An Analysis of Personal Character#8217;s Binary Opposition in The Moon and Sixpence 论《月亮和六便士》里的人物性格的二元对立 Introduction William Somerset Maugham was born in Paris in 1874 and passed away in 1965 in France. Maugham created many novels through taking Britain and France as the theme. He was called fictionist and dramatist. One of his most famous novels is The Moon and Sixpence. Maugham had an important position in 20th century England. Maugham used objective and quiet ways to analyze people#8217;s features. He hoped to express that fate is full of calamities in his novels. Not only did Maugham want to pursue a new era of self-worth in the Victorian era, but also he did not hope to overturn Victorian heritage. Thus, the characters of his novels tried to go after ideal after weighing the reality and the ideal. The most representative one is Strickland in The Moon and Sixpence. Through describing other peoples in his novels, Maugham demonstrated different binary oppositions. The concept of binary opposition is that it seems to represent two contradictory but interdependent relationships. Such as matter and consciousness, emotion and intellect and etc.. This novel describes an Britain man whose name is Strickland. Although he had a happy family, he still loved painting. Thus, one day, Strickland discarded his family to Paris to learn drawing. In others' eyes, Mr. Strickland must have went mad because of painting to give up his well-to-do life. Everyone looked down and saw sixpence everywhere, but only Strickland looked up and saw the moon in the sky. Through such description, Maugham tried to embody the contradiction between ideal and reality. In Paris, Mr. Stroeve believed Mr. Strickland was a genius and tried his best to satisfy Strickland's need without requiring a return. Even though Strickland carried of Stroeve's beloved wife. Mr. Stroeve still hoped Strickland could go to Netherlands with him to draw pictures. Maugham expressed the opposition of matter and art via this way. Throughout this novel, Mr. Strickland fell in love with three women in succession. However, Strickland just wanted to cope with mundane life via the first two women. Only the last one can satisfy his spiritual needs and help him to finish many masterpieces one by one. From this, Maugham tried to demonstrate the opposition between spiritual love and mundane love. Literature Review The Moon and Sixpence was a very famous novel since its birth. About this fiction, different people have different points. And many individuals analyzed this book from different aspects. The first aspect is symbolic meaning. Some researches thought the moon symbolized liberal life in Tahiti, go after sincere love and yearn for ideal, and the sixpence symbolized people sacrificed love and ideal in order to pursue substance. Other studies deemed the moon and sixpence has three layers of symbolism. On the one hand, the moon symbolized ideal, true love and Tahiti. On the other hand, sixpence symbolized reality, unction and European society. The second aspect is psychology. Many researches believed that Strickland#8217;s life can be divided into three parts, which are unconscious self-perception, unconscious self-exploration and unconscious self-realization, and Strickland#8217;s personality mask has influence on his families, three women and two family. The personality mask concealed Strickland#8217;s secret. Other researches thought Strickland broke all kinds of chains to chase his dream to seek the peaceful habitat of his soul. The last angle is personality. Some studies thought that Mr. Strickland is a great complicated people and got a conclusion that Mr. Strickland is a evader of mundane life, a special artist, and a people of brave dreamer. Other studies believed that Mr. Strickland is a kind and cruel man. Mr. Strickland#8217;s wife has a sincere and hypocritical peculiarity. Stroeve#8217;s wife is a beautiful and ugly coalition. All of these ideas have common points. Some researches studied Mr. Strickland from many fields, which has a great reference value. However, this paper believed some essays ignored analyzing other figures in this fiction. Although they studied Mr. Strickland from different aspects, they did not find the contradiction between ideal and reality in Mr. Strickland and binary opposition in other peoples. This paper think finding different people#8217;s binary opposition is a great important side to provide a reference for others. There are many features in this novel needed to be researched. This author want to study personal character#8217;s binary opposition in The Moon and Sixpence. In the thesis, it will study three aspects. The first one is the contradiction between ideal and reality in Mr. Strickland. Next one is the opposition of matter and art in Mr. Stroevey. The third one is the opposition between spiritual love and worldly love in three women. All of these people are connected with Mr. Strickland. And these people are influenced by Mr. Strickland to change their life. Methods and Procedures of the Study About the methods, this paper used close reading method, logical deduction and inductive method to study this novel. About the procedures of the study. This thesis divided it into many parts. First of all, the author have read The Moon and Sixpence two times in order to learn these characters completely. During reading, the author found Maugham described everyone had different personalities in different times. Secondly, the writer began to find many papers about The Moon and Sixpence from library and CNKI. These papers were downloaded and read very carefully. Then, the author believed that Maugham hoped to reveal the contradiction between ideal and reality via the development of Strickland. Maugham uncovered the opposition of matter and art through describing Mr. Stroeve#8217;s devotion to Strickland and Strickland carried off Blanch. And Maugham demonstrated the opposition between spiritual love and mundane love through his love for three women. Finally, the author wrote the outline of the paper. The thesis was divided into four parts. In the first part, the paper will introduce the author,William Somerset Maugham, this book and the background. In the second part, the thesis will write literature review. In the third part, the paper will analyze binary opposition in different aspects. It includes the contradiction between ideal and reality in Mr. Strickland, the opposition of matter and art in Mr. Stroevey, the opposition between spiritual love and mundane love in three women. Conclusion Maugham thought he was a second-rate writer. During the past several years, more and more scholars began to pay attention to his writing. This paper tried to analyze the characters from binary opposition. In the first place, the thesis will analyze the contradiction between ideal and reality in Mr. Strickland with the combination of Strickland#8217;s character. Strickland gave up his family to choose his dream, which confirmed he preferred ideal to reality. In the second place, the paper am going to analyze the opposition of matter and art in Mr. Stroevey through connecting Stroevey with Strickland. Mr. Stroevey did not mind Strickland#8217;s cruelty and continued to help him, which demonstrated Stroevey loved art more than matter. In the third place, the essay testified Strickland choose spiritual love via analyzing his love affair with three women. All of these proved that Maugham was good at discussing binary opposition in his novels. And he hoped to uncovered something from his writing. For example, the opposition between ideal and reality, matter and art, spiritual love and mundane love. During the studying, there are many problems should be continued to probe. Such as why did Maugham prefer one of the many genres? What did it give peoples enlightenment? Because of the limitation of the author#8217;s level and paper#8217;s space, many problems have not been considered, which need to be explored in the future study. Outline 1. Introduction 1.1 Life and experience of William Somerset Maugham 1.2 Introduction to the book 2. Literature review 3. Binary Opposition in Different Aspects 3.1The contradiction between ideal and reality in Mr. Strickland 3.2The opposition of matter and art in Mr. Stroevey 3.3The opposition between spiritual love and mundane love in three women 4. Conclusion Works Cited Bogart, Doris Van De. Introduction to the Humanities. New York: Barnes Noble, Inc. 1970. Calder, Robert. The Life of W. Somerset Maugham. London Heinemann LTD. 1989. 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