People often exaggerate a subject matter even if the matter remains a trivial or an exceptional one. Almost every individual is bound to follow that nature. However, the question is how famous authors like Somerset Maugham feel this fact and draw this truth while penning their writings.
Before becoming a good writer, Somerset Maugham appears to readers as a normal human being who has the same intellect as many others. Nearly all his creations carry storylines that portray human life seamlessly, even with strange happenings. Undeniably, The Lotus Eater is one such artistic creation that confirms this fact.
Yes, every portion of his famous short story, The Lotus Eater, is a prominent example of how much it is necessary to become directly acquainted with the actual person or fact instead of acquiring information from others. The author here comments that people exaggerate and they often like to romanticize even a general subject matter.
He pinpoints a general tendency visible in almost all humans to magnify a fact unnecessarily. The remark emerges specifically in connection with the prime character of the short story, Thomas Wilson. Wilson appears here as a bold person who captures peoples’ attention for his strange choices in life. His exceptional and completely different thinking makes the storyline remarkable and curious for the readers.
The Lotus Eater shows that Somerset Maugham has already heard much about Wilson’s way of living from other people. Furthermore, these sayings unlock an intense eagerness and make the author curious to know and realize about that man. He feels strange about Thomas Wilson’s queer living that he hears many times from people surrounding him all the times.
However, he is not satisfied with those third-party versions. He desires to have a direct interaction with him. The author wants to know whether it is true that the prime character of the story, in reality, chooses to embrace a queer choice and leaves behind a genuine life of robust financial security. Also, Maugham wants to understand whether he makes this decision with an intensely devised specific aim of spending his life in the bosom of nature by making leisure and pleasure the only twin soulmates of that enjoyment.
His every query wants a clear and satisfactory explanation. In other words, his pivotal purpose is to learn the actual facts directly from the hero of The Lotus Eater.
Maugham is well aware that it is one of the common tendencies most people often exaggerate a matter even if there is no need for that exaggeration. He knows that it is the usual nature of nearly every human being. They “love to romanticize” what they receive as information. It is indeed a regular practice. Human minds always prefer to breed something extra about every affair. They feel an invisible joy in adding some extra thinking to the actual story and thereby try to idealize each happening usually taking place around them.
In The Lotus Eater, Somerset Maugham also feels apprehensive about some such idealization regarding Wilson’s rare way of perceiving life. And so, he desires to verify the actual thing. The author thinks that personal interaction is the only gateway to enter into the world of reality. His curiosity about the hero of the story, Wilson, is so high that he believes face-to-face interaction is the only way to understand whether Wilson’s life story is as singular as he has already been told by other people.
The storyline of the famous short story depicts the physique and character of the prime character from two angles. The first one tells the words of others, i.e., the third-party versions. However, reality emerges with a few twists when Maugham gets the long-coveted chance to converse with Wilson.
As soon as the author starts interacting with the hero of the short story, readers become aware of the reality that has already taken place in Thomas Wilson’s life. They come to know why he decided to leave his secure job. In addition, they can realize Why he chose to retire from a financially secure life. Also, they come to know the invisible feelings lurking behind the core of Wilson’s thoughts.
Maugham’s comment on human nature regarding idealizing a fact and deviating from its actual subject matter becomes evident when the abovementioned difference between exaggeration and reality emerges as an essential part of the storyline.
The writer’s words here rightly point out and assert the known usual tendency of human nature. Moreover, it unveils an essential note regarding sharp realism. His belief about people often exaggerate is on the one hand a meaningful and significant remark and on the other hand quite witty and simultaneously informative about an exceptional aspect of human thinking and living.
The famous short story reveals the author’s matchless, master artistry and robust and profound perception of human life. His strong sense of wit also becomes evident in his description of Wilson’s look. Maugham’s description of Thomas Wilson’s past and present life uncovers how profoundly the author perceives and thinks about human nature and human passion for life. In short, Somerset Maugham’s opinion regarding how people often exaggerate a subject reveals the author’s rare but valuable potential of drawing a character with enormous curiosity and attraction.
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