Методические указания и задания для студентов-заочников II курса

по рассказам С. Моэма.

Пособие подготовлено на кафедре английского языка факультета заочного обучения

Составитель: Холина И.М.

Пояснительная записка

Данное учебное пособие предназначается для самостоятельной работы студентов-заочников II курса по фронтальному чтению.

Пособие состоит из 6 заданий по рассказам С. Моэма, которые включают упражнения для самостоятельной работы над словарем рассказов, задания по анализу художественного текста, а также творческие задания устного и письменного характера.

Пособие содержит краткие сведения об авторе, его творчестве, которые рекомендуется использовать при выполнении заданий.

Материалы пособия, включая раздел «Приложение»,обеспечивают самостоятельную работу студентов-заочников по углубленному изучению художественных произведений и способствуют развитию навыков устной речи.

William Somerset Maugham (1874 – 1965)

W.S. Maugham, a British novelist, short-story writer and playwright, was born in Paris. He was the son of the solicitor at the British embassy. His very early life in a French-speaking society gave him a mastery of that language and he lived in the South of France from 1930. On the death of his parents he was educated by a relative at Whitstable, Kent, and went to King’s School, Canterbury, and Heidelberg University. He studied medicine at St. Thomas’s Hospital, but though he qualified never practiced. His experiences as a student in London, his medical training, and the influence of the French Naturalistic writers are all seen in his first novel “Liza of Lambeth” (1897), a naturalistic account of the slums of London; Liza and Jim are factory workers and the story of their love starts the development of Maugham’s anti-chivalric heroes and “warm-hearted” heroines.

Maugham was a master of a sharp observation and anti-romantic pen.

His novels include “Of Human Bondage” (1915), “The Moon and Sixpence” (1919), “The Painted Veil” (1925), “Cakes and Ale” (1930), “The Razor’s Edge” (1944) and “Catalina” (1948).

Maugham had a considerable success in the 1920’s with comedies of manners, derived from Oscar Wilde’s gayer and more finished pieces: among Maugham’s plays are “The Circle” (1921), “East of Suez” (1922), “The Letter” (1925) and “The Sacred Flame” (1928).

Two qualities of Maugham as a writer brought him mastery of the short story: an economical and exact means of fixing the sense of place, often exotic places; and an equally economical skill in realizing the crisis of a story. He has written much magazine fiction and his “Complete Short Stories” appeared in 1951 in 3 volumes. Several films (“Quartet”, “Trio”, “Encores”) have been made from combinations of his brilliant tales. “A Writer’s Notebook” (1949) is an interesting glimpse of his travels and an insight into his mind.

* * *

Somerset Maugham is something of a phenomenon: like a violinist equally skilled in pianoforte technique, he can adopt himself to whatever medium he chooses. The stage knows him as an artificer of drawing-room comedy, the short story as a conjurer of the enigmatic East, and the novel as a reporter of humanity’s fetters.

In all his best novels and stories there is an underlying, somewhat hidden significance, pervasive spiritual sense, an important moral council and general view of life and vision of the present world – supplementary to that sole purpose of entertainment continuously announced by the writer.

If you are looking for the deep thoughtfulness in a story or a novel by Maugham you cannot expect to have it underlined for you as such. You must not mistake simplicity for insignificance and must learn to recognize his idea in that envelope of reality in which ideas do actually generate, in incident and in dialogue and in little sequences of cause and effect. You will need to read fairly slowly, pondering somewhat as you go along, and to bear it all in mind for sometime afterward, weighing it against your own experience and ideas and feelings.

***

W.S.Maugham’s mastership as a short-story writer is universally acknowledged. He himself admitted that he drew his characters from life. His skill in creating vivid and original human characters is combined with beauty and refinement of language and style.

William Somerset Maugham is more widely known as a writer of short stories than a dramatist, novelist or critic. Maugham defines a short story as “a piece of fiction, of any length you choose, which deals with a single situation, but this situation, may be a mood, a character or an event.”

His stories speak for themselves. They are distinguished by their lucidity and liveliness. The fact that they are “readable” is sufficient proof of their competence: readability is the first merits and probably accounts for the fact that he is most widely read story writer of the XX-th century.

Until the First World War Maugham’s chief interest was in the drama and novel, and he wrote no more short stories for nearly twenty years. It was not until his war-time journey to the South Seas furnished him with themes which he thought more suitable for the brief narrative than for the novel or drama that he resumed short-story writing. On this journey he took notes on what he observed and listened to other men’s stories. He wrote six somewhat long tales and published them under the title “The Trembling of a Leaf” (1921). The characters are the Europeans in the South Seas, in an alien environment to which they adjust themselves with difficulty and often with loss of balance and tranquility. This book made Maugham’s fame as a writer of short stories as great as his fame as a dramatist and novelist.

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S.Maugham’s rich experience in life, his talent of a master of sharp observation helped him to get insight into human nature. He shows people of various occupations and different social groups. Maugham is impartial to his characters. For him they are neither all good nor all bad. He admits the fact that he cannot bring himself to judge his fellowmen. He writes in “The Summing Up” :”I am content to observe them. My observation has led me to believe that, all in all, there is not so much difference between the good and the bad as the moralists would have us believe … There is not much to choose between men. They are all a hotchpotch of greatness and littleness, of virtue and vice, of nobility and baseness…Selfishness and kindness, idealism and sensuality, vanity, shyness, disinterestedness, courage, laziness, nervousness, obstinacy and diffidence; they can all exist in a single person and form a plausible harmony”.

The conflict between human moral values and philistine standards of society, the revolt of an individual against the accepted conventions of society are the themes that have always fascinated S.Maugham.

General Tasks

1. Read the preface to the booklet and get ready to say a few words on the author and his literary activity.

2. While working through each story get ready to give your observations as to:

   1. the type (genre) of the story;

   2. the idea(s) expressed;

   3. the author’s attitude towards his personages. Pick out from the story those sentences and passages in which the author’s attitude is especially keenly felt;

   4. the way in which artistic effect is achieved. Comment on the method used by the author in depicting the characters. Is the character depicted directly, through the author’s descriptions, indirectly – through his actions, behaviour and speech? (Give examples from the story). Is the character presented statically or in development? Do you think that the author managed to create vivid, true-to-life portrait in the character? Is the character to be regarded as a type (a typical figure) or is he just an amusing exception?

3. Comment on the composition of the short story, pointing out exposition, climax and denouement.

4. When reading the short stories take notice of the means used by the author to depict the main characters (portraits, speech characteristics, etc.). Write out into your note-book the sentences and word-combinations, which describe the main characters and use them while discussing the characters at the lesson.

“Mr. Know-All”

I. Consult a dictionary for the pronunciation of the following geographical names. Record their reading:

Beirut; Alexandria

II. Find the following words and word-combinations in the story, give their Russian equivalents and get ready to reproduce them in the situations from the book.

to put up with smth, a fellow-passenger, to go on board (a ship),to share a cabin, to all appearances, to put on airs, to play patience, to dawn on smb, to be a good mixer, to be an affront to smth, to resent smth, to be ill paid, to be in smb’s demeanour, to drop the subject, to rush a new topic, to have a fling at smb, a heated argument, to be in the trade, to tell smth (from smth), to take smb’s word for smth, to bet on smth (to bet smb smth), a desperate appeal, to be caught out, in block letters

III. Paraphrase the following parts of the sentence bringing out their meanings:

1. “I’m all for us English sticking together when we’re abroad.”

2. “I do not wish to put on airs, but I cannot help feeling that it is seemly in a total stranger to put “mister” before my name when he addresses me.”

3. “He was as dogmatic as Mr.Kelada and resented bitterly the Levantine’s cocksureness.”

4. “If I get a chance of easy money like that I should be all sorts of a fool not to take it.”

IV. Explain the idea and comment on the following sentences:

1. “But when I was told the name of my companion my heart sank. It suggested closed portholes and the night air rigidly excluded.”

2. “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.”

3. “The Union Jack is an impressive piece of drapery, but when it is flourished by a gentleman from Alexandria or Beirut, I cannot feel that it loses somewhat in dignity.”

4. “It (modesty) shone in her like a flower on a coat.”

V. Make a topical vocabulary list pertaining to the topic “appearance”.

VI. Give a written translation the following passage into Russian: “I not only shared a cabin… He was a chap who knew.”)

VII. Do general tasks 2, 3, 4.

VIII. Get ready to answer the following questions. Be sure to write out key words and word-combinations that would help you to answer the questions.

1. Why did the author have to share the cabin with Mr. Kelada and what were his emotions when he heard his fellow-passenger’s name and saw his luggage?

2. Why was Mr. Kelada the best-hated man on board the ship? Who especially resented Mr. Kelada’s cocksureness and why? How does the author show ill feeling towards Mr. Kelada?

3. What do we learn about Mrs. Ramsay. What attracted the author’s attention to her?

4. How did the conversation drift to the subject of pearls and what was the cause of the further heated discussion?

5. Do you find the end of the story unexpected? What does it prove?

IX. Translate the following sentences into English using the active vocabulary.

1. Каждый раз, когда м-р Келада говорил о чем-либо, он не менял тему разговора до тех пор, пока не убеждал собеседника в своей правоте.

2. «Думаю, что глупо держать пари на то, в чем ты совершенно уверен» - сказала миссис Рэмси, скромно опустив глаза.

3. «Как ты думаешь, почему м-р Келада был человеком, которого все ненавидели на корабле?» - «Я не знаю точно, но, судя по всему, людям казалось, что он держался высокомерно».

4. Доктору Пирсону не приходило в голову, что его консерватизм может привести к смерти пациента.

5. Хотя всем врачам не нравились грубые манеры Пирсона, им приходилось мириться с его насмешками и унизительными замечаниями.

X. Make a summary of the story and record it on tape.