Different form and technique between The Outstation and The Mark on the Wall

方雯瑾

William Somerset Maugham was a British playwright, novelist and short story writer. In his short story The Outstation, he described two different colonels who stand for different classes of UK. They come to the colony in Malaysia and have the different conception to the native residents. Cooper offends Warburton on his dignity of declining aristocrat. He also offends the dignity of native residents. He is killed by a servants which is in Warburtons expectation.

Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English writer, and one of the foremost modernists of twentieth century. In her story The Mark on the Wall, she use first narrator I to start the story. This I sees a mark or maybe a spot on the wall. She guess what it is. The mark makes her sink deeper and deeper away from surface. It remind her of Shakespeares work, a smooth tumulus, a lovely world and the tree etc. She thinks out of the scope from this mark and finally people tells she that this mark is a snail.

Maugham and Woolf have totally different writing style not only in form but also in technique.

Lets discuss the technique first.

Woolf played an important role in stream-of-consciousness novel writing. The Mark on the Wall written in 1919 is a successful novel of stream-of-consciousness. After the first appearance , the mark is replaced by the consciousness flowing of “I”. In this story, we cant see the ups and downs of plot but we can go with her mind together. The story is in stream of consciousness way rather than in any clear logic. She wonders if the mark is a hole, then thinks it could be a stain, or perhaps something more three-dimensional like a nail head that has broken through the paint. In the end, people tells her what the mark is. But we dont care what the mark is. We do care is that what she thinks about in her mind from the mark.

Maugham is famous for the novels with strong plot. His The Outstation is a exciting story of narrative technique. This story is in time sequence. And also it describes the appearance of people, their words, their thinking, their looks, their behavior and how the story goes. From Maughams word, we can clearly know that Warburton does his best to connect with the high noble class by knowing their live and keep his noble habits in colony. But Cooper uses his offensive to protect his self-contempt and superior to the native people. Warburton could remind Cooper but he doesnt. We can see the conflict of different class of people in the novel.

Talking about the form. Here mainly focus on the different description what Woolf and Maugham used.

In the novel The Mark on the Wall, as this is a stream of consciousness novel, the author described the uncertain, unspeakable, irrational and free flowing of consciousness vividly to the readers. Even she is in the reality, the author also use the illusory words to describe her surroundings. Like “smoke” in “I looked up through the smoke of my cigarette and my eye lodged for a moment upon the burning coals”, “gently” in “the tree outside the window taps very gently on the pane” etc. Even the reality is as beautiful as what she imagines. For what she imagines, the author use lots of question marks. She not only imagines the stories and the people but also asks herself about the scene she thinks about. She also tries to answer the questions for herself or skip to other topics.

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In the novel The Outstation, Maugham described Warburton and Coopers different appearance to tell us their different characteristics. For example, to prepare the first dinner between Warburton and Cooper, Warburton wear a white dinner-jacket, in a boiled shirt and a high collar, silk socks and patent-leather shoes, he dressed as formally as though he were dining at his club in Pall Mall. From this description, we can find though Warburton is declining aristocrat, he still keeps the behavior of upper class to treat the dinner and his education makes him to show the respect to the people in the dinner. But Cooper was wearing the Khaki shorts, the khaki shirt, and the ragged jacket in which he had landed. Cooper is a rube and he stands for the new class of the country who has no background but get the position by his own efforts. He doesnt know the courtesy to attend the dinner or maybe he doesnt want to show the courtesy as he thinks that is useless and he doesnt respect Warburton at all.

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