Text analysis № 3

«In a Strange Land» by W. S. Maugham

I’m going to analyse the story “In a Strange Land” written by William Somerset Maugham. He is an English author, expert storyteller and a master of fiction technique. An introverted child afflicted with a stammer, Maugham was orphaned at 10 ad sent to live with his uncle, a vicar. Although he later studied medicine and completed his internship, he never practiced, having decided at an early age to devote himself to literature.

Maugham wrote with wit and irony, frequently expressing a cynical attitude towards life. The story “In a strange land” is a deep and well written work. The reader can anticipate the content of the story with the help of the title. It has two functions. First of all, emotive, because we can see the author’s evaluation. Precisely, the land, the country in which the story takes place seems and accepted by the author as a rather strange place. And the second one – topical - because it indicates whereabouts of the action. And we can deduce that the story takes place somewhere probably in an exotic country.

However the whole semantic meaning of the title may be fully determined only in the retrospectation, after reading and analyzing all the text information. The reader can just build up some guessings. The theme of this work is an interaction of human characters under certain circumstances. In our case it cannot be fully understood from the title. But according to it we can definitely say that the events of the story and the life of the main character were influenced by this strange land in which the story takes place and about which it is mentioned in the title. According to the plot we see that the theme of this story is connected with love, to be precise with what people are ready to do if they really have deep feelings. In our story this person ready to do everything for the love turned out to be an Englishwoman, Signora Nicolini, who has left her Motherland and previous life following her love. The author also reinforces the idea that whatever happens to her, no matter which problems she faces in a foreign land, she does not, so to say, betray her culture and her way of upbringing, moreover she carries everything she gained from her country and culture through the years. By the rhetorical question: “Is it romance they have sought, or freedom?” the author of the story gives the readers some food for thought, to reason about the implied idea of the story.

The author conveys his message to the reader through the system of images. And we can without hesitation say that they are the result of his life, observations, and his imagination. This story is a first person narration. So we see that one of the characters is the author himself. He starts the story, beginning with the periphrasis: I am of roving disposition (= I’m fond of travelling). Thus from the first lines we see that he likes travelling and is going to tell us something that had happened to him during his journey. Though the main character, the protagonist of this story is Signora Nicolini, that very Englishwoman who left her home many years ago to follow a man, whom she so much loved. She is considered to be a protagonist because her role in the story is significant, it is major, and there wouldn’t be any story without her. We mostly build up our opinion about this character according to the description which we gain from the author, but nevertheless the information and the attitude to this character is expressed implicitly through the dialogue. The way the characters behave while speaking tells us a lot about their inner world and the state of their minds. And with the help of images we can understand the author’s subjective description of objective reality. To my mind Signora Nicolini is a flat, static character because during the whole story the author characterizes her mostly from one side, precisely that she was a loyal and determined person, who was not afraid of anything, of going to an unknown rather exotic country, following her love, adopting her husband’s children, which he got while already being married to her. We also get acquainted with Signor Nicolini who died fifteen years ago but who is not forgotten in Signora Nicolini’s house and is still loved and admired by her. Even thoughР

Even though we feel his presence in the story, he is considered to be a minor character as he doesn’t take any actions in it. There are two more personages whose role is also minor. These are two handsome men, the Signor Nicolini’s sons, whom she adopted so generously and kindly. After getting through the whole story we can deduce that the protagonist of the story is the inner world of Signora Nicolini, her feelings, emotions, we can even say her fate which led her to that unknown world of Asia Minor. Even though the years have passed in her inner world, the devotion to her traditions and culture which were not able to be forgotten and eradicated from the memory, habits - they remained the same. While describing the image of a classical Englishwoman living in an unusual, not suitable to her at all place, the author uses a kind of attachment:

“… never fails to give me a little shock of amused astonishment. This is the elderly Englishwoman.” In this case it serves as a sort of additional information to the previous sentence.

The dialogue plays quite an important role in the story, because through it we can learn a lot about the inner world of the characters, their level of education, habits, state of mind and the way of perception of life generally. It is mentioned that Signora Nicolini had a cockney accent and we can clearly see it in her inner represented speech: “’ot-water bottle”, “I’aven’t spoken”, etc.

There is an inner conflict in the story. It is the conflict of the main character, Signora Nicolini, with her inner world and feelings. At the very first sight it seems that Signora Nicolini is a calm and peaceful person, being always happy with her life. But if we go deeper and try to penetrate into her inner world, we will be able to understand how brave this woman is, how many things she was able to accept, forgive and just go along with… The breaking of any kind of relations with her family, leaving her beloved country, living in a foreign place, and the most impressive – forgiving the betrayal of her husband and the acceptance of his children as her own. These are the things which make up think what made her so strong? The answer is clear – love. It the love which she carried through the years in her heart and which helped her to cope with different life situations.

The plot of the story seems to be rather simple, but the end is quite unexpected. During the whole story we think that Signor Nicolini was a very good man, because it is Signora Nicolini who persuades us in it by her admiration. But after we find out that he got two sons from the Greek girl who used to work in the hotel our opinion about both of them changes. The events of the story are in chronological order but sometimes the author gives us the information bringing back Signora Nicolini’s memories. The plot touches upon the love affairs, the relation between people, between cultures. In general the story is about one Englishwoman who many years ago left her country, England, her parents and relatives in order to follow her only love – an Italian man whose surname was Nicolini. She made her dream come true – they got married. And her whole love she lived cheek to cheek with this man, being always dedicated to him and deeply in love. One day the author had a chance to get acquainted with this woman and together with us, the readers, he discloses the life of this woman.

The story begins with the exposition. Here the author introduces the theme, the setting and the main character. The action takes place in Asia Minor, in a little town in which the author arrived after a tedious journey, in a hotel which belonged to our major character - Signora Nicolini. The description of the author creates an atmosphere of something exotic, the undiscovered place for the reader, and keeps the reader in suspense about the fact what really made this Englishwoman come to this “strange land”. While exposing the author uses a number of expressive means. First of all, it is the gradation which starts from the first lines of the story and which is followed by the anticlimax starting with the words: “I avoid the great. I would not cross the road to meet a president or a king”, etc. The author also uses some emphatic constructions such as inversion: “I should be inclined to say that I am not surprised to meet any sort of person were it not that there is one sort that I am….” The metonymy “a plate of Old Worcester” the author uses to show the epoch. And the exposition is finished by a rhetorical question: “Is it romance they have sought, or freedom?” to make the readers reason a bit about the power that make such Englishwomen move to such extraordinary places.

The second structural component which follows the exposition is complication. To the complication we can refer the moment when Signora Nicolini had a conversation with the author as her guest. During the whole talking there was a kind of suspense: what is there so significant in this Englishwoman that the author has decided to dedicate the whole story to her?

The third component is the climax. In our case it comes the moment when Signora Nicolini introduces two men to the author: her sons. To be precise, the children of the late Signor Nicolini and the Greek girl, who used to work in the hotel. And this very moment we realize what is there so special about this Englishwoman.

The general atmosphere of the story is maintained by a style and tone, by the plot, the setting, and by characters. The tone is quite impassive, but the setting, precisely the Asia Minor, creates the atmosphere of something unknown. The major character, Signora Nicolini, also influences the atmosphere of the story. Her way of talking, her manners, habits, her upbringing do not coincide with the surrounding area she lives in. It makes us think why do the author enumerates all her pluses and at the same time makes us think what is the mystery about her life and what gives her power to stay in good mood even in this unknown country, because even though she has already spent many years in this region, this country, it could not become her land.

The message of this story is created by the interaction of many components, such as type of the text, composition, setting, characters, plot, etc. It is disclosed by the dialogue between the author and Signora Nicolini and by the inner represented speech. To my mind the author by this story tries to show us what the real love is and what it can make people to do, which actions to take. It makes people brave, taking crazy actions, adore a person from the bottom of their hearts and even forgive the betrayal…

The story is written in belles-lettres style, the language of fiction and is an abundance of different stylistic devices and expressive means. The author uses parenthesis several times: “But of all these Englishwomen whom I have met or perhaps only heard of (for as I have said they are difficult of access)… ”, “There is nothing I like more (if we were not all sick to death of the war tell you the story of how six men risked their lives to fetch a hot-water bottle from a chateau in Flanders that was being bombarded)…”, etc. which gives some additional information to the sentence. There is also an emphatic construction: “the one who remains most vividly in my memory is an elderly person who lived in Asia Minor”. The author uses this device to reinforce the effect which Signora Nicolini made on him at the first sight. The author also uses several times the repetition of the word “astonishment” to reinforce his emotional condition at a particular moment and also inversion: “There is nothing I like more…”, “For what she said was strangely incongruous with her manner”, “… for whom allowance must be made.” There can be also seen a number of similes: “looked like a house-keeper in a great English house”, “she looked upon everyone who wasn’t English as a foreigner and therefore as someone, almost imbecile, for whom allowance must be made”. Maugham also uses anaphoric repetition: “It was not…” to make it more meaningful got the reader. In the same paragraph we can see the litotes: “It was not for nothing that she had been in service in a noble English family” which makes the reader think a bit about the real meaning of this phrase. We can also see a periphrasis which the author uses to soften the meaning of a phrase, to make it sound not glaringly: “Signor Nicolini was a very handsome man and for some years there had been an ‘understanding’ between them.” At the same time there are graphic means used with this word, which show us that the author means in this case something different by the word “understanding”. The text has a metaphor: “raw material”, a metonymy: “I shook hands with the pair…”, a number of epithets: “resounding kisses”, “a beautiful hot-water bottle”, an idiom: “they are the very image of Signor Nicolini” to make the speech more beautiful, expressive and impressive.

Somerset Maugham is a master of a short story writing and this work made me sure of it one more time. He skillfully depicts his characters and makes the reader think of the real meaning and calling of the work. The story, as all stories of this author, is unusual. At the first sight it seems to be plain, but it has a deep meaning and makes us think what is really important. It is a good example of what real love can be.

Martynova Inna,

Foreign Languages Department student