毛姆短篇小说《无所不知先生》读后感

Analysis of

Mr. Know All

Abstract

：

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。

< br>《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

a

1

mistake.

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 to

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