D.

Tkachov

The novel under the title “Moon and Sixpence” was written by Somerset
Maugham who was an English playwright, novelist and short story writer. He was
among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest paid author
during the 1930s.
The analyzing extract from the book “Moon and Sixpence” runs about a life
of Strickland, who devotes his life to the art forgetting about the ordinary life and
ordinary requirements. Being a starving tramp he spends all his money for
purchase of canvases and paints. His works are considered to be absurd but
Strickland doesn’t even suspect that after his death they will be called a
masterpiece.
“Moon and Sixpence” is of social-psychological genre. It can be considered
to be social one as it reveals the theme of poverty and the fastidious attitude of
people to men who are not like others. But at the same time the story can be
considered to be psychological one as it depicts the psychological portrait of the
protagonist of the novel.
The story is told in the first person narrative. Talking about the place we can
definitely say that it happens in Tahiti as there is a mention of it in the text but it is
difficult to speak about the time of the novel. There is a point of view that this
story runs about a life of a real painter Paul Gauguin who lived in the 19 th century
and taking into consideration this fact we can refer the events of the story to the
19th century too.
The main theme of the text is the power of the art, its influence on the life of
a man, the power of which makes him to renounce everything. The protagonist of
the story is Strickland. Author reveals him as independent and unpredictable
character. He is indifferent to everything except painting. He is concentrated on his
art, though «Strickland made no particular impression on the people who came in
contact with him in Tahiti». But the very people call his pictures absurd, they can’t
make tail and head of it and the very painter is hold for a madman, talking about
him people say “a beach-comber in constant need of money, remarkable only for
the peculiarity that he painted pictures”. Recognition comes to him only after
death when «agents came from the dealers in Paris and Berlin to look for any
pictures which might still remain on the island» and «offered … thirty thousand
francs» for his picture.
There is another character in the novel that plays quite an important role in
the recognition of Strickland - Cohen. At the first sight he can be seen as a very
respectable and kind man. The author describes his appearance with the help of
such epithets as: “soft kind eyes, pleasant smile”. But another feature of his
character can be noticed in his speech. As it turns out Cohen is acquainted with
Strickland and now don’t miss an opportunity to mention it. He is very proud
because of that kindness and honors which he has rendered to the poor artist. So
we can see it in the repetition “I was very sorry for him because he was such a bad
one. I gave him his first job. I knew he was starving but I offered him good wages.
I hadn’t the heart to refuse him” (anaphora). In such a frequent repetition of the
pronoun “I” we can see that Cohen allocates himself a great role in the life of
Strickland and even in the rhetoric question “Who would have thought that the
overseer of my plantation, to whom I lend two hundred francs, had genius?” he
doesn’t fail to mention this fact.
Talking about the tone we can say that in the beginning it is neutral, we are
just told about the events in the life of the beach-comber-artist but then it becomes
more compassionate, causing our sympathy. The climax of the story can be
considered to be a moment when Cohen becomes a letter from his brother and
learns that the very “absurd” costs three thousand franks. And of course, our pretty
Cohen doesn’t fail to express his wish for the poor Strickland has been still alive as
he wonders what Strickland would have said when he gave him twenty-nine
thousand eight hundred francs for his picture without forgetting to subtract his
debt.
I like the story very much. To my mind it shows us the world as it is
exposing the dark sides of men’s soul, the aspiration of people for the gain. And
even the title of the text is a symbol of two different worlds — the world of money
quit by Strickland, and the world of beauty reflected in his pictures. 

And now I’d like to analyze the text in terms of 3 principles of poetic structure
cohesion: the principle of recurrence, the principle of analogy and contrast and the
principle of incomplete representation

The principle of recurrence is best manifested in the use of key-words, semantic

groups of words, synonyms, antonyms, derivatives and different stylistic devices
based on repetition.

The key words “picture” is used 12 times and also introduced by such synonyms
as: “paint”, “painting”, “canvas”, “masterpiece”. The reason for such a frequent
repetition is that all the events in the excerpt are connected with the art of painting.

Since the characters of the story are involved in the discussion of artists, we may
single out a group of words concerning this topic, namely, nouns: “picture”,
“canvas”, “painter”, “paint”, “artist”;

The authors put much emphasis on money issues in the novel that’s vividly
manifested by means of certain verb expressions: “buy for a song”, “to sell
cheaply”, “to be worth large sums of money”, “get money out of someone”, “fetch
large prices”, “lay one’s hands on anything”, “there’s money to be made”, “give
the cost of postage”.

As the author describes the characters, we can trace some words describing
professions and social ranks: “beach-comber”, “painter”, “seaman”, “trader”,
“overseer”, “a man of consequence”.

The author also uses some expressions to convey the character’s feeling in a more
picturesque manner: “to get away into the bush”, “feel sorry for smb”, “have a
sympathy”, “get hold of smb”, “hadn’t the heart to refuse him”, “make a head or
tail of it”, “to be half-afraid”, “to be taken aback”, “to collect oneself”, “to lose
one’s head”.

Apart from this, a lot of synonyms can be found in the text, namely, ideographic:
“feel sorry for smb – have a sympathy”, “painting – picture”, “beach-comber –
overseer”.

The principle of analogy and contrast organizes the poetic structure of the text.
Different tropes and figures of speech are used to realize this principle. The image
of Strickland as a poor tramp contrasts with the philistines who are negligent of him.
He put his life at the stack for the sake of art and was still kept in low regard.
However, when all these people had understood, how much these pictures actually
cost, they started regretting about the past.
The author demonstrates compassion to a poor beach-comber by means of the
following expressions: “have a sympathy”,
feel sorry”, “hadn’t the heard to refuse him”.

The principle of incomplete representation aims at the vivid narration by means of

conveying much through little. For the realization of this principle the author uses
bright poetic details. “He was no more than a beach-comber”, “half trader”, “half
seaman”– litotes. They serve to enhance the impact on the reader having us believe
how miserable and pathetic Strickland was according to the public opinion.