Anti-Prejudices followed by Prejudices in William Somerset Maugham’s Mr. Know-All

Ph Vivian
30 Sep 2017

INTRODUCTION

In the light of Social Criticism, critics examine and “describe a particular kind of social reality and sometimes a particular economic and social theory” (Griffith, 1990). Also, as far as Griffith was concerned, Social Criticism got its peak during the Great Depression in the 1930s when social critics were most active. The technique is employed in order to have a profound understanding of a literary works which play a critical function as a reflection of a certain society and by which the author expresses his/ her attitude towards a particular social situation.

While Social Criticism refers to what a specific society reflected in the literary works through the writer’s prism, Reader-Response Criticism indicates the readers’ interpretation through their cultural environment, experiences, beliefs and personal viewpoints. It is due to the fact that “each reader’s preconceptions actually “create” the text” (Griffith, 1990).

What’s more, according to Griffith (1990), “context – historical, biographical, cultural, psychoanalytic – is relevant to the understanding of the text. … Text may be incomplete in themselves, but the reading of them makes them potentially reflective of the real world, or at least the readers’ experience of the real world.

Some reader-response critics, most notably the German critic Wolfgang Iser, agree that works contain “gaps”.”

“Interpretations of a work will vary from person to person and even from reading to reading. Critics who agree with Iser often attempt to study how readers fill the gaps in works.”

In Mr. Know-All, with a refined talent of his “cosmopolitan setting” writing style and “a shrewd understanding of human nature” (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2017), Maugham wants to reveal a hostile attitude in regard to the narrator’s prejudice and racial discrimination towards those coming from inferior colonized countries (in this case, Mr. Kelada) and towards the other people coming from different part of the world (Mr. Ramsay). However, it is ironic that the approach Maugham utilizes to be against the narrator’s prejudices actually takes the shape of prejudices, though from a different angle. This paper aims at investigating prejudices and anti-prejudices as dominant themes of the story under the umbrella of the interweavement between Social as well as Reader-Response Criticism. Accordingly, an attempt will be made to pinpoint the meaningful messages that Maugham wants to get across.

With reference to prejudice, it is a daunting task to trace back to its literature. Over the last centuries, the concept of prejudice has increasingly been one of the most heated topics among academics, scholars and scientists. It is due to the fact that prejudice of one group of people towards the other groups has existed in most parts of the world and in all periods of history, especially during war time when the conflicts amongst races get peaked. Though there is still little understanding of the causes and the effects of prejudice, personal advantage, racism, superiority complex, ignorance of the cost of prejudice and so forth has been considered as the sources of prejudice. A great deal of efforts has been made to define the term from different areas and perspectives in varying historical periods of time. As stated in the Online Etymology Dictionary (2017), from late the 14th century, prejudice is formed when there is “preconceived opinion” expressed. Additionally, the modern roots of the term lie in the eighteenth century with enlightenment liberalism, which distinguished opinions based on religious authority and tradition from opinions based on the reason and scientific rationality (Billig, 1988). In line with this point of view, recent research often treats prejudice as “a form of thinking that distorts social reality” (Dixon, Levine, Reicher, & Durrheim, 2012), leading us to judge “a specific person on the basis of preconceived notions, without bothering to verify our beliefs or examine the merits of our judgments” (Saenger, 1953). However, Dixon et al. (2012) also state that’s “prejudice has seldom been treated purely as a matter of irrational beliefs. It has also been widely characterized as a negative education of others made on the basis of their group membership”. To be more precise, Allport and Kramer (1946) assert that prejudice is the “feelings of intergroup hostility”. Allport (1954) thinks of prejudice as “an antipathy based upon a faulty and inflexible generation”. Also, Levin and Levin (1982) indicate that prejudice is “a negative attitude towards members of a minority group”. Furthermore, Stephan (1983) put forward his opinion about prejudice which is “a negative attitude towards members of socially defined groups”. As far as Brown (1995) is concerned, prejudice is “the holding of derogatory social attitudes or cognitive beliefs, the expression of negative affect or the display of hostile or discriminatory behaviour towards members of a group on account of their membership of that group”. In line with these points of view, Sampson (1999) also maintains the idea of prejudice as “an unjustified, usually negative, attitude directed towards others because of their social category or group membership”. Likewise, Ibanez, Haye, González, Hurtado, & Henríquez, (2009) claim that prejudice is “the human individual’s psychological tendency to make unfavorable evaluations about members of other social groups”. In addition, Charles (2009) refers prejudice as a negative attitude toward a group or toward members of the group.

In connection with prejudice, racism is a form of discrimination that stems from the belief that groups should be treated differently according to phenotypic difference. (Modood, 1997).  

According to Encyclopædia Britannica (2017), by the 19th century, racism had matured and spread around the world. In many countries, leaders began to think of the ethnic components of their own societies, usually religious or language groups, in racial terms and to designate “higher” and “lower” races. Those seen as the low-status races, especially in colonized areas, were exploited for their labour, and discrimination against them became a common pattern in many areas of the world. The expressions and feelings of racial superiority that accompanies colonialism generated resentment and hostility from those who were colonized and exploited, feelings that continued even after independence.

Since the mid-20th century many conflicts around the world have been interpreted in racial terms even though their origins were in the ethnic hostilities that have long characterized many human societies (e.g., Arabs and Jews, English and Irish). Racism reflects an acceptance of the deepest forms and degrees of divisiveness and carries the implication that differences between groups are so great that they cannot be transcended.

PREJUDICES FROM THE NARRATOR

1.      The narrator’s prejudice towards Mr. Max Kelada

“I was prepared to dislike Max Kelada even before I knew him.” (Maugham, 1988, p. 195) – The narrator’s prejudice is sparked off right at the start of the story. Maugham has provoked thinking of prejudice by such a striking sentence. It may be due to the fact that Maugham pursues and possesses an extremely subtle but unadorned, lucid writing style: “I should say that the three essentials of good writing are lucidity, euphony, and simplicity; and their importance is according to the order in which I have placed them.” (Raymond, 1935). The story was set on a passenger ship sailing to Yokohama from San Francisco, shortly after the First World War had ended. In the deprivation after the war, accommodation was hard to get and the narrator was forced to share a cabin with other people. The feeling of thankfulness for being given a cabin “in which there were only two berths” went quickly. “But when I was told the name of my companion my heart sank”. It would be an extreme nightmare for him to spend fourteen days with the new friend. “It suggested closed portholes and the night air rigidly excluded.” The narrator thought that he and his new companion were just like the night air inside and outside the board; they were physically closed to each other but “rigidly excluded” by the ship portholes which separated “them” into two different worlds. The closed portholes also represented the close-mindedness of the narrator’s “preconceived opinion” towards people from other societies. While the narrator willingly believed that the closed portholes were the fault from his cabin-mate, he was in fact trying to find an excuse for his thinking and attitude, notwithstanding failing to face with his inner-darkness. “…but I should have looked upon it with less dismay if my fellow passenger’s name had been Smith or Brown.” It might be easier and more comfortable for him if the name had been Smith or Brown which are typical English names. Without doubt, the name Max Kelada disappointed him.

“I did not at all like Mr. Kelada.” (p. 195) – The narrator’s prejudice towards Mr. Kelada’s possessions, appearance, his pride of being British and even his way of communication. To commence with, “I did not like the look of it”. The narrator did not like the look of Mr. Kelada’s luxurious possessions such as toilet goods of the excellent Monsieur Coty, the washing, his scent, hairwash and his brilliantine, brushes and ebony with monograms in gold. The narrator did not like the look of Mr. Kelada’s suitcases with so many labels on it and the big wardrobe trunk. All of the properties seemed to point out the idea that Mr. Kelada was a cultural man with proper economy standing. While politically, “the British declaration of war on Germany on August 4, 1914 brought an end to the thread of civil war in Ireland and formally at least, party warfare came to an end” (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2017), the country socially still suffered instability and economically “the formation of an increasingly deskilled and uniform labour force have given way to a more nuanced picture” (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2017). Unemployment experienced a considerable increase throughout the country, whereas a strange chap, like Mr. Kelada, from elsewhere was living opulently and seemed to hold a high status in the contemporary society. For those opposite situations, the narrator did not like Mr. Kelada. However, just like the labels on the suitcase, people usually place prejudice on others for no good reason.

In addition, the narrator did not like Mr. Kelada’s appearance. “King George has many strange subjects. Mr. Kelada was short and of a sturdy built, clean-shaven and dark skinned, with a fleshy, hooked nose and very large lustrous and liquid eyes. His long black hair was sleek and curly.” (p. 196). While the narrator accepted Mr. Kelada was legally British due to the passport, he did not consider his fellow as a true Englishman in terms of his typical physical traits. “I felt pretty sure that a closer inspection of that British passport would have betrayed the fact that Mr. Kelada was born under a bluer sky than is generally seen in England.” (p. 196) The narrator even thought that Mr. Kelada was a Levantine.  

In accordance with Encyclopædia Britannica (2017), a Levantine is someone who comes from Levant, the historical name of the countries along the eastern Mediterranean shores. It was applied to the coastlands of Asia Minor and Syria, sometimes extending from Greece to Egypt. It was also used for Anatolia and as a synonym for the Middle or Near East. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the term High Levant referred to the Far East. The name Levant States was given to the French mandate of Syria and Lebanon after World War I, and the term is sometimes still used for those two countries, which became independent in 1946.

In fact, the weather in Britain is particularly foggy nearly all year round which is clearly different from that of the countries along the eastern Mediterranean shores. Accordingly, the British people, acclimatizing themselves, are psychologically usually introverted and rarely break the ice in the conversation with strangers while those being “born under a bluer sky” where the climate is usually warmer possess “exuberant” (p.196) gestures. Mr. Kelada was full of energy and excitement in the first meeting with the narrator. Mr. Kelada started speaking first and he himself introduced his name “with a smile that showed a row of flashing teeth” (p. 195). It is easy to figure out that for those who are black-skinned, the teeth are “flashing” on their faces. In this case, undoubtedly, prejudice or more exactly racism was coming on stage. It is necessary to bear in mind that after 1914, Maugham travelled a lot and all the people he met, all the places he set foot on have become raw materials for his short stories. By the end of the war, Britain took over part of Levant and the colonized people were insulted and looked down by British. “I did not at all like Mr. Kelada” (p. 195, 196) was repeated many times during the story. The narrator did not like the Levantine or to be more exact, the colonized citizens. He did not at all like the way Mr. Kelada flashed his oriental smile at him. That was just because “there was nothing English”. (p. 196). He did not at all like Mr. Kelada and thought that the Levantine did not deserve to wave the country’s flag: “The Union Jack is an impressive piece of drapery, but when it is flourished by a gentleman from Alexandria or Beirut, I cannot but feel that it loses somewhat in dignity” (p. 196). He felt shame to have Mr. Kelada as his fellow-countryman. The ethnical discrepancy between them has widened the spiritual distances and has also taken shape of prejudices on the narrator’s mind. He, therefore, tried forcefully to convince others to have the same attitude towards Mr. Kelada (Kurraz, 2015).

On top of that, the narrator did not at all like the way Mr. Kelada mixed him up with people on the ship. “He was a good mixer, and in three days knew everyone on board” (p. 197). The narrator did not like the way Mr. Kelada showed off his superior intellectual knowledge over the matter of everything discussed. “He ran everything. He managed the sweeps, conducted the auctions, collected money for prizes at the sports, got up quoit and golf matches, organized the concert and arranged the fancy-dress ball.” Mr. Kelada heartily took part in every conversation and argumentation with his enthusiasm. “He would not drop a subject, however unimportant” (p. 197). While it is obvious that Mr. Kelada wanted to loquaciously show off his talent, the society does not usually easily accept the differences, especially the differences coming from the colonized inhabitants like the Levantine in the eyes of a British. In this case, discrimination also comes into sight in the evaluation. It is ironical that people on board actually did not at all admire Mr. Kelada’s knowledge even when they called him Mr. Know-All. They named him Mr. Know-All even to his face just because they wanted to criticize “the Levantine’s cocksureness” (p. 197) which he took as a compliment. In the way he joined in every matter and arrange all the social affairs with his overweeing vanity, he did not leave any positive impression on others. Worse, Mr. Kelada became the best hated man in the ship. It seems that all the ugly features of gentleman from Alexandria or Beirut were collected at first to deliver the reason of the narrator’s intense hatred over his partner in the cabin, but actually the author’s real sense of purpose was to ironically disclaim all the righteousness of prejudice in terms of the way people judged others through their race and appearance but not their intrinsic value.

2.      The narrator’s prejudice towards Mr. Ramsay

Mr. Ramsay was an incredibly ugly man. As stated by the narrator, Mr. Ramsay appeared as “a great heavy man from the Middle West, with loose fat under a tight skin” (p. 197). As far as the researcher is concerned, America is a promising new land with up-to-date and fast pace of life. Rushing every day on businesses has made fast foods typically and culturally popular among Americans and the images of fat people most of the time characterize those coming from this melting pot. Even though Mr. Ramsay was currently working for the American Consular Service (which was contemporarily based at Kobe, Japan and which means he had a certain status in the current society), “he bulged out of his ready-made clothes” (p. 197). By employing the ugly words to describe Mr. Ramsay, the narrator to some extent wanted to express his prejudice towards the American fellow’s homely appearance or in other words, our narrator originally as a British personally wanted to impose the American’s ill-favored image on the readers’ minds.

More by token, it was even well-mismatched when Mr. Ramsay’s homeliness coupled with a Mrs. Ramsay’s tender beauty. She was described as “a very pretty little thing with pleasant manners and a sense of humor” (p. 197).  She was simple but she had a good sense of dressing clothes. She was not special but she “achieved an effect of quite distinction” (p. 197). She particularly caught the narrator’s eyes just because “she possessed a quality that may be common enough in women” (p. 197). Her purified style which shone in her like a flower on a coat (p. 197) was completely different from her husband’s boor. It goes without saying that the narrator tried to contrastively describe the beauty of Mrs. Ramsay in token of showing his prejudice towards Mr. Ramsay in terms of his appearance.

THE AUTHOR’S ANTI-PREJUDICES TOWARDS THE NARRATOR – MAUGHAM’S MESSAGES

Throughout the story, W. Somerset Maugham strongly criticizes in particular the British narrator’s discrimination towards Mr. Kelada and in general people’s discrimination towards those coming from different parts of the world. The narrator, who was not given a certain name, in the author’s purpose, represents any of us. “It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences”, said the famous poet Audre Lorde. In terms of mutual recognition and acceptance of dissimilarity, our minds are usually trapped by a deep-rooted prejudice which we ourselves have somehow consciously or unconsciously built up. If we look beyond race, ethnicity and cultural issues, and look at human qualities, we will able to like those who are even quite different from us. In this sense, Maugham absolutely condemns those for their attitudes of racial discrimination. From the angle of Reader-Response Criticism, the message could be generally concluded in the statement made by Nam Cao – a Vietnamese realism writer:

“Chao ôi! Đối với những người xung quanh ta, nếu ta không cố mà tìm hiểu họ, thì ta chỉ thấy họ gàn dở, ngu ngốc, bần tiện, xấu xa, bỉ ổi...toàn những cớ để cho ta tàn nhẫn. Không bao giờ ta thấy họ là những người đáng thương. Không bao giờ ta thương...”

“Alas! For those people around us, if no efforts have been made to understand them, it is taken for granted that they are eccentric and crack-brained, stupid, ignoble, evil, despicable which are all the excuses for us to be ruthless. Never have we seen them as pitiful people. Never have we expressed love to them.”

Furthermore, Maugham wants to claim that look can be deceiving. It is impossible to judge a person’s characteristics by virtue of their appearances. Just like what Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once stated in his famous works The Little Prince, “One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes”. (Một người chỉ có thể nhìn nhận mọi thứ một cách đúng đắn với trái tim của mình. Con mắt không thể nhìn thấy được bản chất. – How obsessive those words to me!)

THE AUTHOR’S PREJUDICES TOWARDS BRITISH AND AMERICAN

1.      The author’s prejudices towards British people’s hypocrisy

Throughout the story, our narrator did not openly behave differently towards Mr. Kelada while there was strong evidence that Mr. Kelada was actually a Levantine and although there existed a mild surprise in the narrator that Mr. Kelada’s nationality was British. In this sense, the author’s implication is that prejudice or racial discrimination is not always openly revealed. The bitter long-established prejudice is always there, concealed deeply beneath the mien of an open book. Inasmuch as the narrator, or to be more general the people, knows/ (know) well that such attitudes, which are firmly embedded in thought, are not socially acceptable. That the less prejudice or racial discrimination is revealed does not mean people are any less racist. By way of illustration, when it comes to The Union Jack: “The Union Jack is an impressive piece of drapery, but when it is flourished by a gentleman from Alexandria or Beirut, I cannot but feel that it loses somewhat in dignity.” It is “feel” but not “state”, “claim”, or “say”. The idea was just sneakily coming to the narrator’s mind and was not verbally uttered. Even in his furtive thinking, he also carefully called Mr. Kelada a gentleman. Once again, “Mr. Kelada was familiar. I do not wish to put on air, but I cannot help feeling that it is seemly in a total stranger to put mister before my name when he addresses at me”, although the narrator could not help feeling annoyed or upset with the way Mr. Kelada called him without mister before his name, he did not want to put on air. From this point, an even further step was taken to manifest the hypocrisy of the narrator. When Mr. Kelada offered the narrator an alcoholic beverage, despite of knowing well that “prohibition was in force and to all appearances the ship was bone dry”, the narrator easily accepted and took advantage of this chance from Mr. Kelada followed by laying claim on the drinking “a very good cocktail”. This action divulges the hypocrisy of those who assume a manner of friendliness but actually keep their hatred veiled to those they consider inferior whenever personal interests are satisfied.

2.      The author’s prejudices towards American people’s pragmatism

“If I get a chance of easy money like that I should be all sorts of a fool not to take it.” The American people from the first generations are described as those who are extraordinarily brave coming from all continents of the world. They possess strong will. They dare to make a break with the past, with their fatherland to head to a promise land. They set them free from the morality tie with the spirit of adventurous pioneers and beliefs in the future (Hoan, 2012). By the same token, there is no doubt that Jackson’s era is the era of resourcefulness, determinedness, cleverness, and especially pragmatism (Remini, 1991). In addition, Mark Twain, the American famous realist, even claims that the British characteristic is conservative while the American personality is pragmatic (Nagel, 2012). The author of the story would like to condemn the typical trait of the American people – Pragmatism. Mr. Ramsay was a practical man when he was described to take full advantage of earning easy money from Mr. Kelada. He made a good deal when he (from his angle) knew well that the pearls were not real. “If I get a chance of easy money like that I should be all sorts of a fool not to take it.” He even made the bet on regardless that the pearls were his wife’s and she was wearing it. Is whether the pearls are real or not more important than his wife’s dignity? In other words, is the money, however much it may be, more meaningful than his wife’s self-esteem? He was laying claim of a boastful Kelada talking confidently about his expertise of the pearls, about his knowledge of everything. However, he could not have a mere ability of being conscious of Mrs. Ramsay’s desperate face with “wide and terrified eyes”. It is just because of his pragmatism – a distinctive feature of American people which Maugham wants to criticize and shows his prejudice on.

CONCLUSION

Prejudice is the dominant theme which embraces the story Mr. Know-All. Maugham has achieved a great success in reflecting the prejudices existing in the current time. He criticizes the “preconceived notion” the narrator has towards Mr. Max Kelada who is coming from inferior Levant – The British’s so-called colonized area, towards Mr. Ramsay who is an ugly American man. Maugham also gets across the messages of anti-prejudice by criticizing the attitudes of the narrator. However, an ironic further step is also recognized when the author presents his idea of prejudices on the British people’s hypocrisy via the narrator and the American’s pragmatism via Mr. Ramsay. In conclusion, it could be undoubted to state that there are prejudices after anti-prejudices in William Somerset Maugham’s Mr. Know-All.

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