On The Multiple Selves In Maugham’s The Moon And Sixpence

The Moon and Sixpence,finished after Great War,is one of is one of William Somerset Maugham’s important novels.It is also a novel of experimental significance in Maugham’s writing career.Inspired by Maugham’s short stories,the author finds that,compared with Maugham’s early novels,the later novels vary greatly in narrative style and absorb a lot of modern techniques and contents.And the novel The Moon and Sixpence is just at a significant juncture in its creative turn.Therefore,in order to reveal the reasons for Maugham’s creative turn and the hidden self,this paper is taking The Moon and Sixpence as an example,focusing on the analysis of the generation of text and meaning,and exploring the hidden author’s self.Distinguished from Maugham’s early novels,Maugham for the first time employs modernist narrative style in this novel.Namely,the narrative mode of metafiction,the transformed narrator,the multiple narrative voices and the double perspectives of modernist writing techniques.In this novel,the hero’s actions are recorded in reverse order and interlude,and a modern metropolitan version of "Robinson" is shaped—Strickland.With the help of this character,the author observes and express the British social and cultural life at that time,which is deeply rethought about through the transfer of space and sight.Eventually moving from self-contradiction to self-unity.In the past,most of the studies on this novel focused on the analysis of the characters,writing style and humanity.This article will try to analyze this novel from the perspective of stylistic,based on the researches which have been done on this novel before.This thesis will take a approach of narratology in novel style and meaning.This paper will probing into the relationship between the author’s self and narrator’s self behind the narrative subject of the novel,and finally reveals the content of self.This paper will probe further into the multiple self in the narrative of Maugham ’s The Moon and Sixpence from four aspects.It includes the background of the novel,the narrative mode of the metafiction,the narrative stratification and the narrative voice.It’s mainly made up of following four parts:In the first part,according to Maugham’s living background,personal experience,and the author’s ideas reflected in his novels and biographies,on the basis of previous studies,to further explore the origin of self-image constructing reflected in Maugham’s writing.Namely,it is the living conditions of human beings and the newuniversal values.Under the influence of multi-culture and war under the times.Many writers chose the latter.However,Maugham chose to live alone in a "corner",holding on the traditions of the past and keep the spiritual home of his heart,exploring and thinking.In addition,Maugham’s rich experience in life and work gives him more opportunities to observe and experience the lives of ordinary people,which provides abundant materials for his literary creation in the future.These experiences also make Maugham’s do his best to capture the details of the characters to depict,but also regarded as Maugham’s outlook on life and the formation of an important source of creative ideas.For example,many of the plots and thoughts in the novel "The Moon and Sixpence" are derived from his experience and thoughts on the journey.Maugham also mentioned in other novels.In the second part,from the narrative mode of metafiction,the style and the meaning of the thought are inseparable.The relationship between the two determines "how to say" and "what to say." On the one hand,the style conveys the implication of the novels;on the other hand,it reflects the characteristics of the times and the attitude of the writers towards the times.The narrative mode of metafiction is not new,and it has already appeared embryonic form since the Middle Ages.Such as epistolary style,diary style,travel style and so on.At the same time,French writer Maupassant has been involved in that.Metafiction is a novel in which the writer constantly exposes himself and the story and fiction of the novel at the beginning and in the text,which shows that the novel is only an accidental record of the author as a bystander.Most of Maugham’s novels in the middle and late period continue to employ this model and The Moon and Sixpence,is author at first time to adopt this form.So it is more innovative,representative and worth studying.The novel employs the narrative mode of the first-person bystander,intentionally revealing the dialogic and multi-directional features of consciousness,thus calling for the dialogic and selfconsciousness suppressed by the traditional novel.Maugham deduces serious content in the form of storytelling,trying to dispel the significance of literature,to a certain extent,can be said to be the deconstruction of freedom and rationality.In the third part,Narrative Stratification.There are at least three narrative levels in The Moon and Sixpence,which are completed by three narrators: the author’s own narrative in the super-narrative level,Strickland’s story in the main narrative level,and the secondary narrative in the main narrative level.Behind the layers of narration the author’s true attitude towards the text and the profound implication of the wholetext are separated,which directly leads to the binary opposition between modern civilization and primitive society,rationality and irrationality,God and man(secular world).From this antagonism,the author criticizes the modern civilization system severely,exposes the deception under the rationality,reflects on the human nature,and reconsiders the relationship between rationality and irrationality,religion and human nature.In the fourth part,Narrative Voice.The author tries to construct a polyphonic structure through different narrators and cross-layer "I",so that the overall appearance of the characters and the story can be displayed.Therefore,it reveals that I,as a novelist,is not only speaking but also being spoken,and is also exchanging conversations with other narrators to continue the narrative through the transformation of the characters’ identities.Behind the narration of these different characters’ identities,it also exposes the vivid individual and human group images.Through the comparison between the two,the novel depicts the loss and resistance of human nature.