1、Lesson 2,Mr. Know-All By W. Somerset Maugham,Author: Somerset Maughan,Notes to the Text,Key to the Exercises,After-class Assignment,The End,Witty Quotes by W. Somerset Maugham,Text MP3,A Brief Interpretation of the Text,W. Somerset MaughamAudio,Born January 25, 1874, Paris, France Died December 16,
2、1965 (aged 91), Nice, France OccupationPlaywright, Novelist,Short Story Writer Notable worksOf Human Bondage The Letter Rain The Razors Edge,next,Childhood and education Maughams father was an English lawyer handling the legal affairs of the British embassy in Paris. Since French law declared that a
3、ll children born on French soil could be conscripted for military service, arranged for William to be born at the embassy, technically on British soil, saving him from conscription into any future French wars.,His grandfather, another Robert, had also been a prominent lawyer and cofounder of the Eng
4、lish Law Society, and it was taken for granted that William would follow in their footsteps. Events were to ensure this was not to be, but his older brother Viscount Maugham did enjoy a distinguished legal career, and served as Lord Chancellor between 193839.,Maughams mother Edith Mary (ne Snell) wa
5、s consumptive, a condition for which the doctors of the time prescribed childbirth. As a result Maugham had three older brothers, already enrolled in boarding school by the time he was three and Maugham was effectively raised as an only child. Childbirth proved no cure for tuberculosis, and Edith Ma
6、ry Maugham died at the age of 41, six days after the stillbirth of her final son.,The death of his mother left Maugham traumatized for life, and he kept his mothers photograph by his bedside until his own death at the age of 91 in Nice, France. Two years after Maughams mothers death, his father died
7、 of cancer. William was sent back to England to be cared for by his uncle, Henry MacDonald Maugham, the Vicar of Whitstable, in Kent. The move was catastrophic.,Henry Maugham proved cold and emotionally cruel. The Kings School, Canterbury, where William was a boarder during school terms, proved mere
8、ly another version of purgatory, where he was teased for his bad English (French had been his first language) and his short stature, which he inherited from his father. It is at this time that Maugham developed the stammer that would stay with him all his life, although it was sporadic and subject t
9、o mood and circumstance,Life at the vicarage was tame, and emotions were tightly circumscribed. Maugham was forbidden to lose his temper, or to make emotional displays of any kind and he was denied the chance to see others express their own emotions. He was a quiet, private but very curious child, a
10、nd this denial of the emotion of others was at least as hard on him as the denial of his own emotions.,Maugham was miserable both at the vicarage and at school. As a result, he developed a talent for applying a wounding remark to those who displeased him. This ability is sometimes reflected in the c
11、haracters that populate his writings. At sixteen, Maugham refused to continue at The Kings School and his uncle allowed him to travel to Germany, where he studied literature, philosophy and German at Heidelberg University. It was during his year in Heidelberg that he met , an Englishman ten years hi
12、s senior, and with whom he had his first sexual experience.,On his return to England his uncle found Maugham a position in an accountants office, but after a month Maugham gave it up and returned to Whitstable. His uncle was not pleased, and set about finding Maugham a new profession. Maughams fathe
13、r and three older brothers were all distinguished lawyers and Maugham asked to be excused from the duty of following in their footsteps.,Maugham had been writing steadily since the age of 20 and fervently intended to become an author, but because Maugham was not of age, he could not confess this to
14、his guardian. So he spent the next five years as a medical student at Kings College London.,InfluenceIn 1947, Maugham instituted the Somerset Maugham Award, awarded to the best British writer or writers under the age of thirty-five of a work of fiction published in the past year. Notable winners inc
15、lude V. S. Naipaul, Kingsley Amis, Martin Amis and Thom Gunn. On his death, Maugham donated his copyrights to the Royal Literary Fund.,In 1915, Maugham had a daughter with Syrie Wellcome. They got married the following year and divorced in 1927. As early as in 1914, he met American young man Gerald
16、Haxton and became companions until Haxton died in 1944.,毛姆曾表示,他最大的错误是“努力想说服自己我四分之三是正常的,只有四分之一是同性恋。然而事实恰好相反。”,A career in the church was rejected because a stammering minister might make the family seem ridiculous. Likewise, the civil service was rejected not out of consideration for Maughams own fee
17、lings or interests, but because the recent law requiring civil servants to qualify by passing an examination made Maughams uncle conclude that the civil service was no longer a career for gentlemen. The local doctor suggested the profession of medicine and Maughams uncle reluctantly approved this.,W
18、illiam Somerset Maugham (1874 - 1965) was a British novelist, short-story writer, and dramatist whose work is characterized by a clear unadorned style, cosmopolitan settings, and a shrewd understanding of human nature.,His first novel, Liza of Lambeth (1897), drew on his experience of slums and cock
19、ney life when he was a medical student. However, his reputation as a novelist rests primarily on four books: Of Human Bondage (1915), a semi-autobiographical account of a young medical students painful progress toward maturity; The Moon and Sixpence (1919), an account of an unconventional artist, su
20、ggested by the life of Paul Gauguin; Cakes and Ale (1930), the story of a famous novelist, which is thought to contain caricatures of Thomas Hardy and Hugh Walpole; and The Razors Edge (1944), the story of a young American war veterans quest for a satisfying way of life. A Writers Notebook (1949) sh
21、ows him as detached, observant, and worldly.,next,Maughams literary achievements also lie with his short stories. Many of them portray the conflict of Europeans in alien surroundings that provoke strong emotions, and Maughams skill in handling plot, in the manner of Guy de Maupassant, is distinguish
22、ed by economy and suspense. Maughams philosophy of life is usually reflected in these works as a resigned atheism and a certain skepticism about the extent of mans innate goodness and intelligence; it is this that gives his work its astringent cynicism.,next,Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as
23、hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all.Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice that any man can pursue; it needs an unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit. It cannot, like adultery or glutton
24、y, be practiced at spare moments; it is a whole-time job.,Quotes by Somerset Maugham,Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.Love is only a dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species.,Quotes by Somerset Maugham,Sometimes a man hits upon a place to wh
25、ich he mysteriously feels that he belongs.You know that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct.,Quotes by Somerset Maugham,The complete life, the perfect pattern, includes old age as well as youth and maturity. The beauty of the morning and the radiance of noon are good, but i
26、t would be a very silly person who drew the curtains and turned on the light in order to shut out the tranquility of the evening. Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.,Quotes by Somerset Maugham,What makes old age hard to bear is not the failin
27、g of ones faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of ones memories.,Quotes by Somerset Maugham,Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequences than to have a really affectionate mother.By the time a man notices that he is no longer young, his youth has long since left him.,Quo
28、tes by Somerset Maugham,Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing ones mind.Sentimentality is the only sentiment that rubs you the wrong way.,Quotes by Somerset Maugham,I made up my mind long ago that life was too short to do anything for myself that I could pay others to do fo
29、r me.The great critic must be a philosopher, for from philosophy he will learn serenity, impartiality, and the transitoriness of human things.,Quotes by Somerset Maugham,We know our friends by their defects rather than their merits.More witty quotes by W.S. Maugham,Quotes by Somerset Maugham,A Brief
30、 Interpretation of the Text,“Mr. Know-all“, one of Maughams most famous short stories , tries in a cynical way to criticize the social and racial bias, as well as the hypocrisy of the Western social etiquette. Starting from a narrator with a Euro-centric mind, the writer sets out to present to the r
31、eader the ingenuousness and straightforwardness of the Levantine Mr. Kelada. One thing worth noticing is that the reader is always unconsciously being manipulated by the writer, who leads us to feel first against the main character, Mr. Kelada, and then discover his true and good characteristics.,ba
32、ck,Details serve as the tools which assist us towards a better understanding of the human nature. Maugham touches here upon a few aspects of the Western characters, such as racism, the self-imposed importance , the affectedness of social manners, and in a less direct but more powerful way, money and
33、 its relationship with sex. Mrs. Ramsays suspected adultery is treated almost permissively, and in line with her prettiness and seemingly modest demeanour, as well as the pomposity and stupidity of her husband indicates Maughams deep disappointment with the human conditions.,Notes to the Text,1. pre
34、pared to dislike (para 1) This phrase indicates that the narrator was predisposed not to like Max Kelada with groundless prejudice, which is based on race rather than a persons true character. 2. traffic .was heavy (para 1) the sea route was very busy 3. to put up with (para 1) to tolerate, to endur
35、e 4. a cabin to yourself (para 1) to occupy a cabin all by yourself 5. my heart sank (para 1) I was disappointed, upset and irritated 6. if my fellow passengers name had been Smith or Brown (para 1) “Smith“ and “Brown“ are two of the most common English family names. The narrator here is indicating
36、his racial bias towards his English compatriots, instead of having a broad mind to accept other races.,7. too many labels on the suitcase (para 2) This indicates that Max was well traveled (labels here refer to the destination tags affixed by transportation companies), which roused somehow the narra
37、tors jealousy. 8. patron (para 2) a regular customer or purchaser 9. smoking room (para 2) a room or lounge set apart for smoking (i.e. resting and socialization) 10. a man came up . asked added. and sat down (para 2-3) It is usually not considered polite according to Western social etiquette for a
38、gentleman to accost a stranger and then take an easy and casual social attitude, which of course onlyworsens the narrators antipathy towards Mr. Kelada.,11. Im all for us English sticking together (para 5) all for:agree, support. I completely agree with the idea that we as English compatriots should
39、 be staying together and be mutu-, ally friendly and supportive to one another. 12. blinked (para 6) blink: to close and open the eyes rapidly, to twinkle, here indicating that the narrator felt surprised 13. British to the backbone . (para 8) British by birth. 14. airly waved in under my nose (para
40、 9) showed it to me by waving it under my nose,15. King George has many strange subjects. (para 10) subject: a person under the rule of another. Here it refers to the people under the reign of the former British Empire. The sentence: The U. K is a sprawlingly large empire, therefore the people under
41、 British reign can be from different parts of world, being quite exotic and eccentric. 16. there was nothing English (para 10) without a. slightest English flavor 17. exuberant (para 10) plentiful, abundant. People in such tropical areas like the Mediterranean countries are reputed for their plentin
42、ess of gestures. 18. I felt pretty sure that a closer inspection of that British passport would have betrayed the fact that Mr. Kelada was born under a bluer sky than is generally seen in England. (para 10) If we looked closely at Mr. Keladas British passport, we would discover the truth that his pl
43、ace of birth was not England, but a country in which there is a lot of sunshine (in other words, a.southern country).,19. in force (para 12) in operation, undergoing 20. an oriental smile (para 12) oriental: Eastern, covering usually the non-European Asian regions. The word “oriental“ also carries w
44、ith it the meaning of being mysterious and sometimes treacherous, according to the Western racist prejudices. 21. tumbler (para 14) a drinking glass with no handle or stem,22. The Union Jack is an impressive piece of drapery, but when it is flourished by a gentleman from Alexandria or Beirut, I cann
45、ot but feel that it loses somewhat in dignity. (para 17) flourish: to brandish, to wave it: here refers to the Union Jack Alexandria or Beirut: Egypt and Lebanon used to be British colonies dignity: the state of being esteemed or honored. The sentence: The British identity is generally highly respec
46、ted and admired, but when someone from North Eastern Africa is showing off his loyalty towards the British Empire , the narrator felt that the British identity was losing its values.,23. familiar (para 17) too friendly; unduly intimate or bold; casual 24. put on airs (para 17) to be affected, to be
47、arrogant 25. seemly (para 17) proper, appropriate 26. set me at my ease (para 17) make me feel relaxed or free from formality,27. exasperating (para 19) frustrating, irritating 28. card tricks (para 22) card games played by magic to produce baffling effects or illusions, as by a magician 29. show yo
48、u this one (para 24) play this one trick for you,30. snub (para 28) to check, to stop 31. It never occurred to him that . (para 28) he never became aware of the fact that . 32. without the suspicion dawning on him (para 28) dawn on: to begin to understand 33. a good mixer (para 28) a sociable person
49、; someone good at socializing 34. He ran everything, (para 28) He directed or managed everything. 35. He was everywhere and always (para 28) He was everywhere and was always everywhere. Always serves as an adverb modifying the omitted “everywhere“.,36. He was certainly the best-hated man in the ship
50、. (para 28) best: in the highest degree; to the greatest extent; most 37. had us at his mercy (para 28) everyone at the table were totally under his control 38. hearty (para 28) extremely warm and friendly; most genial or cordial 39. jovial (para 28) full of hearty, playful good humor; genial and gay 40. loquacious (para 28) very talkative,