凯蒂在《彩色面纱》中的自我救赎之路开题报告

Maugham is one of controversial writers in the history of world literature. On the one hand, Maugham has a large amount of fans and his many works have been adapted into movies. “Maugham is a good writer, and his lucidity and craftsmanship, his ability to entertain, will always ensure him a wide and devoted following”(Chen & Song,2006:318). Maugham is a qualified novelist and playwright who always has followers. What’s more, Maugham also positively influenced other authors. George Orwell said that Maugham was “the modern writer who has influenced me the most”, and he admired Maugham’s “power of telling a story straightforwardly and without frills”(Orwell,1968:210). His texts are concise extremely, words are vivid, dialogues are deliberate and endings are unexpected, which usually gives readers astonishment and ecstasy. However, the perfect man does not exist and Maugham does not escape from the law. On the other hand, some literary critics advocate that Maugham’s works are short of literary values. Maugham ascribes that to his shortage of lyrical quality, his uncomplicated words, and his unskilled use of metaphor in his works. His

stories are not profound enough, lacking of creation, gift, and imagination.

Maugham’s works are also discussed in various aspects by different peoples around the world. Since The Painted Veil was published in 1925, the arguments about this novel have never stopped. This chapter will rearrange these comments and researches of Maugham and The Painted Veil.

a.1 Studies Abroad

Maugham’s books came out by publishing houses and translated into many kinds of languages. In addition, his followers appear almost everywhere. However, his works are not treated seriously by academic scholars and professional critics. For example, some of British literary direction books usually use a few words to introduce this popular writer. The Short Oxford History of English Literature (Sanders,1994:510) narrates Maugham’ s life and achievements with a short length. In literary stardom, he did not get the same status and esteem as his peers such as Virginia Woolf or James Joyce. Thus it is an interesting situation where exists a distance between his high social popularity in the readers’ heart and his low status as man of letters in the literary history. So this situation is called “Maugham phenomenon” by Ted Morgan (Morgan,1980:397). As a controversial writer, the researches abroad about Maugham and his works began to flourish in 1960s. In the initial stage, there had been published several biographies about Maugham. Somerset Maugham: A Biographical and Critical Study written by Richard Cordell came out as the first study material about him in 1961. It mainly depicts Maugham’ s rich life experiences and gives some comments on his writing. After 21st century, Selina Shirley Hastings, a British journalist, created a book about Maugham named The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham: A Biography. It portrays Maugham’ s extraordinary life for the first time, including his marriage to Syrie Wellcome, his homosexual affairs and his special experiences as a spy during two world wars. As the title of the biography suggests, the secrets in Maugham’ s life are unfolded that had been integrated into Maugham’ s writing career, which explores the sources of his initial inspiration of those works.

Above all, those comments and studies abroad generalize the features of Maugham’ s writing style and the themes of his works. However, up to now a monograph or thesis to analyze The Paint Veil systematically has not appeared. Therefore, it is concluded that the novel still have many connotations to explore in the scientific methods. In the following part, it will show the situation of researches at home.

a.2 Studies at Home

The relationship between Maugham and China started as early as 1919. In that time, Maugham had a four-month Chinese journey with his homosexual lover Gerald Haxton. During this period, the materials about the life of British on the Chinese earth were collected and the inspiration of his exotic works was produced. The researches on The Painted Veil at home mainly have flourished after the policy of open and reform. Because a large amount of foreign works poured into the visual field of Chinese critics and readers, and Maugham’ s works were introduced and translated as the same as other foreign writers. On account of the exotic description about China, more and more scholars pay attention on the novel The Paint Veil. The researches on The Paint Veil at home mainly concentrate on the following aspects.

First of all, some critics analyze Chinese images from the perspective of Orientalism and Chinese traditional Taoism. On the one hand, some critics hold the view that Maugham observes Chinese people in the western prejudices. China is depicted as a horrible hell which brims with wars, riots, epidemic and opium. On the other hand, mysterious oriental world can be regarded as an illusory paradise in westerner collective imagination, thanks to Chinese unpolluted natural scenery and Chinese traditional Taoism philosophy.

Secondly, some scholars argue that Kitty should be treated as the only heroine in the novel, so their attentions are put into Kitty’s experience. Therefore, they stress that The Painted Veil must be understood as a female initiation or Kitty is a women with independent consciousness. In 2015, Li Jianmei’ s master degree thesis “An Analysis of Female Initiation in The Painted Veil” conveyed that The Painted Veil is a typical female Bildungsroman. Li’s thesis is analyzed from the perspective of feminine literary criticism and narrative structure of Bildungsroman. 

Thirdly, naturalism has been exposed in The Painted Veil and ecocriticism theory is a new path to interpret this novel. In 2014, Zhao Linshan’ s thesis for master degree “An Interpretation of Maugham’ s Naturalism in The Painted Veil” revealed the naturalism in this novel. She delivered that the whole novel is filled with caring humanity and Maugham provides a significant prescription to solve westerners’ spiritual crisis.

Fourthly, modernism is uncovered in The Painted Veil in some critics view. In Liu Jiajia’ s thesis “A Study of Modernist Features in The Painted Veil”, Liu mainly interpreted modernist features in the novel through analyzing modernist themes and modernist techniques, so it is concluded that The Painted Veil is a modernist novel.

1 Introduction

1.1 An Introduction to William Somerset Maugham and His The Painted Veil

1.2 The Creativity and Significance of the Thesis

2 Literature Review

2.1 Studies Abroad

2.2 Studies at Home

3 Kitty’ s Love and Marriage Dreams

3.1 Kitty’ s Flash Marriage with Walter

3.2 Kitty’ s Extramarital Affair with Townsend

4 The Disillusion of Kitty’ s Love and Marriage Dreams

4.1 Kitty’ s Sufferings from Walter’ s Revenge

4.2 Kitty’ s Sufferings from Townsend’s Betrayal

5 Kitty’ s Rebirth

5.1 Kitty’ s Self-accusation from Reflection on Her Past

5.2 Kitty’ s Self-confidence from Work at the Convent

5.3 Kitty’ s Self-expectation to Her Life in the Future

6 Kitty’ s reflection on others’ death

6.1 Kitty’ s Sentiment of a Beggar’s Death

6.2 Kitty’ s Meditation on Walter’ s Death

6.3 Kitty’ s Reflection on Mrs. Garstin’ s Death

7 Conclusion

C. References

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[2] Cordell, Richard A.. Somerset Maugham: A Biographical and Critical Study[M].Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1961.

[3] Hastings, Selina S.. The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham: A Biography[M].London: Random House, 2010.

[4] Sander, Andrew ed.. The Short Oxford History of English Literature[M].New York: Oxford University Press Inc., 1994.

[5] James, Gorden. Maugham’ s Art of Story-telling:Mr. Maugham Excels as a Craftsman[M].New York :Times, 1925.

[6] Maugham, William S.. East and West: the Collected Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham[M]. New York: Garden City Publishing Company, Inc. 1938.

[7] Maugham, William S.. The Summing Up[M].London: Penguin Books, 1978.

[8] Maugham, William S.. On a Chinese Screen[M].London: Vintage Random House, 2000.

[9] Maugham, William S.. The Painted Veil[M].London: Vintage Random House, 2001.

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