Wandering Around "The Razor's Edge"

British writer William Somerset Maugham(1874-1965),in his long life journey for almost a century.witnessed a variety of changes of literature trend,experienced with numerous human sentiment well-being,and traveled in different countries and regions.From his age of 23,Maugham has been ceaseless at writing after his literary ideal is convinced.His various forms of literary works always adhered not only to pay attention to the living conditions of the people in dilemma,but also construct a temporary escape field of "games" for the people struggling in the reality as at the"blade".The reconstruction of individual freedom in the game aims to create the meaning of life in the meaningless life.Honered as "one of the most popular writers writing in English in the 20th century",Maugham created by the way facing to the public rather than the critics.In order to further explore that how Maugham,a professional writer,stuck to his creation ideal and maintained the benign interaction with readers at the same time,this thesis analyzes the meanings of the Maugham novel of game spirit and rheological,observes,understands and interprets Maugham's unique novel world,to dig out the enduring artistic value of Maugham novels populated among readers.The thesis consists of three parts:introduction,three chapters as the main body and conclusion.The introduction briefly introduces Maugham's life experiences and draws a rough picture of his literature works and thoughts.This part combs the domestic and foreign studies and illustrates the research approach and significance of this paper.As for the main body,the first chapter sorts out the development and evolution of the western "game theory" as the basis,and clarifies and defines itsconcept.Then,from the literary viewpoints of Maugham,this chapter elaborates the game characteristics of bidirectional interaction between readers and texts presented by his literary conceptions under Gadamer's game theory that reflects the game concepts in Maugham's novels,and explores the way that Maugham focuses the importance of the viewers in his game conceptions and sticks to the artistic self-expression at the same time.Through grasping the game strategy revealed in Maugham's novels,which shows the practice of the content of the game conception,the second chapter analyzes the selection and construction of the game scenes in the novel,and explores the artistic innovation of the language and structure completed in the field of game.Therefore,this chapter holds an overall direction of Maugham's artistic form of expression with distinctive game features.The third chapter pays attention to the background when Maugham created,considers the way that Maugham reflects the dilemma in real life into his novels.This chapter also investigates the process of Maugham's developing understanding of the game spirit,and further comprehends how Maugham transcended the dilemma in real life led by the game spirit to find the outlet of the spiritual freedom.On the basis of summarizing the unique artistic value of Maugham's novels,the conclusion has a critical thinking of the game creation,which introspects the complexity behind the dilemma in real life eliminated by the game spirit.Rethinking the spiritual predicament of modern people,this thesis seeks the inspiration of how to complete the construction of modernity after the modern people complete the realistic rebellion.