The Force of Circumstance

Brief summaryGuy, an administrator of a small British colonial outpost, has sufferd there for ten years. When he was on holiday in England he met Doris. They married and she returned to the station with him. At graduation they be actually golden but then Doris notices a young Malayan fair sex with three half-caste children hanging around the bungalow and annoying Guy in truth oftentimestimes. Finally Guy confesses that he had a relationship with the cleaning lady and that the children are his.Doris needs time to consider this shattering news, in the meantime they incubate to live as before but Doris refuses to share her bedroom with her economize and the atmosphere is strained. Eventually Doris returns to England although she issues that Guy loves her and understands that he acted out of loneliness. But she cannot pass her prejudices and cannot accept the idea that her white keep up has had an intimate relationship with a homegrown. Guy, unhappy and lonely, allows the Malay charr and their children to come back.Structure of the plotThe story is carefully constructed akin a five-act drama with tension rising to the climax of Guys disclosure speech.exposition introduction to the exotic scenery and the harmonious couplerising conflict the meeting of charactersclimax Guys monologue and Doriss reactionfalling action Doriss tenacious suffering and period of indecisiondenoue handst Doriss leaving and the restoration of the former circumstancesThere are hints at the beginning which foreshadow the crisis and you will probably guess from the first mention of the half-caste boys what the conflict in the story is about. What creates the tension is the desire to know how Doris will cope with this situation.Doris says that shes thankful Guy neer had a Malay woman (p. 43 , ls. 1-2)D. cannot accept the excuses Guy makes for the behaviour of European men (p.43, ls.21-22)Guys unusual display of mettle when he move Doris to him as she passed(p.45.ls.27 -28)Guys deathly white face(p.47, l.3) when he sees the Malay woman at the tennis court and hissilent and bad play afterwards there was a change in Guy (p. 48, l.24)Guys ash-gray face (p.50, l.10) after his servant has roughly turned the woman a style. He was nervous and irritable (p.51, ls. 6ff.)SettingThe story is set in the part of Borneo controlled by the British. Which area the story is set in is unclear and not of much importance, as Maugham uses the exotic setting to show the interaction between European and indigenous people and cultures. The newly arrived European woman masss the surroundings with a mixture of fascination with the exotic and fear of the unknown. The tropical scenery is set forth in a way (esp. through colours and sounds) that reveals the mood of the characters.the lead-up to the striking climax of Guys disclosure is accompanied by a heavy storm, reinforcing the rising tensionthe disclosure is made under an open switch (the night was starry)sounds (as well as colours) gain an immediate presence, esp. the lead of the chik-chak, which appears at crucial moments in the storyDoris tries to import an English sprightlinessstyle into a home which until her arrival had contained mostly objects from the indigenous culture (p.44/45) - her wedding presents, playing tennisCharactersGuyGuy is a fun-loving, cheerful, ugly and noisy sort of person. He has a by nature optimistic nature and likes to laugh a lot. Doris cannot resist his charm.Having lived all his life in the tropics and coming from a family tradition of colonial service, he seems to be the perfect type of colonial agent he speaks the inherent language fluently and moves easily between dickens cultures. From his point of view there is nothing wrong with his qualifying autochthonal.He regards the native woman as an inferior person who fulfils his somatogenic needs and helps him overcome his loneliness, exclusively to be pensioned off whenshe is no wideer needed. He feels n o affection for his children, natives are treated as though they had no feelings or rights.DorisDoris is a pretty, honest person. Before marriage she had a not in truth of the essence(predicate) post as secretary to an MP and cared for her widowed mother. Her decision to adopt Guy after knowing him for only a month whitethorn have been forced by the prospect of a more provoke and exotic life and material and social betterment. Doris is described as self-contained, capable and has deft hands.She dislikes Guys carelessness and is shocked by the behaviour of European colonizers and by her husbands insensitivity to such(prenominal) immorality. Reasons why Doris will in the end decide against life with her husbandshe is shocked at his strategy of hiding his former life from hershe is attenuated when she learns the reasons why Guy married hershe cannot tolerate the irresponsible manner with which he treats his black familyshe cannot stand the idea of him touching a black womanDoris i s ineffectual to overcome her middle-class British prejudices and instead of adapting to the new circumstances, of tolerating a authorized degree of assimilation toward the native culture, she gives up a relatively happy marriage and returns to the purity of unhappiness and poverty.The Malay WomanShe is never called anything else but the Malay woman or the woman from the kampong and she never speaks, but her physical presence is strongly felt through her persistent gaze and the way she intrudes on Guys life. She is a powerful figure, determining the feed of action to her advantage, finally taking over the role of the female in Guys home. Unlike Doris she is not humiliated by the initiation of another woman and proudly claims her position as wife and mother. She is the stronger of the two .ThemesGoing NativeWhite men actually had a general fear of going native which means adapting to the native way of life. So many white men in the colonies insisted on wearing European clothes or retain their typical European lifestyle.Theywere afraid to lose their own identity in having too much contact with the natives which would threaten their authority and power. According to imperialistic ideology they felt superior and an intermingling of the races had to be avoided. In fact it was very difficult for the white men in the colonies to resist the temptation of the native women because they were the only females around and their exoticism was very attractive. Isolation and loneliness often made the white men forget the standards of behaviour and their fear of going native.Daily Life in the Coloniesimportation of the British lifestyle to the colonies ( tennis and cricket, afternoon cocktails, and leisure clubs )contact with the homeland is kept up by newspapers and letters the tropical climate structures the rhythm of the day they get up early to make the most of the cool morning, they indulge in long afternoon siestas and enjoy social engagements orThe Force of Circums tance sport towards the evening.Point of viewThe third-person vote counter tells the story from an unlimited omniscient point of view, moving freely in and out of the protagonists minds. He observes, but does not make judgements.StyleA large spate of the story is taken up by dialogue, another theatrical element, and as there are few long descriptive or pondering passages the plot gains speed and concentration. The language used especially in the dialogues is snug and sometimes ironic The informal vocabulary, the relatively short, simple sentences and the passages of dialogue tally spoken language. The descriptive passages of the landscape and the characters make use of more synecdochic language ( images and metaphors, similes, alliteration and inversion )The authorMaughams travels in the Pacific sphere were a turning point in his life for there he met a completely new type of person. It seemed to me that these men had more vitality than those I had known . To him it was refre shing to discover people who did not live according to conventional European standards. Although in his colonial stories M. depicts the moral modify doneto colonial agents as well as to natives, he never questions the colonial system as such.