Topics for final discussion

WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM THE PAINTED VEIL

INTRODUCTORY NOTES

An English writer W.Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) is one of the most widely read novelists of the present day. He was trained and worked as a doctor for some time at St Thomas’s Hospital, London, but soon abandoned the medical profession for literature beginning as a novelist and short story writer, and then turning to drama.

His first novel, Liza of Lambeth (1897) shows the influence of Zola, an example of growing importance of French influence on English fiction at the end of the 19th century. His semi-autobiographical novel Of Human Bondage (1915) made his name. Then he shifted his scene to an exotic background in The Moon and Sixpence (1909), an adaptation of the life of the French painter Paul Gauguin, The Painted Veil (1925) and The Casuarina Tree (1926). Among his later fiction should be mentioned the novels Cakes and Ale (1930), The Razor’s Edge (1944) generally admitted to be his best novel in recent years. His short stories tell of odd, unusual and surprising experiences with dramatic, exciting intensity. His favorite method is narration through a third person, or indirect narration, which enables him to pass his remarks without apparent intrusion.

The professional accomplishment of his works gave him a wide foreign public, and after 1930 his reputation abroad was greater than at home, though interest in him revived in England towards his 80th birthday.

Many critics praised Maugham’s clear-cut prose. At his best he is an incomparable story-teller. He writes with lucidity and almost ostentatious simplicity. Giving him his due for brilliance of style, a pointed ridicule of many social vices, such as snobbery, money-worship, pretence, self-interest, etc., the reader realizes, however, his cynical attitude to mankind. His ironical cynicism combined with a keen wit and power of observation affords him effective means of potraying English reality without shrinking before its seamy side. Thanks to that some of his novels (The Painted Veil, The Razor’s Edge, The Moon and Sixpence) have supplied the plots for popular films.

The Painted Veil is not among the best novels of W.Somerset Maugham, but his rich experience of life and his acute insight into human nature gave Maugham an analytical and critical quality which found its expression in the vivid depiction of characters and situations in this book. It is obviously worth reading first of all from the point of view of the beautiful, expressive language.

 

 

Chapters I – X

1. Paraphrase the expressions under study and recollect the situation in which they appear:

 

1. She gave a startled cry. 2. … he saw her face on a sudden distraught with terror. 3. … she whispered, her lips trembling. 4. It occurred to him that in emergency she would lose her head and on a sudden he felt angry with her. 5. Have a little pluck, Kitty. 6. Her tone was incredulous. 7. He gave her that charming smile of his which she had always found so irresistible. 8. He had the lithe figure and the springing step of a boy. 9. After all there was no reason for her to put on airs. 10. Chinese servants held their tongues. 11. She would fling the truth in his teeth, and he could do what he chose. 12. Her dinners were long and elaborate, but thrifty, she could never persuade herself that people when they were eating and talking knew what they drank. 13. He was still a junior and many younger men than he had already taken silk. 14. But it was on her daughters that she set her hopes. 15. Mrs Garstin performed prodigies in getting herself invited to dances where her daughters might meet eligible men. 16. But mrs Garstin judged the situation more shrewdly: with anger in her heart for the beautiful daughter who had missed her chances she set her standard a little lower. 17. But parsimony was as strong in her as ambition. 18. She was obsequious to the judges and their ladies.

2. Find in the text all the synonyms to the word ‘tremble’. Use them in your own sentences.

3. In what tenor are the first chapters of the novel written?

4. Speak about two lovers and their attitude to the situation. Recollect the dialogue between Kitty and Charlie. Make a summary of Kitty and Charlie as character studies.

5. Describe the appearance and the character of Dorothy Townsend. What was her attitude towards Kitty?

6. What kind of person was Mrs Garstin? What is the author’s method of describing her? What

are the main characteristic features of Mrs Garstin? Why did she despise her husband? What was the difference between Kitty and her sister Doris?

7. Comment upon the sentence ‘Within three month of her marriage she knew that she had made a mistake; but it had been her mother’s fault even more than hers’. Speak about Kitty’s marriage. Why did Kitty marry Walter Fane? In what way does the author present the story of her marriage?

Chapters XI – XXII

1. Words and expressions to be remembered:

chance to meet smb.

speak with her tongue in her cheek

elated

put smb. on the shelf

be rash

a sarcastic smirk

apprehension

not care a pin for smb.

be a wet blanket at a party

blur

give smb. smile of connivance

buoyant

constrained note

a gleam of mockery

average

Give definitions of these words and recollect the situation in which they appear.

2. Analyze the usage of the word ‘casual/casually’ in chapters under discussion. What can you say about the choice of vocabulary in these chapters? How does the use of the vocabulary help to make the scene and the characters vivid and lifelike?

3. Comment on the personality of Walter Fane citing the text. What is the author’s attitude to him?

4. Why did Kitty fell in love with Charlie? What was the difference between W.Fane and Ch.Townsend?

5. Translate the passage ‘Her happiness, sometimes almost more than she could bear…’ and make up several sentences discussing ‘a woman in love’, using the following words and word combinations: to lose her first freshness, to be compared to the peach or to the flower, to look eighteen once more, worship smb.

6. Comment upon the ‘day-dreams’ of Kitty.

7. What did Kitty plan for the future? Did her plan coincide with Charlie’s?

8. Comment upon the passage: ‘Walter did not as usual when they were dining out give her a smiling glance now and then’ ). Recollect her thoughts of her husband’s shyness.

9. Summarize the writer’s method in presenting his characters, his technique of character drawing. Pick out the words characterizing each of the personages (Kitty, Charlie, and Walter). Take notice of their behavior and speech. What do we learn about them through their inner speech?

Chapters XXIII – XXXII

1. Words and expressions to be remembered:

indignation

co-respondent

contemptuous

find smb. subservient to all the whims

marry for convenience

be enraptured

blind wrath

make a woman more vindictive than a lioness robbed of her cubs

drag smb. round those interminable galleries

look at smb. frowning

give people a chance to gossip

intimidate

deliberate intention of deceiving

it’s a scrape we’ve got into

induce smb. to do smth.

make a clean breast of it

consternation

no reason to get the wind up about it

shroud

a flash of insight

inkling

quench

take proper precautions

Give definitions of these words and recollect the situation in which they appear.

2. Comment on the words and behavior of Walter Fane during the conversation with Kitty, citing the text if necessary. Explain the choice of the vocabulary in the chapter.

3. Explain and expand on the proverb: ‘They say there is no time like the present’ Who said it and why?

4. Analyze the development of Kitty’s mood during her dialogue with Charlie. Characterize the chapters containing their dialogue as a whole. Say whether they present a dialogue, a piece of narration, character drawing, etc. If the extract contains different elements, name all of them. Why is the dialogue divided into three chapters? Account for the length of these chapters and chapter XXVII. How does the length of the chapters go with their content?

5. Why did Walter foresee the events and the reaction of Ch.Townsend to the proposal to divorce?

6. What stylistic devices and figures of speech are used to describe the inner state and suffering of the main character of the narrative (Kitty) on the way to Mei-tan-fu?

7. What is the function of the direct description of Waddington? Explain Walter’s (‘A faint smile lingered on his lips’) and Kitty’s (‘But Kitty, she knew not why, was filled with awe’) reaction towards their new house and Waddington.

 

 

Chapters XXXIII – XLV

1. Words and expressions to be remembered:

be tortured with

tortuous

coffin

garish

the dread grip of the pestilence

stay the plague

have one’s stock in trade

get on

dash off

make a blunder

vain

be hungry for flattery

hold smb. in contempt

make the remarks droll

decimate the city

bizarre

become taciturn

console smb.

put smb at one’s disposal

have smb in one’s pocket

commit suicide

stand on the threshold

a hint of malice

austere demeanour

placid tone

benefactor

baptize

condescension

exasperate

top-heavy

awe

a dark lining to the silver cloud

Make up your own sentences with the words from the list above.

 

2. Explain and expand on the following:

1) ‘Behind its crenellations lay the city in the dread grip of the pestilence’

2) ‘Charm and nothing but charm at last a little tiresome, I think’

3) ‘And of course he isn’t a passionate man; he’s only a vain one’

4) ‘… and so after a week they had arrived at an intimacy which under other circumstances they could scarcely have achieved in a year’

5) ‘Thank you very much, but I’m not thinking of committing suicide yet’

6) ‘You’d neither of you get thirty bob a week in a touring company if that’s the best you can do.’

7) ‘She had an idea that the religious were always grave and this sweet and childlike merriment touched her’

8) ‘But once within the convent it had seemed to her that she was transported into another world situated strangely neither in space nor time’

 

3. Comment upon the sentence: ‘It was as though the corner of a curtain were lifted for a moment, and she caught a glimpse of a world rich with a colour and significance she had not dreamt of’. Relate it with the title of the book.

 

4. Why didn’t Waddington believe ‘a word she (Kitty) said’? What made Kitty cry? Analyze the passage: ‘He gazed at her reflectively, that malicious, ironical look in his bright eyes, but mingled with it, a shadow, like a tree standing at the river’s edge and its reflexion in the water, was an expression of singular kindness’ from the point of view of the stylistic devices used in it.

 

5. Try to reason out the role of the visit to the convent. Did it change Kitty’s attitude towards her husband? Why didn’t she change her mind after the conversation with Waddington?

 

Chapters XLVI – LVI

 

 

1. Words and expressions to be remembered:

feel smb. stiffen

reticent

sable coat

sawdust

alms

a detached scrutiny

delve into the secret of one’s heart

owe smb. a deep debt of gratitude

a sagacious look

be importunate

sloe-black eyes

yearn for

perversity

lure

play pranks

wayward child

love to distraction

be wicked

peep in / into

a blow to the vanity

fill smb. with consternation

Paraphrase these words and expressions in the sentences they are used.

 

2. Retell the story of love of Mr Waddington. Why was Kitty impressed by it?

3. Explain the function of the description of the road to a Buddhist monastery in chapter LIII. Compare it with the description, given in chapter XXX. What is the general slant of the first and the second? Prove it.

4. Give a brief summary of chapter LII. Speak of the text stating whether it presents a description, a piece of narration, character drawing, etc. If it contains different elements, name all of them.

5. Comment upon the sentence ‘Two little drops in that river that flowed silently towards the unknown; two little drops that to themselves had so much individuality and to the onlooker were but an undistinguishable part of the water’ . What expressive means are used in it? What is the hidden meaning of it? Why is this image repeated at the end of the conversation between Kitty and Waddington? (‘Two little drops that flowed silently, silently towards the dark, eternal sea’.)

 

6. What role do the italicized words play (chapter LVI)? Read and translate the passage: ‘She began to weep’ – ‘I don’t know,’ she said’ . Why couldn’t Kitty lie? Why had she to tell the truth?

 

Chapters LVII – LXVIII

 

 

1. Words and expressions to be remembered:

sultry

harass

thrive on it

act of fornication

the hardest of all wounds to heal

magnanimous

twittering of birds

wary, self-possessed, unfathomable eyes

reprove

reverie

make the vow

be repented of

take pains to be quiet

ominous

pang

perplexity

withdraw smb. from the reality of life

acute

remain quite placid

 

2. Comment upon the sentence: ‘She didn’t trust him; if she said the wrong thing he would turn upon her with such an icy sternness’. Compare Kitty’s inner monologue and her words towards Walter in their conversation (chapter LVII).

3. Why did Kitty want to see the Manchu woman? What was she looking for? Did Waddington understand her?

4. Explain the function and the meaning of the detailed description of Kitty’s way to the dying husband. Translate the passage: ‘the officer, already in his chair, passed by and as he passed called out to Kitty’s bearers…’ – ‘The rime was going and any moment might be too late’ . Comment upon the vocabulary of the passage and the usage of the tense forms, paying attention to the words ‘dead’, ‘tortured /tortuous’’, ‘terror’, ‘silent/silence’ etc. What stylistic devices are used in it and why? Analyze the repetition of the word ‘faster’ at the end of the chapter.

5. Make up a short dialogue, discussing the idea hidden in the phrase: ‘A little smoke lost in the air, that was the life of man’ and the symbol of the orchestra: ‘… he knows that the symphony is lovely, and though there’s none to hear it, it is lovely still, and he is content to play his part’ . Try to explain the philosophy of Taoism in it.

6. Compare the rhythm of two descriptions of the way to Walter in chapter LXII and her return at the beginning of chapter LXIV. How did the author achieve this change?

7. Why did Waddington tell Kitty the surgeon’s statements about the way Walter was infected? Did he understand Kitty’s phrase: ‘Walter died of a broken heart’? Comment upon the line of Goldsmith’s rhyme.

 

 

Chapters LXIX – LXXX

 

1. Paraphrase the expressions under study and recollect the situation in which they appear:

1. A Chinese official in a sedan who looked at the white woman with inquisitive eyes… 2. It seemed dreadfully callous. 3. The sisters wondered at her Christian resignation and admired the courage with which she bore her loss. 4. If it is necessary sometimes to lie to others it is always despicable to lie to oneself. 5. …courage and a valiant unconcern for whatever was to come. 6. She had a lump in her throat. 7. Kitty snatched her hand away. 8. . She was confused and vexed. 9. You see, I want to make amends to you. 10. They heard a motor drive up, and Charlie strode into the room. 11. ‘Oh, you must have one,’ insisted Townsend in his breezy, cordial manner. 12. She wished sometimes that Waddington were there; with his malicious shrewdness he would have seen the fun of the situation… 13. He remained kindly, sympathetic, pleasant and amiable. 14. She looked straight into his eyes with cool insolence. 15. And after all I had to think of my children; it would have been an awful handicap for them. 16. You’re despicable. 17. You know how sincerely I feel for you in your bereavement. 18. There were books, photographs, and various odds and ends. 19. I disown her. 20. The parents doted on their children. 21. It wrung her heart.

2. Explain the usage of the Passive Voice in chapter LXXI (‘Kitty allowed herself to be kissed’. ‘…Kitty, allowing herself to be led…’ )

3. Comment upon the new view that Kitty had on Charlie (‘His thick curling hair was a little too long…’ – ‘His smart clothes were a little tight for him and a little too young’ ). Which stylistic device is used in the passage and what for? Why did Kitty ‘receive quite a shock

4. Explain the meaning of the proverb: ‘The proof of the pudding is in the eating’ . In what situation is it used? Make up a short dialogue with it.

5. Comment upon the last sentence of the novel: ‘The sun rose, dispelling the mist, and she saw winding onwards as far as the eye could reach, among the rice-fields…’ .

 

 

Topics for final discussion

1. W.Somerset Maugham (biography, literary career, essential works and artistic manner).

2. Give a three-minute summary of the whole book.

3. Describe the personality of Walter Fane.

4. Compare the main heroine at the beginning of the book and at the end.

5. Speak about your favorite character in the novel.

6. Draw character sketches of Charlie Townsend and his wife.

7. Mr Waddington as a contradictory character.

8. Problems of the family as depicted in the book.

9. The question of love and marriage as it’s revealed in the novel under discussion.

 

 

Appendix

Metaphortransference of names based on the associated likeness between two objects. The expressiveness of that lexical stylistic device is promoted by the implicit simultaneous presence of images of both objects – the one which is actually named and the one which supplies its own ‘legal’ name. The wider is the gap between the associated objects the more striking and unexpected – the more expressive – is the metaphor. Metaphor can be expressed by all notional parts of speech.

 

Metonymy - contiguity (nearness) of objects or phenomena. Transference of names in metonymy does not involve a necessity for two different words to have a common component in their semantic structure, as is the case with metaphor, but proceeds from the fact that two objects (phenomena) have common grounds of existence in reality. As a rule, metonymy is expressed by nouns.

 

Pun misinterpretation of one speaker’s utterance by the other, which results in his remark dealing with a different meaning of the misinterpreted word or its homonym. Punning may be the result of the speaker’s intended violation of the listener’s expectation. The effect of pun is humorous.

 

Zeugma – polysemantic verbs that have a practically unlimited lexical valency and can be combined with nouns of most varying semantic groups, are deliberately used with two or more homogeneous members, which are not connected semantically.

 

Irony – a stylistic device in which the contextual evaluative meaning of a word is directly opposite to its dictionary meaning.

 

Antonomasia - a stylistic device in which a proper name is used instead of a common noun or vice versa, i.e. the nominal meaning of a proper name is suppressed by its logical meaning or the logical meaning acquires the new – nominal – component. Another type of antonomasia is presented by the so-called “speaking names” – names whose origin from common nouns is still clearly perceived.

Epithet – a characteristic of an object, both existing and imaginary. Its basic feature is its emotiveness and subjectivity: the characteristic attached to the object to qualify it is always chosen by the speaker himself. The structure and semantics of epithets are extremely variable which is explained by their long and wide use. Semantically there should be differentiate two main groups: affective (emotive proper) and figurative (transferred) epithets. The second group is formed of metaphors, metonymies and similes expressed by adjectives. Like metaphor, metonymy and simile, corresponding epithets are also based on similarity of characteristics of two objects in the first case, on nearness of the qualified objects in the second one and on their comparison in the third. In the overwhelming majority of examples epithet is expressed by adjectives or qualitative adverbs.

Hyperbole – a stylistic device in which emphasis is achieved through deliberate exaggeration – like epithet relies on the foregrounding of the emotive meaning. Hyperbole is one of the most common expressive means of our everyday speech. It can be expressed by all nominative parts of speech.

 

Oxymoron – a combination of two semantically contradictory notions, that help to emphasize contradictory qualities as a dialectal unity simultaneously existing in the described phenomenon. As a rule, one of the two members of oxymoron illustrates the feature which is universally observed and acknowledged while the other one offers a purely subjective individual perception of the object. Oxymoron is a specific type of epithet.

 

Repetition – recurrence of the same word, word combination, phrase for two and more times. According to the place which the repeated unit occupies in a sentence, repetition is classified into several types: anaphora, epiphora, framing, catch repetition, chain repetition, ordinary repetition, successive repetition.

Parallel construction – may be viewed as a purely syntactical type of repetition, but here we deal with the reiteration of the structure of several successive sentences (clauses), and not their lexical “flesh”. Parallel constructions almost always include some type of lexical repetition too, and such a convergence produces a very strong effect, foregrounding at one go logical, rhythmic, emotive and expressive aspects of the utterance. Reversed parallelism is called chiasmus. The second part of a chiasmus is, in fact, inversion of the first construction.

 

Inversion – the direct word order is changed either completely so that the predicate (predicative) precedes the subject, or partially so that the object precedes the subject-predicate pair. Correspondingly, we differentiate a partial and a complete inversion.

Suspense – a deliberate postponement of the completion of the sentence. The term “suspense” also used in literary criticism to denote an expectant uncertainty about the outcome of the plot. To hold the reader in suspense means to keep the final solution just out of the sight. Detective and adventure stories are examples of suspense fiction. Technically, suspense is organized with the help of the embedded clauses (homogeneous members) separating the predicate from the subject and introducing less important facts and details first, while the expected information of major importance is reserved till the end of the sentence.

 

Detachment – a stylistic device based on singling out a secondary member of the sentence with the help of punctuation (intonation). The word order here is not violated, but secondary members obtain their own stress and intonation because they are detached from the rest of the sentence by commas, dashes or even a full stop.

 

Ellipsis – deliberate omission of at least one member of the sentence. In contemporary prose ellipsis is mainly used in dialogue where it is consciously employed by the author to reflect the natural omission characterizing oral colloquial speech. Ellipsis is the basis of the so-called telegraphic style, in which connective and redundant words are left out.

 

Polysyndeton /asyndeton – repeated use of conjunction / deliberate omission of them. Both polysyndeton and asyndeton have a strong rhythmic impact. Besides, the function polysyndeton is to strengthen the idea of equal logical importance of connected sentences, while asyndeton, cutting off connected words, helps to create the effect of terse, energetic, active prose.

Antithesis – syntactically just another case of parallel construction. But unlike parallelism, which is indifferent to the semantics of its components, the two parts of an antithesis must be semantically opposite to each other. The main function of antithesis is to stress the heterogeneity of the described phenomenon, to show that the latter is a dialectical unity of two (or more) opposing features.

Simile – an imaginative comparison of two unlike objects belonging to two different classes. The one which is compared is called the tenor, the one with which it is compared, is called the vehicle. The tenor and the vehicle form the two semantic poles of the simile, which are connected by one of the following link words: “like”, “as”, “though”, “as like”, “such as”, “as…as”, etc. Simile should not be confused with simple (logical, ordinary) comparison. Structurally identical, they are semantically different: objects belonging to the same class are likened in a simple comparison, while in a simile we deal with the likening of objects belonging to two different classes. In a metaphor two unlike objects are identified on the grounds of possessing one common characteristic. In a simile two objects are compared on the grounds of similarity of the same quality. A simile, often repeated, becomes trite and adds to the stick of language phraseology.