The Journey To The "Moon"

William Somerset Maugham is a British novelist and dramatist. His novels are the reflection of the ethical phenomena in the society with satirical humour writing. The Moon and Sixpence was such a novel of this kind and it was written in 1919. Maugham narrated this story from the first person's perspective. This novel was a reflection of the famous France impressionist painter Gauguin's life. The protagonist Charles Strickland was once a stockbroker and he moved to the Tahiti Island to live with the natives in his middle ages. This kind of life gave him the material to painting. This story released the theme that the protagonist fought against the reality in order to pursue his dream, so most scholars studied on its theme. And some other scholars studied this novel from the perspective of existentialism, the symbolism, the relationships of this novel and Maugham or Gauguin. This study tries to analyze The Moon and Sixpence from a new perspective—The ethical literary criticism.The ethical literary criticism aims to analyze the complex social relationships, including its reason, its phenomenon and its influence. This study investigates Strickland's immoral behaviors and psychology on his journey to the "moon" from the perspective of ethical literary criticism. Through analyzing the protagonist and his social relationships to educate people who are pursuing an ideal from a contrast aspect. On the journey to the ideal, taking the society and others benefits into account is important to building harmonious human society.This thesis contains seven chapters:Chapter One is the introduction. The information of William Somerset Maugham and the work The Moon and Sixpence are introduced in this part. In addition, this part also introduces the background of the ethical literary criticism. Also this part contains the purpose and the framework of this thesis.Chapter Two is about the literature review. The first part of this chapter focuses on the studies of The Moon and Sixpence at home and abroad. Most of the scholars analyzed this novel from the point of the theme, such as the freedom, the idealism, the conflict between the ideal and the reality. However, very few scholars have dealt with it from the ethical perspective. The second part of this chapter concentrates on the main theories of ethical literary criticism, especially the research at home.Chapter Three is mainly about the human-human relationships in Charles Strickland's journey to the "moon". Through analyzing the relationships between Charles Strickland and Mrs. Strickland, Charles Strickland and the Stroeves, Charles Strickland and Ata and Charles Strickland and the narrator from the ethical literary criticism to reveal the nature of human-human relationship is the pursuit of good. Chapter Four is mainly about the human-society relationships in the journey to the "moon" Through analyzing the relationships between Charles Strickland and London, Charles Strickland and Paris, Charles Strickland and Marseilles and Charles Strickland and Tahiti from the ethical literary criticism to reveal the nature of human-society relationship is the pursuit of truth.Chapter Five is mainly about the human-nature relationship in the journey to the "moon". Through analyzing the relationship between Charles Strickland and London and Paris, Charles Strickland and Tahiti from the ethical literary criticism to reveal the nature of human-nature relationship is the pursuit of beauty.Chapter Six is mainly about the human-self relationship in the journey to the "moon". Through analyzing the relationship between Charles Strickland and himself from the ethical literary criticism to reveal the nature of human-self relationship is the pursuit of sublimation.The last part of this thesis is the conclusion. Through the analysis on these complex relationships of Charles Strickland on his journey to the "moon" to presents the ethical and moral ideas of Maugham. And by studying and criticizing on the protagonist's immoral behaviors on the road to the ideal to educate people when you are with your dream don't forget your surroundings.