2. William Somerset Maugham
• William Somerset Maugham (25 January 1874 – 16
December 1965) born at UK Embassy in Paris – France.
He was a British playwright, novelist and short story writer
of human bondage. He was among the most popular
writers of his era and reputedly the highest paid author
during the 1930s. He spoke French even before he spoke a
word of English, a fact to which some critics attribute the
purity of his style.
3. His parents died early and, after an
unhappy boyhood, which he recorded
mournfully in 'Of Human Bondage’.
Maugham had been writing steadily
since the age of 15 and fervently
wished to become an author, but as he
was not of age, he refrained from
telling his guardian. For the next five
years, he studied medicine at St
Thomas' Hospital in Lambeth,
London. Maugham became a qualified
physician. But writing was his true
vocation.
4. Some critics have assumed that the years Maugham spent
studying medicine were a creative dead end, but Maugham felt
the contrary. In maturity, he recalled the value
of his experience as a medical student: “I saw how men died. I
saw how they bore pain. I saw what hope looked like, fear and
relief ...“. For ten years before his first success, he almost literally
starved while pouring out novels and plays.
During World War I, Maugham worked for the British Secret
Service . He travelled all over the world, and made many visits
to America. After World War II, Maugham
made his home in south of France and continued to move
between England and Nice till his death in 1965.
5. Introduction
“The Kite” is a short story written in 1947 by William Somerset
Maugham. Mr. Maugham is well known for his very popular
short stories. “The Kite” has an open first-person narrator in
the beginning and in the end, probably Mr. Maugham, who is
being told the story by his good friend Ned Preston. Most of
the story on the other hand has a hidden first-person narrator.
This might sound a bit complicated but it isn’t as you get on
with the reading.
7. In “The Kite” we have four main characters, and they are
Herbert, Bettie, Samuel and Beatrice. In addition to those
there are two more characters, Ned Preston and an
omniscient first-person narrator. Herbert is the only child of
Samuel and Beatrice (Mr. and Mrs. Sunbury.) He is
described as a well-behaved boy, later as an attractive young
man. He is a smart, but also very stubborn boy who won’t
retreat from his opinions. I would say that his relationship
with his parents – especially his mother – is a lot different, to
what you would call a normal relationship between mother
and son. Beatrice is described as a little, strong, active and
wiry woman.
8. I find Beatrice more than enough conservative; she won’t let
Herbert play with other children, she won’t have him going
out on Saturday evenings even though he is by far old
enough to do so etc. Beatrice makes up a lot of funny rules
for her son so he won’t get any other inputs for life than the
ones given by her. In addition to that I find Beatrice very
snobbish because of the way she sees and talks to strangers.
Samuel is, as far as I see it, extremely oppressed by his wife.
Samuel has been working hard and faithful all of his life, as
a clerk in a lawyer’s office. He started as an office boy and
from there he worked his way up to a respectable position. I
would categorize the Sunbury’s as a better middle-class
family. Ned Preston is a prison visitor at Wormwood Scrubs,
and that’s how he’s got to know Herbert. Ned Preston is the
one who told our narrator the story.
9. Creature of Circumstances
The Kite (1947) is included in Creature of Circumstances i.e. the
last short story collection that Maugham published. In the
preface Maugham defends himself against the accusation of
critics on magazine stories and reiterates his preference for
stories constructed with a beginning, a middle and an end.
One of Maugham's merits is his choice of title. This collection
includes a series of stories of how the characters react to
circumstances that are thrust upon them and how their lives are
then shaped by the choices that they have made.
10. Benjamin Disraeli said: Man is not the creature of
circumstances, circumstances are the creatures of men.
We are free agents, and man is more powerful than
matter.
But in this short story The Kite you will see how man
becomes the Creature of Circumstances.
11. Summary
• First of all I would like to make it plain that this short
story is not Maugham’s own story and that he knew none
of the persons with whom it is concerned. It was told to
him one evening by his friend Ned Preston, and he told it
to Maugham because he didn't know how to deal with the
circumstances and he thought, quite wrongly as it
happened, that Maugham might be able to give him some
advice that would help him
12. This story focuses upon a young man’s transition from son to
husband and back to son following his wife’s destruction of
his kite, the principal object of his passion and affection.
Ned Preston, the prison visitor at Wormwood Scrubs, relates,
through the narrator, the story of Herbert Sunbury, an
accountant who has left his wife, Betty Bevan Sunbury, after
she smashed his kite. Herbert has been sent to prison because
he refuses to pay weekly alimony to Betty. Described as an
intelligent and decent fellow, Herbert is the only child of
Beatrice and Samuel Sunbury, the former a strong and active
person, a true daughter of Victoria, while her husband, a
principal clerk in a lawyer’s office, represents even a truer
creature of habit.
13. Herbert had been enamored with kite flying since age seven, and
maturity had not dulled his passion. The unity and harmony
among the three Sunburys, made even stronger by the
presence of kites, come suddenly asunder when Herbert
decides to marry Betty Bevan. Not surprisingly, Ned
comments that Betty looked very much the same as Beatrice
must have looked at the same age. However, the two women
assumed an immediate dislike for each other. After the
wedding (which Beatrice and thus Samuel refuse to attend),
the parents continue kite flying, but Betty refuses to allow
Herbert to participate, referring to the exercise as a sign of
immaturity.
14. Eventually, Herbert achieves a reunion with his parents, and the
three resume their kite flying on the common, at which point
Betty throws Herbert out of their room, forcing him to
return to the Sunbury home. After weeks of absence, Betty
tries to persuade Herbert to return to her; when he refuses,
she smashes his new, expensive kite. The Magistrate sends
Herbert to prison when he refuses to pay the weekly
alimony. In Herbert Sunbury, Maugham has drawn the
portrait of a man caught between two women who want to
dominate his life. Betty, insanely jealous of Herbert’s kite
flying, smashes his only means of escape from the monotony
of life. Thus, there exists little difference for Herbert
between life in prison and life without kite.
15. Analysis
The story line is based on the primal relationship between
Mrs. Beatrice Sunbury and her son Herbert. Here is replete
with psychological truths, revealing attitudes, situations,
and emotional states.
16. The over-possessive mother exercises an unhealthy influence on the
emotional development of the growing boy. From the very early
days Mrs. Sunbury wishes to nurture her son self-centric and
possessive, her advice to her son is quite understandable. She says,
“Now, Herbert, do what I do, keep yourself to yourself and don’t
have anything to do with them than you can help”. Even she does
not allow a single independent assertion on Herbert. Hence,
when Herbert is twenty years of age, holding a steady job,
Herbert’s father Samuel Sunbury asks if Herbert be get married
Mrs. Sunbury’s reply is sharp and vicious. She answers: “I don’t
hold with a man marrying till he knows his own mind’ ….. “And
a man does not know his own mind till he is thirty or thirtyfive”. Such a typical negative response is obviously of a jealous
mother unwilling to share her son with a wife and who is
trapping the soul of her son and ruins his personal.
17. Herbert loves her mother almost like a mother-lover. The
mother is the very axis and pole of his life. The bond
between this mother and her son deepens when they fly the
kites as fancy and hobby almost like a ritualistic manner
every Saturday. Flying kites is like an imaginary escapism
from the monotony of life. The soul of Herbert is so
possessed by the mother figure that this kite flying is like
nearing to the mother denying the rest of attraction.
18. Herbert’s love for Betty and his choice of getting
married to her is a desperate attempt to free himself
from the excessive attachment to his mother. But he
cannot give to Betty what he has already given to his
mother; and thus results the terrible and torturing
conflict within him. Like Mrs. Mrs. Sunbury is
Jealous of her daughter-in-law. Mrs. Sunbury dislikes
Betty who will suck all her Son’s Soul and leave
nothing for her. Therefore, she does her best to break
up their relationship.
19. In the kite the whole story is given a symbolic significance
through flying a kite. It is an act of affectionate attachment.
Even it is not a plaything, rather an extension of Beatrice’s
control over her son. After the marriage what Betty objects
and rebels against is Herbert’s flying of the kite on Saturdays
with his parents. She dislikes this childish act and warns
Herbert from doing this silly favor. But Herbert’s fatal
attraction for the kite is a string of mother fixation. Mrs.
Sunbury pulls the thread of the kite (emotional attachment)
to control over her son. When all the possible pleadings result
in vain, Betty hacks down the kite which ultimately aggravates
the situation. Herbert chooses the prison instead of providing
the alimony to his wife. The smashing of the kite is a kind of
matricide for him which he can not forbear.
20. The entire complication of the story can thus be read through
the Freudian complexes. Maugham is an explorer of human
relationships and in this story he has studied sex
relationship from different angles. Mrs. Sunbury and Betty
are both wrong in being too possessive. Both of them want
to possess the soul or the personae of Herbert. But
satisfactory relationship result only when we recognize the
otherness of the other individuals. Successful adjustment
would have resulted had these two women recognized that
Herbert has a separate identity with separate personae of
his own, which can reach fulfillment in its own way. The
mother fails to recognize this truth and so ruins the life of
Herbert.
21. Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist who became
known as the founding father of psychoanalysis.
Psychology's most famous figure is also one of the most
influential and controversial thinkers of the twentieth
century. Sigmund Freud's work and theories helped shape
our views of childhood, personality, memory, sexuality and
therapy. Other major thinkers have contributed work that
grew out of Freud's legacy, while others developed new
theories out of opposition to his ideas.
22. Freudian Complex
The Freudian Complex is an inferiority complex to the same
sex arising in infancy in every human’s unconscious mind
,which governs almost every attitude, action and thought
from birth to death. It is the root cause of most misery in
the human mind. It was a psychoanalytical hypothesis put
forth by Sigmund Freud, the great neuro-psychiatrist of the
last century who coined the theory of unconscious mind
dictating behavior.
23. Significance Of The Title
Kites are a strong symbol in some nations, in dreams and in
literature traditions. In all these uses, the positive symbolic
meaning of kites represents variations of personal pride,
independence, highest hope, accomplishment, freedom and
expansion. The negative meaning is feeling out of control or at
the mercy of surrounding conditions. In Somerset Maugham's
short story "The Kite," Herbert begins flying kites when he lives
happily with his parents and feels free and as though he can
accomplish things in life. One of his accomplishments is to
marry. Herbert continues to have the same positive feelings
symbolized by his kite although his new wife has a different
opinion and sees his kite as a childish diversion that needs to be
released.
24. When they disagree about purchasing a new kite and she sends
Herbert back to his parents, his wife breaks his kite,
symbolizing the destruction of his freedom, independence
and individual accomplishment. He refuses to pay alimony
and therefore goes to prison because now the kite has
reversed its symbolism and come to represent the negative
meanings attached to it. The kite now means being out of
control of his own life (his wife controls him now) and
being at the mercy of surrounding circumstances. Herbert
goes to jail to protest this and to reestablish--one way or
another--control of his own life (One will worry about that
choice turning out not so well, but...). Maugham chose a
kite to symbolize human relationships because a kite
embodies some of the most important concerns in human
relationships: freedom, independence, accomplishment,
control and manipulation.
25. Theme
The main theme in this short story is – as I see it – family
matters. Our most important main character, Herbert, is
brought up in a very different way compared to the average
child. He is, all through the story extremely close bound to
his mother; only at the time where he lives with Betty, he is
separated from her. But even when he is physically
separated from her, he is still mentally dependent on her, in
the way that he can’t help to go and see her and his father
at the common every Saturday. He either hates her or loves
her more than any other girl. It doesn’t, take Herbert many
seconds to decide to come and help his parents with their
new kite, when he hears that they have found, an other boy
who can help them with their new kite.
26. In a figurative sense Herbert hasn’t got his umbilical cord cut.
A symbol for that might be the kite flying. If you are flying
a kite, you must have contact with it all the time trough a
line ore a string. So does Beatrice have contact with Herbert
the entire time, Herbert can go and get married but in the
end, he’ll always come back to his mum. Another symbol
might be the fact that as Herbert gets older his mother
gradually starts buying bigger and more expensive kites. The
reason for this is, of course, that she wants to keep him close
by herself. This might sound quite normal, but the way she
does it is not normal. Her only reason for doing it is to
please herself, and keep Herbert from coming out and see
what life really is.
27. Conclusion
To conclude we can say that flying a kite gave him a sense of
power as he watched it soaring towards the clouds and of
mastery over, the elements as he seemed to bend the winds of
heaven to his will. It may be that in some queer way he
identified himself with the kite flying so free and so high above
him, and it’s as it were an escape from
the monotony of life. It may be that in some dim, confused way it
represents an ideal of freedom and
adventure.
28. • We can also say that it is good to love a child but if we love
him too much, he is likely to be spoilt. He is apt to go
wrong and form bad habits. As it is said that excess of
everything is bad, and thus after reading this short story we
can remark that it’s true. Too much love of Herbert’s
mother had a very bad affect on his mental growth.. She
kept him away from reality and life just to please
herself. The mother failed to recognize this and so ruined
the life of Herbert
