An Analysis Of The Modern Ethical Problems Based On W. S. Maugham’s The Moon And Sixpence And The Razor’s Edge

W. S. Maugham was a renowned English novelist, playwright and essayist of the20th century. His representative works included The Human Bondage, The Moon andSixpence and The Razor’s Edge. The latter two books served as the texts analyzed inthe paper. Based on the analysis of the ethical conflicts and the protagonist’s spiritualjourney of The Moon and Sixpence and The Razor’s Edge, as well as the differentvalues of distinct characters, the paper studied the ethical problems of the modernindustrial society, such as balancing material desire and spiritual pursuit, marriage andlove, the relations between virtue and vice. The body of the paper was divided intothree chapters.The first chapter analyzed the inner world of the protagonist in The Moon andSixpence, who followed his inner voice to abandon his family for his ideal of painting,and the conflicts of his individual ideal with external misunderstanding. Theindividual’s view of life was largely shaped by social influence and therefore in mostcases was in accordance with the conceptions of other members of the same society.The unique ideas were naturally faced with the restriction or removal or revision ofsocial norms, which might dumb some different voices. However, there were alwaysthose people like Mr. Strickland who stuck to his ideal by ignoring or rebellingagainst the social conventions. The innovative ones affected the stability of societywith beneficial or malignant effects to some extent. On the contrary, they risked theinfliction of public propaganda of the norms.The second chapter devoted to the spiritual journey of Larry, the protagonist ofThe Razor’s Edge, who aimed to find a proper way to explain the good and evil of theworld. Having experienced the blood-shedding World War I which claimed familiesand friends, as well as the period of the Great Crash and Depression which vaporizedages of material accumulation, the individual began to question the world outlookinstilled by a particular ideology. In reality, wars were not the embodiment of justice, courage and obligation, but the politicians’ handy and profitable tool of massacre;instead of the overpowering panacea that cured all pains, wealth and enterprisesproved to be precarious mirage. With the spiritual wound of the war, the protagoniststood up to the reality and reconstructed a peaceful and optimistic world outlook byseeking the truth of virtue and vice in knowledge, the balance of the spirit and body inmanual work, and the keystone of life in religions.The third chapter focused on the common ethical problems of the two novels.The views on social relationships of both protagonists were impacted by the tide ofsociety. Mr. Strickland and Larry were faced with the controversies between love andmarriage, between spiritual satisfaction and material desire. With the emerging newvalues of the industrial society and the shadow of the traditional values, love,marriage, spirit and material went astray. True love was sneered at and ended up withbroken hearts; marriage, which should have build upon kindred affection, descendedto bargains that exchanged cold duty with false tenderness. Spiritual pursuit wasmisunderstood and deserted; material desire was magnified, and success wasmeasured solely by material abundance which was supposed to be the only source ofphysical pleasure and spiritual sublime.The paper analyzed the ethical conflicts and spiritual loss of the modern peoplefrom the perspective of ethics, and strove to find a way for human beings to return thespiritual shelter. Ethics is a branch of philosophy which can predict and guide thechange of social morality by describing and analyzing the historical and current moralphenomena. Morality, the subject studied in ethics, has been defined disparately indifferent eras which embraced controversial criteria. On the one hand, the ethicalstandards of a specific age might enslave those people with visionary insight; on theother hand, the coming age might incubate new morals that abandoned some beautifulclichés. Guided by ethical theories, the paper would achieve reasonable comparisonand analysis of the moral conflicts, view the ethical problems with tolerance andpropose comprehensive solutions to contemporary spiritual crisis.