Sunday, October 7, 2018

Rain by William Somerset Maugham Review


The story 'Rain' was written by famous British writer William Somerset Maugham. It discloses the belief which is often disguised in the illusion of a decent appearance.


The author describes the journey of a family of missionaries and their unforeseen stop on a remote island near Australia. They had to leave with a light-minded young woman, Ms. Thompson. She attracted the sailors, organized parties. Her style of behavior led her to prison.


The most strong missionary, Mr. Davidson used his influence for the island's governor to send her to San-Francisco, actually to prison. Finally, Mr. Davidson appeared to be tempted by Ms.Thompson. The author chose not to mention what really happened. Ultimately Mr. Davidson committed suicide. In the last lines of the story, the girl cried, "‘You men! You filthy, dirty pigs! You're all the same, all of you. Pigs! Pigs!'. The other main character of the story, the missionary Dr. Macphail gasped. He understood.


Maugham described an everyday routine which these two families lived in quite thoroughly. It made the story longer than usual short story’s format. But this strategy allowed the author to show how striking the difference between people’s words and actions could be.




This is a link to the text of the story:

No comments:

Post a Comment