Idolum And Reality

William Somerset Maugham(1874-1965) is a distinguished English novelist, dramatist and Essayist. Christmas Holiday is an important work created by Maugham at the eve of the World War II. It tells of an extraordinary experience of the hero, Charley, a young man from a family of English middle class, during Christmas in Paris. By analyzing the hero’s inner cognitive changes, caused by what he has undergone in Paris, Maugham truly reveals the latent crisis of the English society beneath its superficial prosperity and reflects the spiritual predicament which the Bourgeoisie are confronted with under the conflict between idolum and reality.The cognitive dissonance theory is developed by the famous American social psychologist Festinger, who points out that when both cognitions are consistent with each other, they are of a coordinating relationship; otherwise, they are of a inconsistent relationship. The cognitive subject will be inconsistent psychologically under the inconsistent relationship. The cognitive dissonance is mainly represented by the conflict between different values, the contradiction between the new and the old experiences and the violation of the logic. Once generated, the cognitive dissonance will exert a sense of pressure and discomfort on people, and then prompts them to attempt to change. This theory considers the attitude, expectation, knowledge and faith as the basic elements in explaining people’s cognitive orientation in their behavioral process. In combination with the historical context of the England then, it can offer a theoretical foundation for understanding those bewildering social phenomena in Britain during the peculiar transitional period between the two world wars.Focused on the hero Charley’s inner transformation in cognition, this thesis attempts to explore the psychological characteristic of the British ruling class during the peculiar social transitional period. It analyzes from three psychological dimensions such as “self-satisfaction”, “self-doubt” and “self-awareness” on the part of the hero. To begin with, a literature review about this novel is made and a brief introduction in cognitive dissonance theory is given, then three questions are raised: What cognition does the hero Charley, who comes from the ruling class family, have toward his own social group? In conflict with others from different social classes, what struggle and confusion have occurred in Charley’s inner world? By meticulously describing Charley’s inner change in his cognition of the society and life after his experience of cognitive dissonance, what dose Maugham reveal as the main idea of this works?The main body focuses on three psychological dimensions of the hero Charley. It starts with the analysis of Charley’s cognition of the subjective values of his own class and his present life from the perspective of self-satisfaction. The hero, who was born into a traditional middle-class family, has imperceptibly internalized the code of his own social group culture, values and life style. He has already become a mouthpiece of the English liberal bourgeoisie who are satisfied with the superficially wonderful and quiet life without seeing clearly the hidden turbulence in society. Then, it comes to the exploration of the hero’s conflicts with others in cognition from the viewpoint of self-doubt. Those conflicts in cognition not only cause Charley’s cognitive dissonance, but also lead to his mental disturbance which may weaken him morally and make him begin to suspect his own society and life. At last, it illustrates the standpoint of Charley’s self-awareness. The cognitive dissonance in cognition exerts on Charley a kind of invisible pressure, which impels him to change his cognition of the society and his life. He is aware that this seemingly stable society is just an illusion, which is unnoticeably falling into crisis.Through the description of Charley’s delusion of his own class values at the very beginning, and then his confusion after conflicts with others, and finally his reflection under the pressure of cognitive dissonance, this thesis truly reveals Charley’s spiritual predicament which is embodied from the perspective of his self-satisfaction to self-awareness. Maugham lived in an age when the middle-class bourgeoisie became the dominance of the society. As a representative of the English ruling class, Charley’s living and spiritual state realistically mirrors the life and mental state of the English middle-class bourgeoisie. This spiritual predicament expresses Maugham’s worry and reflects the self-content and blind optimism in liberal bourgeoisie. Otherwise, it implies his warning to those blind Englishmen at the eve of the crisis as well as his expectation of appealing for a harmonious social order.