Somerset Maugham’s Short Stories are Exemplary Sarcasms of Religious Pretension

Abstract

An interesting aspect of William Somerset Maugham is his reliability in literature. It had been the sole movement during which he had completed and fixed belief. He made his entire heart surrender to literature from boyhood to maturity. He spared all his time reading and writing. His face to face contact with suffering humanity made him see ‘human nature as it was. He had a large-hearted clarity in the treatment of the labouring class. The impact of his medical studies upon his progress as a writer can scarcely be overrated. Believing writing was as serious as life, he approached it with a determined purpose. He decided to measure if he possibly could and for literature. This paper traces the human life is very common, there is no vast difference between common people as well as some religious people. His works reflect particularly the lifestyle of common people and missionaries. Maugham’s short stories and novels dealt with very ordinary themes and his language is very simple and lucid. In this paper, some of the prominent short stories of Somerset Maugham are taken for study since his short stories are filled with exemplary sarcasm of religious pretensions. There is a famous quote said by Lord Buddha “Desire is the root cause of all evils”. But most of the religious persons, Government servants, politicians and aristocrats’ lives are suitable for this saying. Readers can find this in his work of art. Also, this paper is an instance of religious pretensions.