Alienation In William Somerset Maugham's Short Stories

This thesis mainly applies Erich Fromm's ideas of alienation, which formed by his elaboration and development of Marx's alienation of labor, to analyze three forms of alienation, including man's alienation from God, alienation of interpersonal relationship and man's self-alienation, in Maugham's short stories, which offers a comparatively new perspective for the study of those stories.This thesis focuses on ten of Maugham's short stories in three aspects:"Rain" and 'The Verger" reflected the hypocrisy of religion and its oppression over humanity, that is, the God created by man became a power dominating man in turn, resulting in man's alienation from God; alienation of interpersonal relationship was manifested in three aspects, among which "The Luncheon" reflected the blind advocating of alienated gentlemanliness led to shallow and hypocritical interpersonal communication, "Mackintosh" reflected symbiotic relationship under colonial administration was full of conflict, and Maugham's plenty of stories about love and marriage, such as "Red", "Flotsam and Jetsam", "A Marriage of Convenience", "The Creative Impulse", and 'The Colonel's Lady", reflected the utilitarian of love and marriage in contemporary western society; "Lord Mountdrago" and "The Pool" reflected the relationship between man's alienation from himself and external environment, indicating whether in the western society of flourishing capitalism or in the primitive east under colonial rule, racial discrimination and money and power worship were all-pervasive, thus, man, driven by all sorts of desires, lost his nature, and his pursuit of freedom ended in failure and the wish for a spiritual home were disillusioned, therefore only by death could he get rid of alienation.This thesis concludes that Maugham's profound sense of alienation has a sufficient manifestation in his short stories. Under the guise of unfeeling and objective tone there is his deep concern for man's existential predicament and his sympathy with the evil further reveals his eulogy of humanity and rebellion against the alienated society.