Every woman wants to be a princess in a fairy tale and live a happy life with a prince from then on. However, in real life, women are not princesses themselves, and even if they are princesses, most of the people they meet will not be princes.
Some women, who are ordinary in their own right, but long to have a top excellent man like themselves, which is a wrong idea in itself. Some women, who are very good, always feel that no one really likes themselves, so they are needlessly entangled with people who are not worthy.
In this life, a woman can live very well, but it is also possible to live a bad life. It's up to you to do it.
Kitty in Maugham's The Veil is a woman who makes herself worse and worse.
Kitty's birth is OK, plus people are beautiful, so from childhood under the influence of her mother, I think there will be very good men who like him. However, Kitty has no advantages other than being good-looking.
Seeing that she is twenty-five years old, the hope of marrying into the rich is getting smaller and smaller, and her mother is already impatient with her, only hoping that she will marry early, and her sister has already had a fiancé and will get married soon, she is very unhappy in her heart.
In order to get rid of her mother's nagging and her sister's ostentation in front of her, she married Walter, a person she did not like.
This is the first mistake Kitty makes, she thinks that getting out of her current predicament is the most important thing for her, but she has never thought about marrying a man she does not love, how to spend her married life.
Fortunately, Walter liked her very much, and after marriage, he was really good to her, and whatever she liked, he was willing to be satisfied and willing to do all kinds of things for her.
But Kitty didn't know how to cherish it, and even looked down on him a little because he loved himself so much.
Maybe when you don't love someone, the better that person treats you, and the more you love you, the more you look down on him.
Kitty enjoyed Walter's kindness to herself, never thinking that while accepting this kindness, she should also give something. She just found out more and more that she really didn't love Walter.
Of course, even if she doesn't love, if she can live a life with Walter plainly, it is not bad, after all, Walter is sincere to her. Or she can take the initiative to end the marriage and go back to the life she wants.
But Kitty didn't do that, and once again she made the wrong choice, to betray Walter and be with the perfect man in her mind, Charlie, who in Kitty's eyes was attractive, handsome, and high status, the man she had always wanted.
However, she never thought, why would such a man like herself? If this man is really that good, why would he betray his wife and be with her?
Apparently, in Kitty's mind, Charlie's wife was not worthy of him, and she was many times stronger than Charlie's wife.
It was because of these wrong ideas that she didn't even think that she would be sorry for Walter, and she continued to accept Walter's goodness with peace of mind, so she looked at him more and more unpleasantly and looked down on him.
Kitty is undoubtedly stupid, she can't see Charlie's personality, she can't figure out why Charlie wants to be with her, she doesn't know how to cherish Walter's kindness to herself, and more importantly, she doesn't respect herself, she doesn't care about herself, so when she knows that Charlie is actually only interested in herself for a while, and will not leave her wife for her, she only has resentment and grievances in her heart.
But what does she have to resent and grievance?
Although Charlie said something very shameless, it was not true.
That's what Kitty asked Charlie to divorce his wife, Charlie disagreed, and Kitty blamed Charlie for why he wanted to be with her in the first place. The general meaning of that sentence was that Kitty had also agreed to be with him in the first place, and he did not force it.
Kitty felt ashamed of this, but could not argue with it. She really wanted to be with Charlie, and even with him soon. She only thought about how good Charlie was, and how much she liked him, and never thought about what she was like in Charlie's heart.
At the end of the day, she, like Charlie, is a person who is unfaithful to her feelings, and when she realized this later, she realized how much she despised Charlie and despised herself.
Charlie is a selfish man who has no one in his heart but himself. Kitty thought that Charlie was willing to leave his wife for her, which was simply a delusion, and she didn't want to think that in Charlie's heart, what else was there to appreciate besides being beautiful?
Kitty is a superficial and ignorant person, she has no wise mind, nor much vision, she thinks that a woman, as long as she is beautiful, is enough to make all the men in the world fall under her pomegranate skirt, obviously she thinks wrong, so she will take a wrong step, every step wrong.
Fortunately, she met Walter, although she did not love Walter, but it was walter who made her realize her own shortcomings and made her start to think about the meaning of life. Therefore, her life did not continue to fall, and there would be a new beginning.
Through Kitty, we can know that the last thing a woman can do in this life is to see herself clearly. If a woman wants to live well, she must know how to see herself clearly.
The marriage Kitty wanted was influenced by her mother, who thought she should marry a prominent family, so she was bent on finding someone who matched her desire for wealth and status. She had never thought about what the person she liked in her heart really looked like.
Later, in order to get out of the predicament, she hurriedly married Walter, and never thought about what the marriage she wanted was like.
Later, she fell in love with Charlie, betrayed Walter, and never thought about whether Charlie was the person she deserved to love, and if she did this, would she live the life she wanted?
It wasn't until the end that she began to reflect on what she had done, and realized that she had never been able to see herself clearly, so she would always do things that she regretted.
When she realized this, she decisively left Charlie and said goodbye to her past self, everything in the past, at that time, Walter had passed away because of her work, and Kitty chose to return to her hometown and start a new life.
At the end of the book The Veil, it is written: "She does not know what awaits her in front of her? But she felt empowered within herself—to be able to bravely face what was coming with optimism and ease. ”
Although in the end, Kitty is only herself and the child in her belly, but she has understood the life she wants, she already has her own view of life, so she is no longer like in the past, only know to be attached to others, now she just wants to be self-reliant and loyal to herself.
Maugham's "Veil" really helps us see the truth of marriage, the truth of love, and helps us see clearly the most important things in life. If a woman can't see herself clearly, then whether it is love, marriage, or herself, it will not be good.
Some have called The Veil a book of self-redemption for women, and following Kitty's final choices may also help you find a path to happiness and peace.
At the same time, it makes you realize that no matter what a person has done, as long as he has the determination to change, as long as he can see his heart clearly, he will always have the opportunity to live according to the way he wants and pursue the happiness he wants.
END