courage to reveal him as a story-teller who interests and amuses readers. II. ]VTangham's View of Human Being 1. Maugham's Career W. S. Maugham was born in Paris in 1874. As his name shows, he is a Celtic and, as is always the case with Celts, has a strong aspiration for beauty. It would be a nonsense to consider about him with no association with Paris. His father, who was a lawyer, lived in Paris for thirty years till his death as a law adviser to the British Embassy in Paris. His mother, who died of tuberculosis, was on intimate terms with such outstnding artists as Merimee, and Dolet and brilliant figures of the French society. After 76 — W. Somerset Maugham's View of Human Being the death of parents he moved to his uncle's in Kent, South England, where he was put under the guardianship of his uncle, He also suffered from tuberculosis and spent a life of recuperation in Southern France. After recovery he went to Heidelberg and he seems to have enjoyed a very liberal life there. It was at this period that he decided to establish himself as a writer. But with the intention of earning his living he entered the Medical School attached to the St. Thomas Hospital in London. It was in 1892. While he was in the internship, he lived in the slums of Lambeth and had a precious experience of observing naked aspects of slum people. That experience gave birth to his first novel Liza of Lambeth. (1897). As far as his scanty purse'permitted him, he travelled round the Continent. Especially the charm of Spain having caught him, he wrote the following two books ; The Land of Blessed Virgin (1905> and Don Fernando (1935). In 1899 the first collection of short stories, Orientation, was published. In 1903 he started his third life in France as a Bohemian and in the flats of Monmartre spent hours in the discussions about art and life with various kinds of artists. The period is vividly depicted in Of Human Bondage. The episode of Cronshaw, an aesthetic poet, namely, the philosophy that was revealed to Maugham in the fomm of a Persian carpet may be said to have been written according to his actual experience in those days. Judging from the following passage it is clear that he was in needy circumstances at this stage. I have found out that money was like a sixth sense without which you could not make the most of the other five. (Chap. 32, The Summing Up') But in 1907 the new state of affairs changed his life. His plays began to be welcomed by the theatrical world and in accordance with this he wrote several comedies of manners. Despite that he declared himself to be a professional writer, he made a close study of the styles of prose writers in the past and tried to write his works with clarity, simplicity, and rhythm. He highly estimated the prose of Voltaire as complete and he went as far as to say that he mastered all the prose of Swift and could write as well as Swift. In this period he settled down in London and became intimate with politicians and businessmen and spent his daily life surrounded by elegant ladies of the high society. He had already finished writing Of Human Bondage just before the First Great War. He was forty. Thinking that his first period of spiritual history came to an end, he published this book as a monument of his emancipation from the pursuit of ego. The outbreak of the Great War opened a new way of life he had not dreamd of. He went to the front as an army doctor. Soon after he enlisted in the army he got a job in the intelligence corps and had a thrillig life under the mask of a writer in Geneva, Switzerland, where spies thronged from all over the world. Our Betters (1917), his representative play, was written during this period.