William
Somerset Maugham's Views On Life
William Somerset Maugham
has clear-cut views on life. He is perhaps the most unorthodox artist in
the range of English literature. As a robust thinker, but not an academic
philosopher, he thinks on the most unconventional lines. His works in
different forms of characters. and situations explain them. They have been
stated in his famous book entitled ‘The Summing Up’. His first published
novel ‘Liza of Lambeth’ has been based on the realistic conception of life
where misery is caused to Liza for which she is not responsible. His views
very seldom change with the passage of time. Somerset Maugham says, “I
have taken an absorbing interest in human nature and it has seemed to me
that I could best communicate my observations on it by telling tales. The
tale of the self told by him in his emotional and meaningful
autobiographical novel entitled ‘Of Human Bondage’ shows that he could
imbibe the whole universe of the environment he had moved in and imbibed
things from them. His ‘Summing up’ is neither an auto biography. It is a
pretty nice book of his clear-cut observation on life.
For Long Maugham remained
fascinated by ‘beauty’ but got disillusionment ultimately. “I discovered
that beauty was a full stop “The most beautiful things cease to interest
one”, He says, “It seemed to me that beauty was like the summit of a
mountain peak : when you had reached it there was nothing to do but come
down again, perfection is a trifle dull, there is no permanence in beauty.
Even the beauty of the poems and pictures which once they remain in their
prime lose flavour because there is no permanence in the judgment of
beauty.’ Some beautiful things are condemned in the later generations and
some despicable ones rise in estimate. Thus beauty has no absolute value
in itself but is relative to a particular period.
The aesthetics in his
opinion ‘has sex in it for it is not concerned with mind alone but also
with body.” It was not an instinct at all, but a state of the body mind.
Founded in part of certain powerful instincts, but combined with human
characteristics.” Those necessarily admire it, but they simply want to
unburden their soul. Those who use art to escape the realities of life are
nothing short of ‘drug fiends’. ‘The value of art’. like the value of
Mystic way, lies in its effects.” “The value of art is not beauty, but
right action “The artist produces beauty like some bee, says Maugham. The
bee produces wax for her own purposes and is unaware that man will put it
to different other uses.
Maugham is much more
charitable towards ‘goodness’ than to anything else “goodness is the only
value that seems in this world of appearances to have any claim to be an
end in itself. Virtue is its own reward. He has real reverence for
goodness when ever it exists. In the Athelny’s episode in ‘Of Human
Bondage’ Philip dis covers goodness unalloyed by motive (unlike that of
Norah with convert sexual motive) and he admire this “But when now and
then I have found reverence rise naturally in my heart”. But there is a
song still with regard to beauty goodness is shown in right action and who
can tell in this meaningless world about right action as to what it is
actually the beauty lies in the sincerity of action with regard to the
other party “that each should act in conformity with nature and his
business.”
Maughan does not believe
in truth with such bravado as others do. According to him truth is no of
the ‘ultimate values’. The philosophers have not been able to find the
final values in life and perhaps nor they shall ever do. The fact is that
only the plain man accepts the ‘plain truth’ which may be of relative
value to him. It is the tragedy of life that ‘man has always sacrificed
truth to his vanity, comfort and advantage. The truths which seem to be
ideal to us may not be so practicable. The absolute truths of scientific
findings, if they are so, are the only truths worth considering. There are
hideous truths which may be true but we are not prepared to believe in
this. The fact is that man believes only in that type of truth which we
wishes to believe in. Sometime fascinating falsehoods may have the
exterior of truth but it may prove to be deceptive, as it must ant the end
of the whole thing the man, in fact does not live by truth but by his make
believe and his idealism as Maugham observes.
Maugham has also expressed
his views on religion. He lost faith in the conversational religion. This
loss of faith has been shown in his novel ‘Of Human Bondage’. Philip loses
his faith in one of the chapters of this novel. He was taught that we
lived in the presence of God and that the chief business of man was to
save his soul. His uncle believed in the eternal punishment but he did
not. He came to believe neither in the love of God nor in the fear of
hell. He ceased to believe in God ‘A sort of new freedom rose within him.
But still he believe in the devil. God came to him with some sort of image
which the human race had constructed as a convenience of living.
He came to believe in the
mechanical forces which could be the only thing responsible for the
existence of man. He started reading Ethics but soon lost faith in it “I
came to the conclusion that man aimed at nothing but his own pleasure and
that when he sacrificed himself for others it was only an illusion that
led him to believe that he was seeking anything but his own
gratification.” Right and wrong were merely words seeking to serve the
selfish purpose of man. His conviction was that one must follow one’s
inclination with due regard to the policeman round the corner. The
relativity of things and the circumferentially of Man. So with regard to
life his philosophy has been based on empirical results observations.
Among the modern
philosophers Bergson appeared to him ‘Singularly unconvincing’. He could
stand like Bertrand Russell very much for his ‘worldly wisdom and
commonsense’. He was ‘tolerant of human weakness’ but his mind was
restless. ‘Evil’ in short says Maugham is a deception of our sense and
nothing more. The evils do not always educates us as held by some
thinkers. It is also false that we must have evil so that we may know what
good is in the world. The Theologians are wrong when they say that evils
are for our training or to punish us for our sins.
Since death ends all for a
person there could be no meaning of life as such. What is man. He is just
an insignificant being on this planet. And what is planet. It is revolving
round a minor star which in its turn is a member of one of numbered
galaxies. It is a chance planet and the life has come to assume a place in
it which could be destroyed at any time due to some unforeseen planet. “It
is the need of self-assertion which is in every living thing and which
keeps it alive. It is the very essence of man.” For Maugham the meaning of
life resides ‘He has sought to make ‘pattern’ of his life. One can only
make the best of a bad job”.
The life force asserts
itself and all the living beings are here. There is a sort of unity of
living conditions on the planets the animal life and the human life. We
are the play things of nature. “The weak will be driven to wall Men have
such bad acquisitive instinct that he wrests and will continue to wrest
from those who are powerless. And we go on living under the exploitation
as long as man lies under the compulsions of the sense of possession. Man
must bear all his woes calmly. There is no explanation for the evil in
life.” It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the
universe. To ignore it is childish to bewail it senseless.
Death must not be
frightening for a person. Perhaps this has been expressed in his novel ‘Of
Human Bondage’ in the character of cronshaw “Pliny says that the power of
dying when you please is the best thing that God has given to man amid all
the sufferings of life.” He criticizes Lawrence of Arabia for riding his
motor bicycle at a breakneck speed in his old age so that some fatal
accident might kill him and thus save him from the moral agony of the old
age. Maugham can not think this “for the complete life, the perfect
pattern includes old age as well as youth and maturity.” The old age in
him, opinion is better in the sense that one could enjoy art and
literature without the personal bias. According to him the old age
improves the taste of a person. Death must not be considered with concern.
A brave soul can do it possibly “There are moments when I have so
palpitating an eagerness for death” say Maugham that I could fly to it as
to the arms of a lover.” But since he has been enjoying life with a gusts
he did not feel it need. He could impose a sensible patterns on life as
writer.
These were the views of W.S. Maugham on life.
WORKS CITED
1. Maugham William Somerset Maugham : The Summing Up Maughamiana by
Raymond Toole Stoll published by William Heinemann Ltd. in 1950.
2. Maugham William Somerset : Of Human Bondage Maughamiana by Raymod Toole
Stoll pub by William Heinemann Ltd. 1950.
3. Ninth Annual Lecture of the National Book league at the Kingsway Hall,
W.C. 2 on Wed Oct. 24, 1951 (the Right Honorable Sir Norman Birkett in the
chair).
4. Maugham William Somerset : Liza of Lambeth. Maughamiana by Raymod Toole
Stoll pub by William Heinemann Ltd. 1950.
Contributing Author: Dr. Ram Sharma, Lecturer
in English,
Janta Vedic College MEERUT, U.P.
dr.ram_sharma@yahoo.co.in
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