The Kite

William Somerset Maugham

Summary

“The Kite” is a short story written in 1947 by William Somerset Maugham. Mr. Maugham is
well known for his very popular short stories, which are quite easy read and understood by
everyone. “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. The story takes place in a suburb. The exact
city is however irrelevant to the story. The story spans over a long period of time. For about
twenty-one to twenty-two years, because that is how old Herbert is in the end of the story.

In “The Kite” we have four main characters; 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 would not retreat from his opinions. His relationship with his parents, especially his mother,
is a lot different, to what one would call a normal relationship between mother and son. Beatrice
is described as a little, strong, active and wiry woman with a dominant attitude. 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. Beatrice
makes up a lot of funny rules for her son so he would not get any other inputs for life than the
ones given by her. In addition to that I find Beatrice very arrogant 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.
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 cannot forbear.

Critical Analysis of ‘The Kite’

William Somerset Maugham’s famous short story The Kite deals with the complexities of human
nature. It depicts that subconscious level of the human psyche that often leads one to behave
uncontrollably. Maugham himself says while starting to narrate the story “I know this is an odd
story.” By the word, ‘odd’ Maugham wants to point out the unusual story-line. He also
elucidates at the beginning of the story that this story deserves mature readers. Readers who are
able to understand human nature with its variation, since we human beings are the most complex
entities alive. “… rather with the hope that some reader, better acquainted with the
complications of human nature…”

Before moving further to the critical analysis of the story, I would start with the title of the story,
‘The Kite’. Now most of us are going to question, why Maugham has entitled this story so?
What is the connection of ‘The Kite’ to human nature? Herbert was living a life completely
controlled by his dominating mother. Although he had turned twenty one and had a nice job too,
but he still used to bring all his salary to his mother and she used to give him money for
conveyance and small allowance as pocket money. Even, as a man, he behaved like a model
child who, despite being stubborn, would never disobey his mother. The only independence he
ever had was flying kite. He was seven when he asked her mother for a kite. Mrs. Sunbury didn’t
find any harm in it and bought him a kite on his next birthday. Despite all the restrictions,
Herbert finds pleasure in flying kite and not only Herbert but also his parents find it amusing. So
my point is, Herbert has little to no control over his choices, his choices and his life is controlled
by his mother. From his salary to his Saturdays afternoon, everything is under her mother’s
control. So only thing he could control was a kite. I believe, this might have satisfied his inner
oppressed person. He felt free and amused when flying kite with family on Saturday afternoon as
though he can or may accomplish many things in his life. One of his accomplishments we see is
to get married, although when he is young enough, his father talks about Herbert getting married
but his mother rules out the idea by saying, “And a man doesn’t know his own mind till he’s
thirty or thirty-five.” But Mrs. Sunbury soon finds out that things are not going in the way she
has planned to be. Herbert starts going out after dinner and when Mrs. Sunbury wants to stop
him, Mr. Sunbury convinces her that now he is a grown up young man and he has the liberty to
live his life by his own choices. Now, we can associate this positive change in him and following
his own desires with flying a kite. One day, Herbert tells his parents that he has invited a girl to
his house for tea on next day. Although, it had hurt Mrs. Sunbury’s ego but still she managed to
prepare tea in best manner and serve in best crockery. She although didn’t like Betty much. We
see, after Herbert’s decision, mother and son are no more good friends as they used to be. But his
mother does not accept the girl as her son’s wife. Somehow, her obsession and demand for her son
prevent her to accept Betty. In fact, she strongly objects to their marriage. She describes Betty as
“Common, she is, common as dirt.” However, Herbert marries Betty and shifts from his parents’
place. Betty too, realizes that Herbert is too much attached to his mother. Though the couple
leaves separate from Herbert’s parents, Herbert keeps on meeting them for kite flying. This
makes Betty angry. So, disagreements become frequent between them. “So that's the fellows
you got talking to. I've been suspicious for some time, you going for a walk on Saturday
afternoons, and all of a sudden I tumbled to it. Flying a kite, you, a grown man.
Contemptible I call it.” But Herbert would say, “I don't care what you call it. I like it, and if
you don't like it you can lump it.”

Finally, the situation becomes worse and Betty tears a kite of Herbert. Herbert feels like Betty
has tried to end his relationship with his mother by tearing the kite. So, he leaves Betty. Even
Betty demands alimony. And when he fails to pay it, he even goes to jail. To Herbert, it is better
to go to jail than to pay alimony to Betty who has destroyed his kite.

So, to conclude, the kite has multiple implications in this story. It reflects the bonding between
Herbert and Mrs. Sunbury. Also, it symbolizes Herbert’s own self as Herbert feels somehow akin
to it. Whenever he flies his kite it gives him a sense of freedom. It allows him to go beyond the
reach of his mother. It again implies that it’s a kind of umbilical connection between a mother
and a son. As Maugham writes “It may be that in some queer way he identifies 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.”

“The Kite” by W. Somerset Maugham deals with the psychological complexities that go on
shaping what Lacan had called “I-ness”. Do you think Herbert becomes an independent
person at the end of the story?

According to Lacan’s psychoanalysis when a child sees something that fascinates him, he
idealizes it. He wants to be like it. Similarly, the kite became an “ideal-I” for Herbert because it
was the only thing Herbert had control on. The kite was the nucleus of his life, he desired to be
like it; free, but to be controlled by a thread. The kite reflected his subjectivity. Herbert was a
homodocilis, he was conditioned to obey the orders. He had always been controlled by his
mother since his childhood and he made that robotic life his comfort zone. His mother imprinted
herself on her son and tried to bind herself and her family to her fictional selfhood. Mrs. Sunbury
taught Herbert what she wanted him to do, for instance, when she taught him to drink tea and he
asked why to drink it that way, she said: “That’s how it’s done. It shows you know what’s
what” (Maugham 771). She was the superego that suppressed the ‘Id’ and the ego of Herbert by
imposing traditionalist rules on him. For instance, Maugham wrote Herbert grew tall in spite of
growing up. Herbert had always been a pampered child, which is why when he grew up he still
had that delicate, smooth and clear skin (Maugham 771).

Mrs. Sunbury conditioned him through interpellation, she gradually made him the way she
wanted him to be, as she said: “If you’re a good boy and wash your teeth regularly without
me telling you I shouldn’t be surprised if Santa brings you a kite on Christmas day”
(Maugham 773). In his whole life, the only freedom Herbert had was to fly the kite, it was the
reflection of his desires and it somehow allowed him to break barriers as has been by Maugham:
“It became a passion with Herbert” (Maugham 773). Moving on, Herbert fell in love with a
girl who looked like his mother, that is what the Oedipus complex by Freud is based on, the fact
that children are more attracted and attached to the parent of the opposite gender, as narrated in
the story “…Betty Bevan looked very much as Mrs. Sunbury have looked at her age. She had the
same sharp features and the same rather small beady eyes” (Maugham 774).

When Herbert married Betty against his mother’s will, he somehow became independent, but
moving out of his comfort zone was very hard for him, that is why he started meeting his parents,
this made Betty felt insecure. Herbert cannot buy a kite due to lack of money and his mother was
well aware as to how obsessed he was with kites; she used it to snatch him from Betty. It was
Mrs. Sunbury’s conditioning that led Herbert to suffer in the battle between two women. Being a
part of a patriarchal society, both Betty and Mrs. Sunbury needed Herbert in order to have
agency. It was his mother’s vindication that made Herbert leave Betty and, in return, Betty
destroyed his kite, assuming that it was an obstacle in her relationship. She symbolically
destroyed Herbert and his desires. Destroying his kite was like as if someone had destroyed him
and his dreams. His Id that has always been repressed by the superego burst out by this childish
act of Betty. Therefore, in order to take revenge from her he refused to pay furniture
installments, because it was very dear to Betty, as he said “I can see her face when they take
the furniture away. It meant a lot to her, it did, and the piano, she set a rare store on that
piano” (Maugham 783). He preferred to go to jail rather than paying her money.

In my opinion, Herbert became a free man at the end of the story because destroying the kite
made his repressed Id come out, which is why he made a firm decision not to pay any sort of
money for her. The childish behavior of Betty and Herbert ruined their relationship.

Hence, my analysis reveals how Herbert developed his I-ness as described in Lacan’s
psychoanalysis. The kite was the emblem of his Ideal I and when it was destroyed, his anger that
has remained dormant throughout his life, exploded and destroyed everything.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, ‘The Kite’ is the story, revolving around the complexities of human psyche. It
portrays that subconscious level of the human psyche that often leads one to behave
overwhelmingly. Mrs. Sunbury is controlling, arrogant and snobbish. I would rather characterize
Mrs. Sunbury as a narcissist person who only wants to be admired and wants her family to
follow her rules. She controls her son and husband and is the center of her family. In my opinion,
she is responsible for the destruction of Herbert’s personality. In the end of story, he leaves his
wife because his wife thinks that it is childish act and he is making fool of himself. Herbert
leaves Betty by saying “I've flown a kite every Saturday afternoon ever since I was a kid,
and I'm going to fly a kite as long as ever I want to.” Here, in my opinion Betty is too
possessive and a narcissist. She doesn’t like control of Herbert’s mother over him. She in her
own way wants to control his husband’s life by breaking his relationship with The Kite and Mrs.
Sunbury. “It's that old bitch, she's just trying to get you away from me. I know her. If you
were a man you'd never speak to her again, not after the way she's treated me.”

Throughout the whole story, we see two different women, firstly Herbert’s mother and then his
wife trying to control his life in their own way. Towards the end of the story, we see Herbert
prefers going to jail and to live life of his own than to be controlled by either of both.