On The Succession Of Schopenhauer's Thoughts In The Razor's Edge

William Somerset Maugham who was a novelist, playwright and short-story writer won praise from audiences and critics alike that he was the most popular writer in English since Dickens. He had seventy-eight books to his credit over a span of sixty-eight years. The Razor's Edge was the best-seller which enjoyed the tremendous popularity.Arthur Schopenhauer who was one of the greatest philosophers in the world started a new era of Modernism. During the years 1814-18 he wrote his major work, The World as Will and Idea. By giving account of people's deep-seated desires and picturing states of individual being in philosophical way, Schopenhauer enjoyed the best popularity of arresting attention of people and affecting development of modern philosophy, art and aesthetics.The research on Maugham in China is roughly divided into three kinds. The first kind classifies him as a writer having a marked tendency towards naturalism, who just examines on and expresses the life from a point of view of naturalism. The second one, Maugham is placed in one of traditional realistic writers whose works just make emphases on the conflicts between the ideal and the real, between the genius and the general, between the flesh and the spirit, between the primitive and the civilized. The third one, Maugham always expresses anti-traditional subjects along traditional lines. He tends towards the traditional in form and the anti-traditional in ideas. This thesis branches out into discussing the succession of Schopenhauer's thoughts in The Razor's Edge from aspects of philosophy, aesthetics and human nature.The thesis consists of three parts:introduction, main body and conclusion.The Introduction describes in outline the author and his work, and the status quo of his works, and the theory used in this paper.The main body is divided into three chapters.Chapter One focuses on the point of contact between The Razor's Edge and Schopenhauer's Philosophy. Influenced by the Maya doctrine of Indian philosophy, Schopenhauer created his philosophical deduction "The World is my idea" meaning all the world phenomena are illusion, the veil of Maya. He raised the issue then resolved the issue by giving the next philosophical deduction blended with the Brahman, "The world is my will", which unveils the veil of Maya that blinds the eyes of mortals. Schopenhauer regards all the efforts as things that come from defects and from discontent with one's condition or state of life, thus all the efforts are suffering so long as they are not satisfied, but no satisfaction is lasting, so it is always merely the starting-point of a new effort. Thus, if there is no final end of striving, there is no measure and no end of suffering. Maugham shows his great respect for the same views of Indian Vedantist via Larry's account in The Razor's Edge. The plot of The Razor's Edge considers the inner and essential destiny of will in human existence, to the effect that readers easily recognize the destiny of will in the lives of all the characters Maugham composed:the essential to all life is suffering. Schopenhauer offers two different ways of liberation from the slavery to the will. The first way of escape is through art, through the pure, disinterested contemplation of beauty. The second way of escape is through renunciation. Only by renouncing the will to live can we be totally freed from the tyranny of the will. Being the main character in The Razor's Edge, Larry came to know about the Vedanta philosophy during his stay in India that he thought of as the most stupendous knowledge which says the universe has no beginning and no end, but passes ever-lasting from growth to equilibrium, from equilibrium to decline, from decline to dissolution to growth, and so on to all eternity. The suffering soul, which has existed from eternity and when at last it has cast off the seven veils of ignorance, will return to the infinitude from which it came and break free. Larry and Schopenhauer, in the image of the Indian Vedanta philosophy, one is an imaginary character who turned out to lead a life of hermit, the other is a real philosopher who end up developing a school of his own, both meet the same goal which is the keen insight into the truth.Chapter Two analyzes the inner links between The Razor's Edge and Schopenhauer's Aesthetics. Maugham, being a follower, totally took over the ideologies of Schopenhauer's aesthetics in his The World as Will and Idea, especially the part of tragedy he offered in its third and fourth book. Schopenhauer gives three specific conceptions of tragedy:first of all, tragedy may happen by means of a character of extraordinary wickedness, touching the utmost limits of possibility, who becomes the author of misfortune. Second of all, tragedy may happen through blind fate, i.e. chance and error. Lastly, the misfortune may be brought about by the mere position of the dramatis persona with regard to each other. This last kind of tragedy seems far to surpass the other two, for it shows us the greatest misfortune, not as an exception, not as something occasioned by rare circumstances or monstrous characters, but as arising easily and of itself out of the actions and characters of men, indeed almost as essential to them, and thus brings it terribly near to us. In The Razor's Edge the tragedy of romance between Larry and Isabel went together with their outlooks on life and Isabel's egoism. The tragedy of Elliott, which is a tragedy that rises of its own accord out of actions and characters of human beings and is what comes from the nature of human beings, whose whole thing is willing and striving and the basis of all willing is need, deficiency namely the pain. Sophie is the only one whose tragedy is in accord with the second type of three specific conceptions of tragedy the Schopenhauer gives. All above, Maugham manifested the patterns of the tragedy in a variety of ways and to some extent, paid homage to Schopenhauer.Chapter Three makes an emphasis on the exploration of human nature. Without order or logical connection as it appears, The Razor's Edge gives a most incisive description of all sides of the human nature. All people's joy, anger, sorrow and happiness—the whole gamut of passions the life gives are put down in writing and put into parts of life which add up to what life is, which made the book wonderful and the author go down in history of English literature. In this book, Maugham makes everyone's character develop and their individual different features appear little by little with his leisurely strokes. Elliott Templeton indeed is a big snob which is one side to his character that is complex. Maugham strongly criticized Isabel's for what she had done and Isabel breaking the contract on their love regardless of her beauty. Sophie was a girl who took the high moral standards, but she came into being in the line of fire because the dark side to her character got the better of her. Society and civilization bring about competition between people, person against person, community against community, still persists and the competition is as fierce as it ever was, and it will be, which maybe mould into the state of minds of human being and the complicating facts of human nature. Standing out in stark relief against others and striving towards virtue, Larry who was the Schopenhauer-like man is a splendid image we have to model after. The Conclusion sums up the whole thesis and it is made that The Razor's Edge ideologically overlaps with Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Idea and totally took over the ideologies of Schopenhauer's aesthetics and passed it on. They all reveal the essential to the human nature and give the account of what life is for. Although there is the endless suffering, people just ever look at the world with pure and pristine eyes like Larry did. A real world that goes behind stereotypes and goes beyond people's imagination will be there.