The Theory Of Maugham Nihilistic Thoughts Of The Novel

Literature is a subject of humanism. It should be related to the meaning of life. When the ultimate value of life cannot be found, the nihilism spirit is produced. In the writers’eyes, the writing of nihilism spirit is also a reflection of life. As a writer pays close attention to human existence, in his novels, Maugham express the nihilism spirit from unique angle.In his novels, Maugham explains nihilism spirit through showing the character’s multiple psychological feelings. The nihilism spirit is mainly displayed in anxiety consciousness, the sense of loneliness and misery consciousness. Anxiety consciousness shows that because of the loss of the ultimate meaning, the protagonists in his works are homeless in the spirit, or feel that all the efforts were futile in the shadow of death, so they are caught by an indescribable fear and helplessness. Lonely consciousness betrays naturally that life is full of the pessimistic mood. However, in the novel it performs the lack of communication between people as well as the difficulties to communicate between people. Misery consciousness in his works showed a kind of the disillusion feeling produced by missing the value center of the life, and not finding the life goal and the life significance.In the novel his writing for nihilism spirit could not be separated with the time background. At the same time, it was also affected by Schopenhauer’s pessimistic philosophy. Thirdly, it has more connections with the writer’s life experience.Although Maugham’s novels are filled with nothingness, he not only describes the nihilism spirit that protagonist experience for, but also describes their struggle against nothingness and their efforts of constantly exploring the way in nihilism spirit. The protagonists of his several works in his different periods have selected" really"," beautiful" and " good" these three roads to transcendence. They run on the road to transcendence, but eventually failed. Although the transcendence ultimately fail, but the action itself not only give their survival meaning, but also awakes human dignity and the courage of facing the empty life.