The Flying Kite

William Somerset Maugham is one of the most prolific British writers in the 20th century. Though he had a great deal of literary works, including full-length novels, short stories, prose and essays, and theater productions, "freedom" was always a focus of attention. Maugham repeatedly expressed his desire for freedom lives, and many of his novels talked about freedom. The "freedom" of Maugham is mainly about slipping the material and spiritual leash, and get a kind of true experience of individual existence and the Meaning of Life. This thesis uses the method of close reading so as to deeply explore Maugham’s whole creation course. Synthesizes different literary genres, the discussion of Maugham’s road to freedom is aimed to reveal the profound meaning and limitation of his "freedom".The thesis consists of three parts:introduction, main body and conclusion.The Introduction explains the reason why chose this topic, and overviews the study in domestic and abroad. And it also includes the innovative points of this paper.The main body is divided into four chapters. Starting from the knowledge of Maugham’s life and personality, chapter one focuses on the cause of the theme of freedom. Chapter two analysis Maugham’s fictions in the background of the South Pacific and China. On the basis of thorough analysis of the Moon and Sixpence, The Painted Veil and The Trembling of a Leaf, this chapter researches into those leading characters who get supramundane insight from the pure nature and primitive civilizations. By applying the theory of Orientalism, this part also discuss about Maugham’s foreign images and culture sustenance. The third chapter, which also settles the growth of Maugham’s aesthetics theory, analyses the relationship between art and freedom. Based on the Moon and Sixpence, Maugham explained his understanding of art, morality and freedom. Based on Of Human Bondage and Theatre, Maugham probed into the art of life and through what kind of way that art helped a person get to freedom. The forth chapter is about the life apocalypse that Maugham got from philosophy, which including the different influences of Arthur Schopenhauer, Taoism and Hinduism, and how these ideologies impacted Maugham philosophy of nihilism, individualism and pessimism. This part involves several novels, like Of Human Bondage, The Razor’s Edge, The Merry-Go-Round and Christmas Holiday. Maugham combined those philosophy enlightenment to his own philosophy of life, seeking the power of spiritual growth and relief for his literary characters and shaped them as his liberal heroes.The last section sums up Maugham’s view of freedom. By comparing with D. H. Lawrence who was at the same time with Maugham, The author is intent to point out the different connotation of freedom. Then from both semantic level and philosophical level, the author digs the meaning of freedom, and affirm the positive significance of his freedom. At last, in contrast to Sartre existentialism, the author also critically thinks about the limitation of Maugham’s road to freedom.