The Moon and Sixpence and Maugham, these two names are so famous that even if you haven't read the book, you must have heard of the name Maugham. In other words, even if you hadn't heard of Maugham, you must have heard of the book The Moon and Sixpence.
Many people think that Maugham is the novelist who understands human nature the most, and if he understands Maugham, he understands life. And people who have read Maugham's works can usually feel that he seems to hate and discriminate against women, and even think that Maugham has "misogyny".
In The Veil, Maugham is cruel and warm to his heroine, Katie. Cruelly, Maugham's penmanship is calm and mean, writing about Katie's vanity and stupidity, allowing her to experience the cruelty of life and the deception of love; warmly, Maugham let Katie go to a wider world, facing the threat of death and seeing the brilliance of human nature, and found a path to inner freedom and peace.
After reading this novel, in Katie's body, we can glimpse the three truths of happiness, and the sooner a woman recognizes it, the better.
Mother did not teach her how to love
Mrs. Justin is a vain woman, and when her desire to rely on her husband to get ahead failed, she pinned her hopes for a change of fate on her two daughters, especially the beautiful eldest daughter, Katie.
Her mother gave her all to hold a social dance for Katie, hoping that she would find the right person and achieve a glorious marriage. Katie has heard and heard from an early age, unconsciously inheriting her mother's desire and vanity, lingering among many suitors, immersed in pleasure.
However, the sky is not the way it is, things are often against her own heart, and the 25-year-old Katie still has not found the person who wants to get married. The mother was furious and questioned how long she planned to let her father support herself. Later, her mother didn't care who Katie was going to marry, as long as she could get rid of her as soon as possible. On the contrary, the young daughter who is not favored by the mother and has a satisfactory marriage partner at the right time, which can also be regarded as satisfying the vanity of the mother.
In order to get rid of her mother's harsh words and avoid attending her sister's grand wedding, Katie had to marry the silent and boring Doctor of Bacteriology and leave the UK for Hong Kong. But Katie didn't love him at all.
The Veil reads: "In a panic, Katie hastily married Walter. Fane. ”
Psychologist Freud once said:
"The mother plays an important role in the family, and if the mother is anxious, the whole family is anxious."
Katie has such a mother who runs for fame and fortune. On the outside, she was inferior to judges and their wives, extremely flattering to politicians with promising futures; at home, she was selfish and cold, looked down on her husband, and her two daughters were only her tools to enter the upper class.
When Katie finds herself fooled and heartbroken by false love cheating, she has no one to talk to. The daughter who married her spilled water, and the mother could not take her in; when she was about to follow her husband to the cholera area, she had nowhere to go back, so she had to rush to the land of death in discouragement.
Originally, home should be the harbor of happiness for the daughter, who has been wronged and hurt outside, and home is the place of healing. But Katie did not love and tolerate her mother, and her home was not a safe haven.
Mother didn't teach Katie how to love as a woman. A mother must have a daughter, and Katie's strong vanity and superficial desires are the same as her mother's, and even she despises her husband as much as her mother despises her father.
The physically and mentally invested love turned out to be a deception
At a cocktail party in Hong Kong, Katie fell in love with government official Townsend, who was handsome and had beautiful blue eyes. Katie falls in love with Townsend, the husband of a wife, and foolishly believes that Townsend will divorce his wife and marry her. Katie also dreamed of her and Townsend's future.
One afternoon, when Katie was at home with Townsend, the doorknob of the room turned. Katie couldn't be sure if the man outside the door was her husband for a moment, and she panicked. After all, the paper could not contain the fire, and the person outside the door was her husband Walter, who just did not grab the door and entered.
Walter asks Katie to go with him to Mae Tam Province, where cholera has occurred, but Katie refuses, inexplicably and in horror. Walter's confession is the best part of the book The Veil.
He said:
"I know you're stupid, frivolous, and brainless, but I love you. I know your goals and ideals are vulgar and ordinary, but I love you. I know you're second-rate, but I love you. ......”
Walter told Katie that as long as Townsend's wife promised to divorce, Townsend issued a written commitment to marry Katie within a week, and he agreed to divorce her.
Although Katie is a little upset, she swears to Walter that he has no idea what love is, and that she believes that the love between Townsend and her is unheated.
But Townsend's vain, cowardly, cold, selfish response makes Katie fall into the abyss, and she feels that she has lost the meaning of living.
The Bible says in 1 Corinthians:
"Love is not jealousy, love is not boastful, not crazy, not shy, not seeking its own benefit, not easily angry, not counting people's evil, not like unrighteousness, only like the truth." 」
How could Katie possibly know what love was, and if she did, she wouldn't easily marry someone she didn't love. Katie is indifferent to her husband, Walter, and she cares about the little benefit that marriage brings to her, hiding and fleeing.
Katie didn't understand why Townsend didn't love her, everything she did was to please him. The vain and selfish Katie did not think at this time that all her husband Walter had done was also to please her, but didn't she also not love him?
The difference is that Walter is truly in love with Katie, but she abandons it. Townsend was hypocritical about Katie, but she was willing to do so.
Find the way to awakening on the brink of life and death
Katie follows Walter to the cholera-infested Mae Tam Province, where she has nowhere to run, and the Townsend she really loves doesn't want her anymore.
In the humble and dimly lit room of Mae Tam Province, Katie was scared to death. The words of Waddington, a junior officer who remained at the local customs, completely shattered her illusions about Townsend.
Then, led by Waddington, Katie took a look at the countryside of the plague region, the vast plains, the dense mounds in the mountains, and the dead who were too late to bury on the road. Afterwards, Katie went to the local plague center monastery, where there were several nuns and adopted many sick and children.
The abbot of the monastery expressed his gratitude to Katie, saying that her husband Walter was an angel sent from heaven, that he was merciful, kind and brave, and who was not afraid of illness and life and death, and who cared for the sick. These words actually brought Katie to tears.
Katie volunteered to take care of orphans in the convent, a job that energized her and she felt for the first time that she was a useful person. The dean from a large French family talked to Katie about his experience and said:
"There is only one way to win hearts and minds, and that is to make yourself the one people love." ......”
Walter contracted cholera and died. On Katie's way back to Hong Kong, she felt a freedom to escape death threats, a freedom to escape spiritual bondage.
Katie remembered the humble words and deeds of the nuns of the convent, and the words of the abbot, and she felt that her heart was full of hope and strength, and she was no longer afraid of anything that happened in the future.
Katie returns to her home in England, where her mother, who has been cold all her life, dies. Katie reconciles with her father, and she will live happily with him in the days to come.
Sometimes, God takes something out of your life and gives it accordingly. As long as you don't give up, the road ahead will be wider and wider, and you will eventually receive the gift of life.
Born to be human, especially a woman---
If there is no happy birth family, lack of father's protection and mother's tolerance, then do not give up the hope of life and the courage to love.
If you find that the love you are truly committed to is a deception, then cut off the leading edge without nostalgia, the best scenery is ahead.
Without suffering, it is difficult to awaken. People's happiness, many times often have to fight for themselves.