Notes and Commentary

1 They had a distressing habit of flipping in public - They had a distressing habit of disagreeing over trifles in public.

2 We'd been engaged for a month - We had promised to go to a party which was to take place in a month's time,

3 Happily we shall break up early - Fortunately the party will finish early.

Word Combinations

long-standing engagements - engagements arranged for a long time ahead.

Note also: a long-standing rule; a long-standing agreement; a long­-standing quarrel.

to suffer from the delusion -to have a false conviction.

The chances are - it's possible that, e.g. The chances are that he will go straight to the office.

to hold in esteem - to hold in high regard.

Note the opposite: to hold in contempt

It was notorious among their friends - it was widely known.

in large part - largely, e.g. My success -was due in large part to your help.

to be all-in-all to one - to be very dear, e.g. She is myall-in-all. Herapproval -was all-in-all to him.

to be at one's brilliant best - to be brilliant, e.g. Mary was at her brilliant best

to be in the vein - to be in the mood, e.g. I’m not in the vein for it.

to be in (good, bad) form - to be in good (bad) spirits and health.

to have a gift of (for) doing something - to have a natural talent for, e.g. She had a gift of putting people at, ease.

to make the party go - to make it a success.

to get the best out of one - to help one display his capacities, to lead one a dog's life - trouble and worry him all the time.

to put a good face on it - to put up a good show, to make believe that there's nothing amiss.

to be low - to I feel depressed; lacking strength of body or mind, e.g. 1 was rather low a little while ago, but now I've had a good cry I feel better.

to go through with - to complete, e.g. I'm determined to go through with it.

The social sense (stylistic analysis)

William Somerset Maugham (1874-1966) - one of the most popular English writers of this century. His novels "Liza of Lambeth", 1897; "Of Human Bondage", 1915; "The Moon and Sixpence", 1919; "Cakes and Ale", 1930; "The Summing Up", 1938 and others) and numerous short stories brought him world-wide fame.

A keen observer of life, a great master of narration, a perfect novelist, W. S. Maugham was one of the greatest short story tellers.

The short story "The Social Sense" is a typical piece of Maugham's prose. Though rather remote from the important social and political problems the short story appeals to the reader by the profound psychological analysis of human relations, by the defense of natural human feelings distorted by the prejudices of bourgeois society, by a simple and beautiful language. It describes a tragic love-story of Mary Warton, the wife of a portrait painter, and Gerard Manson, a literary critic and essayist. The story is being told from the first person, assumingly by a man belonging to the same circle the main characters belong to and a close friend of Mary Warton - so the whole narration is made thus very subjective which explains much in the composition and stylistic peculiarities of the story .

The composition of the whole short story is rather complicated-it is a story within a story, but these two stories or two sides of the same narration are closely connected and interrelated. The story is built in two planes-the description of a dinner-party at the Macdonalds and the description of the love-story of Mary Warton and Gerard Manson, but these two lines of the narration are united in time and space. Very roughly the whole story can be divided into three major parts-the first one from the very beginning up to the sentence "Thomas Warton was a portrait painter..." then the second principle part follows which is sometimes broken, by the intrusion of the description of the dinner-party (from the sentence "She was sittino, now on the left hand of her host..," up to "I knew everyone knew...") and the third part beginning with the sentence "And now with this tragic suddenness the way out had сome" up to the end. Each of the parts mentioned has its own structure.

The first two paragraphs make the introduction of the whole story in which the author identified with the story-teller is presented to the reader. The introduction is built as a monologue of an idler about his social duties which he seems to utterly dislike. The first paragraph deals with his considerations about some trifle matters - long-standing engagements in general and the possible ways of treating them, in the second paragraph the reader learns that the story-teller has been invited to a party given by the Macdonalds at which he to his great relief meets some acquaintances of his - Thomas and Mary Warton.

The whole passage is built as a narration that's way it contains many peculiarities of the oral type of speech. The syntactical structures used in the fragment include rhetorical questions ("How can you tell "But what help is there?"), parallel constructions ("It interferes with your cherished plans. It disorganizes your life"), repetitions ("a certain day" -"a certain person"), emphatic constructions ("But it is one that "It was with a faint sense of resentment that it was a relief to me when...") stylistic inversions ("Many years ago I made up my mind ", "So long a notice..."). The usage of these constructions makes the whole utterance sound informal and very personal. The choice of words and phrases is conditioned by the same principle - me author (or the narrator) employ's neutral and rather colloquial words and set phrases such as: "...the chances are...", "something will turn up", "the date has been fixed", "the engagement hangs over you", 'to cope with the situation", "to put yourself off”, etc.

The assumed manner of the narration results in another peculiarity of this passage - the author practically does not use any regular stylistic devices such as epithets, metaphors and the like for he aims at skillful imitation of the natural unaffected speech. That’s why the attributes used here are mainly logical - "long standing engagement", "large and formal party", "guests bidden", "adequate excuse", "June evening", but now and then some epithets are used which are rather ironical in tone for high flown words are used to describe rather trivial objects -"gloomy menace" about an invitation to a dinner-party, "1 saw myself laboriously making conversation through a long dinner..." about a small talk at a dinner. At the same time the author is somewhat humourous when he speaks about his "good rule" about the principles of enjoying someone's hospitality or in the description of the Macdonalds who "suffered from the delusion that if they asked six persons to dine with them who had nothing in the world to say to one another the party would be a failure, but if they multiplied it by three and asked eighteen it must be a success".

But the general tone of the narration is gay and rather amusing and absolutely nothing indicates that the story to follow would be a tragic one.

The next fragment is a detailed description of the Wartons - the main characters of the story. The first paragraph is dedicated to Thomas Warton, the next one - to Mary Warton and the two more which follow to the description of their relations. The presentations of Thomas and Mary are rather different in the methods of description. Thomas is presented by a number of circumstantial details - the story-teller says nothing about his age, appearance, etc., but says much about his painting - "the dull but conscientious portraits of fox-hunting squires and prosperous merchants which with unfailing regularly he sent to the annual exhibition." Here even the mentioning of the subjects of Thomas' portraits is very suggestive and ironical - presentation of "fox-hunting squires and prosperous merchants" had been a long-standing tradition of English school of painting and this detail becomes especially prominent when the reader learns that Mary "liked the modern (art), not from pose but from natural inclination..." Such is Thomas - a mediocre painter but a very benevolent and kind man.

Mary Warton is described directly and with a number of details. Some elements of good-natured irony in her description still remain ("She had a weakness for strings of beads and fantastic earrings") but the story-teller is no longer ironical, he is even apologetic for he highly and sincerely appreciates Mary and it is evident from the choice of words used to describe her - a number of epithets are used "lovely voice", "very handsome", "rather mannish", "dressed picturesquely", "blunt manners", "quick sense of humour" and many more. This attitude to her is manifested also in the syntactic organization of this passage - quite a number of succeeding, sentences begin with the same element - the subject expressed by a personal pronoun '"she" - "'She dressed", "she had a blunt manner,..", "she had a weakness...". "She was not only an accomplished musician", "she had a rare feeling for art", "She liked the modern", creating anaphoric repetition thus imitating the natural tone of the oral type of speech and at the same time making the narration rythmical and measured.

So a sharp contrast, of the two absolutely different characters is depicted a mediocre painter, "a decent craftsman", an artist by profession - Thomas Warton, on the one hand, and a highly artistic and refined woman - Mary Warton, an artist by vocation, on the other. A conflict between them is inevitable and the next two paragraphs describe it - the first one depicts the attitude of Thomas to Mary and the second one of Mary to Thomas.

These two paragraphs begin with similar sentences - the first one - an emphatic construction "No one admired her more than Thomas Warton", the second one - a syntactically neutral statement but both sentences express practically the same idea, due to the repetition this idea is expressed more prominently.

The tone of the narration now is quite serious; there is neither irony nor humour in it. The words chosen to describe their relations are a peculiar combination of neutral and conversational elements ("pestered her to marry him", "refused him half a dozen times", "she felt that she had been cheated", "at heart", "horselike face", "the couple did not get-on", "fripping in public", "maddened her", "all in all", "under the sun", etc.) and some rather bookish or high-flown words and word combinations - "a decent craftsman without originality or imagination", "mortified by the contempt", "connoisseurs", "columns of eulogy", "to hold its such poor esteem", "her confidants", ''argumentative", "dogmatic", etc.

Sometimes the author places together two phrases of different stylistic colouring to make the contrast of the ideas expressed more vivid - "the word of praise from her", "columns of eulogy in all the papers in London".

In this paragraph the conflict is not only outlined but explicitly formulated: "He was not an artist and Mary Warton cared more for art than for anything la the world".

All the fragments analysed before make what we call the exposition of the story, that is the presentation of the place, time and the main characters of the plot, and the conflict between the characters. Is formulated and depicted.

The reader expects to find the possible ways and, means of the solution of the conflict described and here follows the so-called "a story within a story".

The dinner-party goes on. Mary Warton is "at her brilliant best”. When she was in the vein no one could approach her".

A casual conversation follows, from which the reader learns that a certain Manson died at two o'clock that afternoon, in such a way a new personage enters the narration. Another contrast is being created a contrast between the gay and seemingly happy airs of Mary Warton and a sad piece of news she breaks. But the tragic aspect of the news mentioned follows in the last paragraph of their conversation, Mary Warton says that everybody knew she had adored him and all of them - those present - are now watching how she is taking it.

The author skillfully conveys the characteristic features of a belle-monde small-talk-short phrases full of witticisms, colloquial, even somewhat slangish expressions - "you are in great form...", "people tumble over one another...", "to make the party go...", "I do my best to earn my dinner", etc.

The next paragraph opens the exposition of "a story within a story", the story-teller is left to Ms own considerations and the flash-back follows which explains the situation described above.

The flash-back covers rather a long passage-front the sentence "I knew everyone knew..." up to the sentence "And you with this tragic suddenness..."

The "story within a story" has a composition of its own, it is something like "the second plane" of, the narration, but, as we shall see later, the both planes are closely connected.

First, the exposition follows." It is introduced with an emphatic repetition - "I knew everyone knew that..." after which another emphatic construction is used where the adverbial modifiers of time are placed in the beginning of the clause "...for five and twenty years (Note, please, that in this case we observe another inversion - instead of neutral "twenty-five years" the author uses more high flown order of words-"five and twenty years") there existed between Gerard Manson and Mary Warton a passionate attachment". Not only the syntactic construction but the words used - "a passionate attachment" are also high flown. A possible solution of the conflict -seems to be seen but there arises another obstacle - "but of course there was Thomas". The words "of course" are repeated twice in the extract-firstly applied to Thomas' behaviour, secondly - applied to Mary - "Of course she broke the promise..." - the story-teller tries to be objective both characters are in their rights but the circumstances are too grave.

The beginning of the exposition consists of two parts, connecting the two planes of the narration: first the "objective" narration of the story-teller, and, as a conclusion of it - Mary's words, when she compares her state when being with Thomas ("With Tom I fed as if I were stifling in a closed room full of dusty knickknacks") and when being with Gerard ("With Gerard I breathe the pure air of the mountain top'') - both sentences have the same anaphoric beginning - similar in form they are quite different in meaning. The author is very persistent in stressing the fact that this attachment was purely platonic-he mentions the age of Mary and Gerard, and Mary says openly that it was only his mind that had charmed her - "What else is there in Gerard?" - it was a unity of two souls - refined and artistic.

The passage to follow describes Gerard Manson - devoid of charm and physical attractiveness. The story-teller does not feel any deep sympathy for him, more than that-he is. even somewhat ironical when describing him - "He had none of the appearance of a romantic lover," "I resented somewhat his contemptuous attitude towards English writers unless they were safely dead and burned..." but he does not fail to mention that one of his "bon-mots" was used by Manson in an essay, and he openly admits that Hanson was a very subtle critic and felicitous essayist. While describing him and his literary activities the author resorts to the same stylistic device which has been used in the description of Mary - the anaphoric beginning of a number of sentences - "he" or "his": "He reserved such praise...", "His style was exquisite", "His knowledge was vast", "He could be profound…", "His slightest article...", "His essays were...". But the story-teller does not like the description new and new negative features, very mild at the beginning never heard him say an amusing thing when he made a remark it was oractilar" and a little bit later more sarcastic - "The prospect of spending an evening alone with him would have filled me with dismay", "... this dull and tiered little man..."

But the plot of the story goes further - one more personage of the story appears: Manson's wife, an unbalanced and hysterical woman who always refused to give him freedom. But the author does not paint her absolutely black - she adored her husband, she had been a very fond mother and it was not she but all the circumstances of Mary and Gerard's life that made a new start impossible.

As in the previous case this fragment is built in the same pattern - after the author's narration another conversation between him and Mary Warton follows. It reflects, as in the cases analysed before, all the peculiarities of the conversational style of speech in lexics, syntactic constructions, stylistic devices.

So "the story within a story" ends. The tragic situation Gerard and Mary had found themselves in seems to have no way out. But they are not sorry. Mary sums it up with noble and pathetic words: “Notwithstanding all the pain, all the unhappiness this affair has caused me, I wouldn't have missed it - for all the world. For those few moments of ecstasy my love has brought me I would be willing to live all my life over again. And I think he would tell you the same thing. Oh, it's been so infinitely worth while".

All the elements of this utterance are very emphatic: parallel anaphoric constructions ("all the pain, all the unhappiness...") stylistic inversion ("For those few morrents... I would be willing..."), emphatic grammatical forms of the tense ("I would be willing", "he would tell you the same thing" - when he, Gerard Manson, has already died), high-flown words - "notwithstanding", "for all the world", semantic gradation - "this affair" and then "my love".

But this pathetic outburst subsides. And now that story is connected with the first one in two ways - compositionally - the description shifts to the same dinner party and syntactically - by the usage of epiphorical repetition: the last sentence of "the story within a story", "Yes, it's love and we've just got to go through with it. “There’s no way out" and the first sentence of the next fragment - "And now with this tragic suddenness the way out had come" end with the same phrase. The emphasis of this sentence is conditioned also by stylistic inversion - an adverbial modifier of manner is placed in the beginning or the sentence.

That seems to be the denouement of the story: their passionate attachment, their love had come to its tragic end - Gerard is dead, Mary is heartbroken as she puts it: "It is death to me. Death." But the closing part follows, and it is very important for the general conception of the story. What made Mary come to this dinner patty? The answer is rather unexpected - her social sense. Certainly it is not she could not let the party down - now when everybody present was watching "how she takes it", "to put a good face on it", as Gerard would "have liked her to do, was her last tribute to him, the only way possible to save her love, her integrity, her secret under the shield of stoicism and courage.

What are the main ideas of this short story? Like any piece of art it allows not one but many interpretations and the interpretation offered below is not the only one possible.

Two main problems seem, to be touched upon in the short story. The first one, very characteristic of Maugham's conception of life in general the fate of an artist in bourgeois society, the eternal conflict between an artist and society. But if, for instance, in the novel "The Moon and the Sixpence" the conflict is placed in the sphere of art here the conflict is placed in the sphere of human relations, but the effect is the same - society tries to distort not only, the artist's creative abilities but his human feelings as well. Both Mary and Gerard are the victims of the existing way of things.

Another problem - social sense of a man. It is easy to note that the story begins and ends with the same theme - social sense which is also the title of the short story. But the theme of social sense is interpreted differently in the beginning and at the end of the story. Social sense and social duties in the introductory considerations of the story-teller are presented as something senseless, stupid tiresome. In Mary's behaviour another aspect of social sense is revealed. Her love and feelings were so great and profound that even the fulfillment of her social duties she turned into another manifestation of her love for Gerard Manson.