A Probe Into Characters In The Fictions By Maugham From Perspective Of Nihilism

William Somerset Maugham is a prolific writer in English literary history, who has written at least4novels and more than150short stories. There are various commentaries on these three novels at home and abroad. The overseas critics focus on the relations between Maugham and his works, exploring the connections between the novelist’s character and his writing style. In China, there are two stages on Maugham’s study. Before the1949’s, Chinese critics concentrated on the prefaces and epilogues of Maugham’s works, and reviews on his novels in articles and newspapers. Since the1970’s, Chinese critics have reread Maugham’s works from the perspectives of narratology and feminism.The summit of Maugham’s novel writing is between WWI and WWII. Many factors, such as the background of the two World Wars, Maugham’s own experiences of lives and thoughts, and the effects of then European popular philosophy make Maugham’s novels full of the colors of nihilism. However, most of the critics at home and abroad overlook nihilism in his works. Therefore, in terms of nihilism, the thesis tries to explore the features of these characters in the3novels and3short stories, namely Of Human Bondage (1915), The Moon and Sixpences (1919, The Razor’s Edge (1944), Rain(1921), Lord Mountdrago (1947) and Appearance and Reality(1947).The whole thesis is divided into four parts. The first chapter introduces the theoretical origin of nihilism, mainly interpreting the differences between Nietzsche’s negative nihilism and positive nihilism in order to pursue the trace of Nietzsche’s nihilism in Maugham’s fictions. The second chapter explores the influence of Nietzsche’s nihilism upon Maugham’s writing ideas, nihilism thoughts and the expressions in his novels. The third chapter analyses the characters in these3novels and3short stories respectively, laying emphasis on nihilism’s expressions in these characters. Finally, the thesis comes to a conclusion that all these characters are reflections of Maugham’s nihilism, namely the feeling of alienation, confusion, futile consciousness and irrational power in their inner worlds.According to what has been mentioned above, it is self-evident that all these characters in Maugham’s fictions are epitomes both of their age and their generations. Therefore, rereading the works written by Maugham, we can reflect on the human nature. Struggling in the dilemma between the ideal and the reality, all these characters are ambivalent between positive and negative attitude towards life. On the one hand, they are very disappointed about life without personal values; on the other hand, they are very enthusiastic about life, striving for their dreams and goals. With their personal values deconstructed and constructed, all of them demonstrate Nietzsche’s negative nihilism and positive nihilism.