An Analysis Of People’s Contradictory Personalities In The Moon And Sixpence

William Somerset Maugham is a well-known English novelist.The Moon and Sixpence is one of his masterpieces.Because Maugham lived in a transitional period between the 19 th century and the 20 th century,the social background was transforming from traditionalism to realism at that time.Therefore,Maugham’s novels are full of realism.Although the hypocrisy of humanity and the supremacy of benefits are becoming intenser and intenser in the real society,Maugham can always exploit thing’s connotation calmly through the surface phenomena,satirize the current social phenomena at that time successfully and then explore the deep meaning of life.As far as The Moon and Sixpence is concerned,most scholars at home and abroad study The Moon and Sixpence from the relationship with Gauguin,narrative structure,existentialism,spiritual ecology,ethics,spiritual search,characters’ personalities and so on.Some of them use Freud’s theory of personality structure to study the transformation of the protagonist’s personalities and some of them explore the characters’ personalities in the novel from a multidimensional perspective.But this thesis takes a different approach,it tries to study the contradictory personalities of the characters in the novel by using Freud’s theory of personality structure.Freud’s theory of personality structure consists of three parts: id,ego and superego.Id is a person’s instinctive impulse and desire.Ego is influenced by the outside world and looks for the right way to realize id.Superego is the highest level of personality structure and it is the ethical ego.Based on Freud’s theory of personality structure,this thesis untangles and analyzes the contradictory personalities of the characters in Maugham’s novel,The Moon and Sixpence.This study finds that even in the same person,when different personalities dominate,they also show different personality characteristics.In terms of the core characters in the novel,their contradictory personalities are mainly reflected in Strickland’s agreeableness and acerbity,Mrs.Strickland’s fragility and fortitude as well as Stroeve’s compromise and stubbornness.This study attempts to explore the causes of the contradictory personalities and the impacts on the fate of the characters by analyzing the personality characteristics of the above characters.Generally speaking,if the conflicts of personalities are handled properly,the personalities will be balance,otherwise,the personalities will be imbalance.The final purpose of this study is to reveal the importance and significance of maintaining the balance of personality structure.