Maugham Short Stories Analysis

The men of Maugham played the role of being “dependent”, “passive” and “loyal” (Kuner 41), in comparison to women. Maugham’s men ascended towards passivity drag them to rest on the “mercy of Life Force” (Kuner 41). They appeared as unwilling to rebel, and wait for what the life has reserved for them. Mostly neglected by women yet remain loyal to preserve the social conventions. Maugham drew attractive but inconsiderate young men whose purpose is nothing else than to “pursuit women” (Kuner 41). In order to chase beloved they seemed ready to forgive all the violations whatever even if there are extramarital affairs. Kuner brought forward the character of a novel named as Philip who forgave his beloved twice for adultery. His goodness crossed

In introduction of his short stories collections, he talked about the inspiration which urged him to write stories. He set a path for himself to write a story through the works of great story writers such as Chekhov, Maupassant. He set out a definition of a short story by deeply analyzing the works of Kipling and Edgar Allen Poe. His “reasoned discussion of the nature and practice of the short story” was the struggle to be a successful tale-teller of his age (Brander 97). James Cooper Lawrence worked on Poe’s philosophy of short story, developed a theory out of Poe’s definition which proves that in a story “coherence” works as an essential component to keep the readers captivated (qtd. in Brander 275). According to Poe a story must revolve around “a single incident”, containing the “unity of effect or impression” (qtd. in Brander 275). It seems Maugham is easy with definition of Poe for short story therefore his stories plots as the way as Poe

Ah Khan contains a serious theme of colonization where people are “tearing up their roots” and ready to live on alien places. Maugham sounded like E.M Foster, who talks about “English hysteria,” in A Passage to India (Brander 117) furthermore he talked about people of East not only “uprooted but cut off” from their original soil now their western hysteria became viral. Ashenden, another stories collection mostly based on his adventurous incidents as a secret agent. He used first person narrator as an “attractive persona” (Brander 122) for him and carried first person narration from now on to the rest of his stories and wrote in this particular narration till his last collection Creatures of Circumstance. The stories in the last collection contributed to magazines and characters brilliantly varied and each character is “recognizable as real” (Brander 132). Maugham talked about one subject at times which harnesses the plot of whole story therefore his stories carry the unity of impression which let the reader with curiosity till the