Bertha’s Self-Regulation In Mrs. Craddock

William Somerset Maugham（1874-1965）is an illustrious British writer and dramatist in the 20th century.Mrs.Craddock（1902）is a groundbreaking work created by Maugham in his early time.By depicting the emotional entanglements between Bertha Ley and Edward Craddock,the living conditions and spiritual state of all classes of society in Kent in the late19^th century are truthfully presented.So far,the studies on Mrs.Craddock both in China and in the West are from the perspectives of the theme of escape,feminism and stylistics,but few scholars have made an in-depth study from the viewpoint of its protagonist’s psychological changes.Self-regulation theory is proposed by American psychologist Albert Bandura.In his view,self-regulation is not achieved by the control of willpower,but also by a series of sub-functions.Only when the sub-functions of self-observation,self-judgment and self-reaction work together,can individual achieve the self-directed change.From the regulative point of view,Bertha’s self-regulation process in Mrs.Craddock deserves to be discussed intensively with the special historical background of the British society.In this thesis,“self-satisfaction”,“self-loss”and“self-examination”are taken as the logical keywords,which connect these three chapters together.And self-observation,self-judgment and self-reaction are three cultural and psychological dimensions.By analyzing Bertha’s mental transformation in the journey of her marriage,her lack and return of the inner self are revealed under the background of class and cultural conflict.In the introduction part,the literary review is teased out,and then the self-regulation theory is briefly given.At last,the following three questions are raised:facing the new life that seems so different from the past,how does Bertha feel?And when the new life is much away from her ideal life,how do her thoughts and actions change?In order to find the true self,how does Bertha regulate her behaviors?This first chapter analyzes Bertha’s self-satisfaction in the illusion of happy marriage from the perspective of self-observation.After the marriage,Bertha is immersed in the dream of love,and she imagines her husband Edward to be her hero,obeying him unquestioningly.In their marriage life,Bertha is emotional while Edward is more rational.And Bertha is blind to the cultural conflict between herself and Edward,but satisfied with the new life.Actually,this sense of satisfaction is just a false image of happiness.The second chapter discusses Bertha’s self-loss in the struggle of loveless marriage from the viewpoint of self-judgment.Bertha finds that her ardor blazing strongly cannot kindle Edward’s small fire.Besides,her husband’s neglect of love shatters her illusions.The unborn child becomes the anchor of Bertha,but unfortunately,it is a stillborn baby.And yet what she has suffered disorientates her.Meanwhile,an extramarital affair with her cousin Gerald means that Bertha’s values get distorted.The third chapter explores Bertha’s self-examination in the predicament of hopeless marriage from the self-reaction point of view.Finally,Bertha realizes that it is better to cleave to her inner idea and spend much of her time communing with nature and other social activities than to compromise and struggle in the marriage.Through the analysis of Bertha’s mental transmutation,the vacuity and perplexity of the upper class in the transitional period can be disclosed.At the same time,it also reveals that if people could not adapt themselves to the outside world actively and forwardly in the transitional era,their wandering mind could not find their way of life.