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TOPIC 6: W.S.MAUGHAM AND HIS VOICE
IN ‘THE ESCAPE’
І. READING
1. Read and translate into your mother tongue Text Two from the book by V.D.Arakin (5 year) pp.41-44.
2. Do exercise 12 pp. 51-52.
3. Do exercises 18, 19, 20, 21p.54.
4. Read the pattern stylistic analysis of the text (compiled by L.I.Serdyukova) and give your own commentaries on the style of Text One taking into account the suggested analysis (see Supplement 2 ‘The Scheme of a Stylistic Analysis of Fiction’).
W.S. Maugham’s stories make exciting reading and give food for reflection. The writer is a great master of ironic style. More often than not the author pretends to praise and justify what he exposes and condemns, forcing the reader to see through this pretence and make his own conclusions as to the work. The story ”The Escape” is a fair example of Maugham’s ironic style.
The basic theme of the story is marriage in bourgeois society, the relations between men and women in connection with problems of marriage. The author tackles a typical phenomenon of bourgeois society-a marriage of convenience. He looks at the variant of a marriage of convenience when a woman is the interested party. The plot centers around a love affair between Ruth Barlow, twice a widow, and Roger Charing, a no longer young man with plenty of money. The story of their relationship is told by a convinced bachelor who is to treat acumen in getting rid of Ruth. At a cursory reading this compositional device leads the reader astray, making him mistake the story for a humorous one and side with the narrator and his protagonist. Only after some reflection on the peculiarities in the development of the plot, and the means of characterization used to bring out the essential features in the characters of Ruth and Roger does the reader fully comprehend that it is a story of a man’s cruelty and callousness to a women. Having social significance.
The message transmitted to the reader by the whole poetic structure of the story may be put into the following words: a marriage of convenience is a sordid and ruthless business that drives both partners to ignoble actions. To achieve one’s object in such a marriage, as well as to escape it, one has to scheme, using all one’s wits or charm. The pursuit of marriage turns into a hunt. This central image of the story is introduced in an ironical key with the help of the play upon the nonce-word coined by W.Thackeray – “husbandhunting”, and the nonce-word created by the author for the occasion – “househunting”: “Househunting is a tiring and a tiresome business”. This metaphoric description of the relationship between man and woman in connection with the question of marriage is sustained throughout the story by the contributory images developing the image of a hunt: “They set out the chase again”: “her wounded feelings”: “to release him”: “to render man defenceless”; “to extricate himself”; “the escape”. In their interaction in the context of the story these phrases acquire metaphoric meanings and suggest the idea of marriage as a trap. The partners involved in the pursuit of such marriage stand out in the light of this idea as the hunter and the game.
Roger Charing was an easy game for the huntress Ruth Barlow. Under the charm of her “pathetic”, “splendid dark” eyes he “went down like a row of ninepins”. However, Ruth could not keep her catch, because she was dull and foolish. She had cultivated one quality – the art of catching a rich husband, as it was the only means for a woman at the time to provide for herself decently in life. When Roger made up his mind to escape from the trap set up by Ruth he resorted to scheming too, that is he decided to fight the enemy with her own weapon. But being a shrewd man of the world he did that with refined cruelty. Desperately hankering on marriage, Ruth “had the patience of angel” when for two years Roger ragged her neatly and subtly, by pretending that “her happiness was” a perfect house that wanted finding”. His hypocrisy knew no bounds when he beseeched Ruth to have patience, making her “look at hundreds of houses, climb thousands of stairs, inspect innumerable kitchens”. Roger’s hypocrisy in dealing with Ruth during the househunting is laid bare by means of uttered represented speech. The story-teller inserts into his narrative fragments from Roger’s direct speech addressed to Ruth in various occasions and makes the reader see for himself the glaring discrepancy between Roger’s words and actions. Cool-headed and in possession of his senses he tortured his victim gently, never failing to give her pet names – “Dear Ruth”; poor dear”. Having defeated his enemy in the battle of wits and endurance Roger felt no pity for his victim. When under the stress of the househunting Ruth Barlow took to her bed, “as ever assiduous and gallant” Roger wrote to her every day, telling her “that he had heard of another house for them to look at”, thus finishing her off. When the victim admitted her defeat Roger urgently sent a letter full of hypocritical manifestations of his grief and sorrow. But that was not enough for him. The letter contained a spiteful parting shot, charged with venom, which was Ruth’s undoing. This latter is a powerful means of indirect characterization, revealing to the full the true nature of a cool-headed, callous and spiteful person hidden under the mask of a perfect English gentleman. Being a true member of his class Roger dealt cruelty with the women he once loved for two reasons only: he didn’t want to put to hazards his reputation (“people are apt to think he has behaved badly if a man has jilted a woman”) and he didn’t want to part company with his money if he openly broke the engagement (“if he asked her to release him, she would assess her wounded feelings at an immoderately high figure”).
Thus by skillfully using various means of ironic characterization W.S. Maugham has turned a banal plot into a socially significant story.
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