摘 要

作为英国最著名的小说家之一，威廉·萨默塞特·毛姆在他的文学生涯中展现了杰出的创造力。虽然他一直被评论界视作“通俗文学作家”，并在读者间以会“讲故事”著称，但他对于人类社会生活及人性的深入洞察，反映出他在艺术上的审美追求。他的杰作《月亮与六便士》以法国后印象派画家高更为原型，讲述了斯特里克兰的传奇人生，以此透露出他对人生答案的思考。本文运用19世纪“为人生而艺术”和“价值理性”的概念，以及“自由与自律”的观念，揭示影响毛姆艺术创作的个人原因和社会原因。并由对这部小说的文本分析和批判性评价，我们希望能揭开驱动作者对于人生形成见解，对于艺术产生批评，和驱动他实现文学成就的创作源泉。本文还旨在讨论，毛姆通过探索社会的隐微之处，成功发现了一个关于人生意义的答案，而它正藏于故事背后。那就是——或许我们时常陷入困境，但正是坚持让我们回归本真。毛姆似乎想让他的读者领会到，生活充满了选择，而决心和雄心可以确使我们通向有意义的人生之路。

关键词：毛姆；人生答案；为人生而艺术；价值理性；自由

Abstract

As one of the most famous British novelists, William Somerset Maugham demonstrated outstanding creativity in his literary career. Although he has been recognized as “a popular writer” by critics, and known as “a good story teller” among readers, his penetrating insight into man’s social life and human nature reflects his aesthetic pursuit in art. “The Moon and Sixpence,” his master piece, tells the legendary story of Strickland —— whose prototype is the French post-impressionist painter Gauguin-- to reveal his thinking about life. This paper makes use of concepts like “Art for Life’s Sake” and “Value Rationality” in the 19th century and the idea of “Liberty and Self-discipline” to reveal the personal as well as social factors shaping Maugham’s artistic originality. With the textual analysis and critical evaluation of the novel, we hope to unveil the driving forces leading to the writer’s individual understanding to life, to artistic criticism and to his literary achievements. The paper also aims to argue that by exploring into the finest niches of life in a transforming society, Maugham succeeds in finding an answer about a meaningful life as is hidden behind the story: predicament as we may often fall into, but the very perseverance brings us back to our true selves. Maugham seems to have gotten the message across to his readers that life is full of choices and our determination and ambition can surely ensure us a significant way of life.

Key Words: Maugham; solution to life; art for life’s sake; value rationality; liberty

Contents

1 Introduction 6

1.1 Maugham’s literary career 6

1.2 Literature Review 7

2 Art for Life’s Sake 10

2.1 Maugham’s standpoint of creation 10

2.2 Life for art’s sake 11

3 Loss and Perseverance 13

3.1 Self-consciousness after a loss 13

3.2 Stick to self-discipline and freedom 14

4 Rationality and Answer 17

4.1 Value Rationality 17

4.2 The Answer of Life 19

5 Conclusion 22

Acknowledgements 24

References 25

Loss and Perseverance:

Analyze Maugham’s Exploration of a Solution to Life in

The Moon and Sixpence

1 Introduction

William Somerset Maugham was a famous British realistic writer， a playwright in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. His writing was calm and objective, paying special attention to the exploration of the meaning of life. “The Moon and Sixpence” is one of his masterpieces. The novel embodies Maugham's thinking about life and his answer. In this book, Maugham explored the absence and reappearance of value rationality under the restraint of Western civilization, as well as a person's self-cognition and his choice of life.

1.1 Maugham’s literary career

William Somerset Maugham（1874-1965）spent all his life in writing. His works include novels, plays, essays, travel notes, memoirs and commentaries. Maugham’s parents died when he was a child and he was brought up by his uncle. Due to his short stature and severe stuttering, Maugham spent his childhood in torture and humiliation. He had studied medicine for five years and then abandoned it for writing (Ellis, H., 2009).

His works were particularly charming thanks to his dispassionate and objective presentations. In that turbulent time, he continually absorbed advanced concepts in philosophy, psychology and other disciplines, gradually developing a unique, rational and comprehensive writing style (Sun, 2006) .

Maugham made great achievements in novel-writing, and most of the novels had a clear story-line that explores the meaning of life. Many characters in his fictional works constantly strive with obstructions around them and make arduous efforts to realize their dreams. There are some representative personages, such as Philip in “Of Human Bondage” (1915), Strickland in “The Moon and Sixpence”(1919), and Lari in “The Razor’s Edge”(1944).

In “Of Human Bondage”, Maugham used the metaphor of the Persian carpet to express “life is meaningless”, but in the end he built a dream of “meaningful life” by marriage(Hou, 2004) . In “The Moon and Sixpence”, Maugham enabled Strickland to break his previous life, pursue the heaven of art and beauty, and realize his value of life. Many years later, in “The Razor’s Edge”, Maugham let Ali said, “I am my God” (Dalrymple T., 2010). When love, money and authority can not comfort the souls of human race, only inquiring the meaning of life through value rationality can do. Thus it can be seen, an important topic in Maugham’s works is about the question to the meaning of life.

From a social point of view, the book “The Moon and Sixpence” was written in the period of monopoly capitalism. At that time, the society made great progress in material civilization. The conflicts of interest between different classes were becoming increasingly severe, which aroused the selfishness and evil in human nature (Luo amp; Chen, 2016) . People were extremely disappointed with the loss of morality and humanity. Although the development of natural science and psychology had subverted some values of religion and philosophy, it still could not help people to solve the spiritual confusion in reality. Faced with cruel facts in a changing society, Maugham gave his own thinking in his novels. He maximized the meaning and value of human freedom, to give readers a good vision of liberation and belief.

1.2 Literature Review