LITERATURE IN ENGLISH

ISC Std. 11
PROSE: SALVATORE

1. Trace the course of the story to explain how Salvatore overcame his weakness ultimately.

• Salvatore was an affectionate human being and despite obstacles in his life not once but
many a times, he was never bogged down by them.
• What leaves the readers amazed is his dedication to life and its flow no matter what
circumstances it led to.
• Challenges that he stumbled upon were changed into opportunities and his ever
accepting nature ultimately led to his success in the journey of life.
• He takes everything in his stride particularly the fear he has when he has to enlist in the
Navy. Salvatore doesn’t want to leave home but he knows that he must accept the
position he finds himself in.
• He is dignified though at the same time scared about what might happen him
considering that he has never left home before. This may be important as Maugham
may be suggesting that by joining the navy there will be a transition from boyhood to
manhood for Salvatore.
• There is also no disputing that Salvatore is in love. Something that is noticeable by the
fact that Salvatore writes so many letters to his lady love. What is also interesting is
that the narrator never mentions Salvatore receiving any letters back. Though as readers
we know that Salvatore has not been forgotten by the girl. However, we do eventually
learn that she is not prepared to marry him due to his being ill. Which may suggest that
she is being selfish and putting her own interests first. Rather than sticking to the
commitment she made in the past.
• It is also noticeable that Salvatore when he discovers that his lady love in question
doesn’t take him into account and doesn’t want to marry him fully accepts the position
he finds himself in.
• He does not have a bad word to say about the girl, rather empathises with her to the
extent of supporting her even when his wife Assunta hurls insults at her. The “grim-
visaged” Assunta is a compliment to Salvatore’s ever loving character. She is level-
headed and like Salvatore she has a good-heart.
• It is also noticeable that when Salvatore’s children are born he is not only a hardworking
man but also a doting father.
• Salvatore also appears to be a very humble person. He doesn’t take himself or his
medical condition seriously.
• He is content in his marriage to Assunta and he seems to accept his limitations doing
what he can in the vineyard and fishing. In all likelihood there doesn’t seem to be
anything that will faze Salvatore.

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 • He has complete acceptance about where he is in life. Which probably helps him to be
so humble. He finds joy in the simple things in life. Things like bathing his children in
the sea bring Salvatore much happiness.
• Again there is a sense that Salvatore no matter what circumstances he might find
himself in. Will accept whatever is happening to him.
• Which is important as life is easier when an individual has the ability to accept
everything around them.
• It is half the battle in living when a person finds the courage to realise that they have
no control over outside influences.
• This is a story about a young man who though has been challenged by life has overcome
any obstacle that has been put in front of him.
• Salvatore has managed to prosper despite incurring difficulties in life and at the same
time he holds no ill will towards others. Salvatore kept looking forward and found
happiness with Assunta and his children.
• In reality Salvatore is a good man who is dignified and humble. Two character traits
that a lot of people in life could learn from. He understands the importance of family
and the character traits he had as a brother he has carried through as a father.
• Life is a lesson and there are some people who learn the lesson well.

2. Compare the kind of life led by Salvatore before he was sent on military duty to the kind
of life which he was exposed to when on duty.
• Salvatore was the eldest son of an Italian fisherman with a pleasant disposition and
happily took care of his two younger brothers.
• He spent his mornings lying on the sea-beach and used to swim effortlessly in the sea
where his father waited for the catch.
• He was a happy go lucky youngster ever smiling and willing to help anyone who was
in need.
• As Salvatore grew, he fell in love with a beautiful girl who had lovely eyes from Grande
Marina and they were betrothed to one another.
• When Salvatore left home for military service to become a sailor in the navy of King
Victor Emmanuel he felt nostalgic and missed the islands of Ischia and Vesuvius which
he now realized were parts of his life as important as his hands and legs.
• He felt all alone in the battleship living with strangers and also in the noisy friendless
cities where he landed, this made him homesick.
• Above all these, he missed his fiancé (the girl he is engaged to) the most.
• In service, Salvatore was sent to many places like Spezia, Venice, Bari and China. He
fell ill when in China, and as he was suffering from rheumatism he was considered unfit
for further service.
• Salvatore did not mind his illness and rather felt happy to return to his own home. He
was eager to meet his family and fiancé.

3. What is the message the author wants to convey through his story ‘Salvatore’?
• Maugham’s short story ‘Salvatore’ conveys the message of Goodness.
• Though the story apparently looks like a biographical sketch of a young Italian
fisherman Salvatore, it has actually been a portrayal of a good character, a quality of

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 his character, which the writer calls “the rarest, the most precious, and the loveliest that
anyone can have” — the quality of “goodness, just goodness”.
• Salvatore’s carefree life and responsibility to take care of his brothers prove his
responsibility towards his family.
• His love for a girl at a notably young age proved his innocence and his engagement to
her proves his commitment which when called off by the girl and her family came down
upon him severely accounts for his vulnerability, but of course his dignified and
gracious manners earn him respect from the readers when they understand that
Salvatore knows to move on in life gracefully.
• His journey abroad for the conscription duty, his illness culminating in his return home
and marriage to a woman older than him shows his belief in life and acceptance of it
as it unfurls itself.
• He is an affectionate father, who smiles like an angel when he plays with his children
and bathes them.
• Through this chronological narration of events only one thing stands out. He never
blames anyone for anything in his life, but accepts life as it comes to him. Salvatore as
an ordinary fisherman possessed nothing in the world except a quality, that is,
goodness.

4. Attempt a character sketch of the protagonist Salvatore.

• Salvatore was a boy of fifteen with a pleasant face, a laughing mouth and care-free
eyes. His brown body was as thin as a rail. (Physical)
• He used to spend the morning lying about the beach with next to nothing on and his.
Scrambling up the jagged rocks on his hard feet, for except on Sundays never wore
shoes, he would throw himself into the deep water with a scream of delight. (Nature)
• He was full of grace.
• He shouted to his younger siblings to come inshore when they ventured out too far
and made them dress when it was time to climb the hot, vine clad hill for the frugal
midday meal. (Responsible)
• He was madly in love with a pretty girl who lived on the Grande Marina. They were
affianced, but they could not marry till Salvatore had done his military service, and
when he left the island which he had never left in his life before, he wept like a child.
(Sensitive)
• It was hard for one who had never been less free than the birds to be at the beck and
call of others, it was harder still to live in a battleship with strangers instead of in a
little white cottage among the vines; and when he was ashore, to walk in noisy,
friendless cities with streets so crowded that he was frightened to cross them, when he
had been used to silent paths and the mountains and the sea. He was dreadfully
homesick. (Secluded life)
• But it was hardest of all to be parted from the girl he loved with all his passionate
young heart. He wrote to her (in his childlike handwriting) long, ill-spelt letters in
which he told her how constantly he thought of her and how much he longed to be back
• Here he fell ill of some mysterious ailment that kept him in hospital for months. He
bore it with the mute and uncomprehending patience of a dog.
• When he learnt that it was a form of rheumatism that made him unfit for further service
his heart exulted, for he could go home; and he did not bother, in fact he scarcely
listened, when the doctors told him that he would never again be quite well. What did

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 he care when he was going back to the little island he loved so well and the girl who
was waiting I for him?
• He was a little shy because he had not seen her for so long. He asked her if she had
not received the letter that he had written to her to say that he was coming home.
• She told him straight out, with the blunt directness of her race that she could not marry
a man who would never be strong enough to work like a man. They had made up
their minds, her mother and father and she, and her father would never give consent.
• When Salvatore went home he found that they all knew. The girl's father had been to
tell them what they had decided, but they had lacked the courage to tell him themselves.
He wept on his mother's bosom. He was terribly unhappy, but he did not blame
the girl.
• A fisherman's life is hard and it needs strength and endurance. He knew very well that
a girl could not afford to marry a man who might not be able to support her.
(Rational)
• His smile was very sad and his eyes had the look of a dog that has been beaten, but he
did not complain, and he never said a hard word of the girl he had loved so well.
• His mother told him that there was a young woman in the village who was willing to
marry him. Her name was Assunta. "She's as ugly as the devil," he said.
• Salvatore was now a great, big husky fellow, tall and broad, but still with that
ingenuous smile and those trusting, kindly eyes that he had as a boy.
• He had the most beautiful manners.
• Asunta never ceased to be touched by his gentle sweetness. But she could not bear the
girl who had thrown him over, and notwithstanding Salvatore's smiling expostulations
she had nothing but harsh words for her. Presently children were born to them.
• It was a hard enough life. All through the fishing season towards evening he set out
in his boat with one of his brothers for the fishing grounds. It was a long pull of six
or seven miles, and he spent the night catching the profitable cuttlefish. Then there
was the long row back again in order to sell the catch in time for it to go on the early
boat to Naples. At other times he was working in his vineyard from dawn till the
heat drove him to rest and then again, when it was a trifle cooler, till dusk.
• Often his rheumatism prevented him from doing anything at all and then he would lie
about the beach, smoking cigarettes, with a pleasant word for everyone
notwithstanding the pain that racked his limbs.
• Salvatore had enormous hands, like legs of mutton, coarse and hard from constant
toil, but when he bathed his children, holding them so tenderly, drying them with
delicate care; upon my word they were like flowers. He would seat the naked baby on
the palm of his hand and hold him up, laughing a little at his smallness, and his laugh
was like the laughter of an angel. His eyes then were as candid as his child's.
(Innocent)
• Salvatore was ust an ordinary fisherman who possessed nothing in the world except a
quality which is the rarest, the most precious and the loveliest that anyone can have-
Goodness, just goodness.

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