毛姆短篇小说《无所不知先生》读后感

Analysis of Mr. Know AllAbstract：W. Somerset Maugham was a well-known British novelist dramatist and essayist. Mr. Know All is one of his excellent short stories. This article tells mainly what had happened in Maugham’s short story Mr. Know All, the analyses of the main characters as well as the theme of the story and the techniques used by the author in creating the story.Key words: W. Somerset Maugham, human nature, demerit, bias, first impression摘要：威廉·萨默塞特·毛姆，英国著名小说家、戏剧家和散文家。

《无所不知先生》是其出色的短篇小说之一。

这篇文章主要从人物性格、主题以及写作手法方面对这篇小说进行分析。

关键词：威廉·萨默塞特·毛姆人性弱点偏见第一印象Mr. Know All is a famous short story by W. Somerset Maugham who was a famous British. His short stories mainly portrayed the British people’s life domestic and overseas. The ideas of escaping of the Western modern civilization and rebuilding of spiritual home, the pursuit of freedom and spiritual redemption found their vivid expression in most of his works. In the story Mr. Know All, the author created some figures full of flesh and blood by the vivid description of appearances, words and the unexpected plot. Like the narrator, Mr. Kelade and Mr. Ramsay. Through these remarkable distinctive figures he criticized the arrogance, vanity and selfishness in the human nature, specifically the narrator’s bia s and Mr. Kelade’s conceit and vulgarity. Additionally, he expressed the eagerness of Mr. Kelade to search for a sense of belonging.The story mainly tells about narrator’s experience on an on a ocean going liner sailing from America to Japan on the Pacific Ocean. The narrator had to share a cabin with a stranger Max Kelada who was not a British as the narrator had expected him to be despite he indeed has a British passport. The reason why h e didn’t like Kelade was because in narrator’s eyes, he was talkative and conceited. He seemed to know everything and was involved in everything. No wonder he was disliked by everybody else on the ship. One evening during the dinner time, Mr. Kelada had a bet of a hundred dollar with Mr. Ramsay. He was quite sure that Mrs. Ramsay’s necklace was made by real pearls yet he claimed that he had made amistake. He was mocked by other people. While the next morning, Mr. Kelada received a note of a hundred, through which the narrator founded out that Mr. Kelada lost the wager deliberately because he knew that Mrs. Ramsay’s pearl necklace was brought by her lover and didn’t want to broke a family. At the end of the story, people may found that Mr. Kelada actually has some merits with him. Anyway he was a businessman who got very good personalities. He would rather lose his face and admit that he was wrong than tell Mr. Ramsay that his wife’s necklace was a real one. Thus the narrator’s prejudice against Mr. Kelade has disappeared.The narrator thought that he himself as a British was superior to those who were not British. He felt quite proud of his British nationality and behaved as a gentleman. At the very beginning, a biased and uneasy atmosphere reigned on this story, because the narrator said that he was prepared to dislike Max Kelada even before he knew him. As he has mentioned, “It was bad enough to share a cabin for fourteen days with anyone but I should have looked upon it with less dismay if my fellow passenger’s name had been Smith or Brown.” He thought that anyone who add ressed a stranger should add a “mister” just as an English gentleman did. He took several examples to prove that how dislikable a person Mr. Kelada was. In the story he said, “I did not like Mr. Kelada. I not only shared a cabin with him and ate three meals a day at the same table, but I could not walk round the deck without his joining me. It was impossible to snub him. It never occurred to him that he was not wanted. He was certain that you were as glad to see him as he was to see you. In your house you might have kicked him down the stairs and slammed the door in his without the suspicion dawning on him that he was not a welcome guest.”Mr. Kelada was labeled a person of loquacity by the narrator, people may say it was just the narrator’s prejudice agains t him and they tried to examine Mr. Kelada with objectiveness. However from his behavior and words, people could found that he really didn’t leave people a good impression. He was chatty, arrogance and vanity. But as Jim Carrey once said in the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind(2004), “Constantly talking isn’t necessarily communicating.”For the most times, he was just expressing rather than communicating. It was irony enough that with all his loquacity, had never told anyone what his business was. He can know everyone on board in three days, yet most people disliked him and didn’t want totalk with him.Furthermore, he was conceited when talking with people, for instance, “he would not drop a subject, however unimportant, till he had brought you round to his way of thinking. The possibility that he could be mistaken never occurred to him.” When they talked about Mrs. Ramsay’s pearl necklace, again he boasted, “They’ll never be able to get a culture pearl that an expert like me can’t tell with hal f an eye.” He pointed to a chain that Mrs. Ramsay wore. “You take my word for it, Mrs. Ramsay, that chain you’re wearing will never be worth a cent less than it is now.”When it came to his vanity, it has been exposed to the full. Firstly, it was quite ironic that people called him Mr. Know All, even to his face yet he took it as a compliment. Secondly, judging from his choice of words, Mr. Kelada appeared to be very artificial. “I was jolly glad when I heard you were English.” He said when he greeted his roommate. Instead of using “very glad”, he chose an old-fashion English word “jolly”, which was usually used by the noble. Moreover, when he offered some wine to the narrator he said, “Well, there are plenty more where that came from, and if you’ve got any friends on board, you tell them you’ve got a pal who’s got all the liquor in the world.”No matter through the narrator or judged by the readers themselves, obviously, all that readers knew about him was merely his loquacity and kindness. Actually in his deep soul, he wanted so badly to be accepted by other groups of people, especially by the native British people. His appearance, words and behavior showed that he was not a British people in born but a native of one of the British colonies. The reason why he appeared to be extremely talkative and vehement was that he wanted to be with other people and find a sense of belonging. His country turned to the colony of the Britain, therefore it has lost its sovereignty, and so did its people. They have no dignity. Maybe they simply wanted to find something that could make them equal to these British colonizers. He chatted with almost everyone on every topic to prove how great he was and put some air on him.In this short story, irony, contrast and foreshadowing were applied in shaping the characters and developing the plot. Basically, instead of presenting his feelings towards the characters directly, the author used objective facts, the incisive, vivid and unique artistic description to give the readers space to have ideas of their own. Take some sentences fromthe story as illustrations, “I fell 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.” These words came from the narrator. He didn’t directly point out that Mr. Kelada was not a British people, but used “A bluer sky” to make it humorous and ironic. The author used a large amount of dialogues to interpret Mr. Kelada’s arrogance and loquacity with a view to form a contrast with his considerate and sympathy to Mrs. Ramsay.It was not difficult to find that foreshadowing existed in this story that indicated what would happen later. For example, the description of Mr. Kelada’s luggage was actually the indication of his social status and his background. His luggage contained many staffs: excellent Monsieur Coty, and brushes ebonized with his monogram in gold. These indicated that he was an experienced man and with some money. In addition, he ran everything. He was everywhere and always. He liked to deal with all kind of people, when he saw Mrs. Ramsay’s necklace, he recognized it immediately and pretty sure it was made by real pearls. Needless to say he dared to have a wager with Mr. Ramsay. But when he saw Mrs. Ramsay’s wide and terrified eyes, he said he was mistaken. It was also an indication that Mrs. Ramsay’s necklace was really valuable, he was a good person at the end of the story.After finished this short story, it was worth mentioning several points concerning the theme of the story. At first, there is something about the first impression. Mr. Kelada has lived an impression of a proud, chatty and philistine businessman. Indeed he has his weaknesses and limitations, but there were something shining points in his character, that is he has a heart of kindness which can not be seen easily but can win people’s respect. He was a person with distinction, not for his knowledge, but his personalities. This may inform the readers not to judge a person simply by his appearance and they would easily be tricked. One thing was clear, only by getting along with someone can you truly understand him.Besides, cultural difference needed to be taken into consideration. Mr. Kelada thought that his hospitality was an effective way to deal with a stranger, but it was turned out to be useless. British people like the narrator viewed it as an offense. Actually they didn’t like to be forced into a conversation. In the narrator’s concepts a gentleman should be modest instead of conceited, should be quiet during meals rather than voluble, and should be courtesy. Since they had quite different backgrounds, undoubtedly, there were misunderstandings and biasesexisted.In brief, by a concise description of words and behavior, this story depicted several remarkable figures from different backgrounds and by creating these characters the author exposed all the demerits, ugliness and imperfection in human nature. He also figured out some root of these demerits and imperfection, that is, human being’s inevitable bias and cultural difference. The author criticized the complicated human nature, called for a discarding of ugliness and cried for a pitiful eagerness to find a sense of belonging. The most important thing was people should not jump to a conclusion before one really knew someone.Bibliography：[1]孙妮，《毛姆短篇小说艺术特色浅论》，《安徽师大学报》(哲学社会科学版) 第25 卷(1997) 第3 期[2] Hastings, Selina, 2009 The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham - A biography. London, John Murray.[3]/knowall/[4]/famous/857/[5]/wiki/W._Somerset_Maugham。