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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Moon and Sixpence, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Art and Beauty
Society vs. Authenticity
Women vs. Men
Morality
Mind vs. Body
Summary
Analysis
Chapter 1. The narrator admits that he didn’t realize Charles Strickland had “greatness” when they met, though now the narrator and society at large recognize Strickland’s greatness—a greatness that derives from an “authentic” personality rather than any official position he held. The narrator believes that Strickland’s magnetic personality has created the general fascination with his life story—though only with a critic’s article four years after Strickland’s death did Strickland become admired as an artist. The narrator himself, who doesn’t know much about painting, plans to talk about Strickland’s art only insofar as it illuminates his personality.
Strickland’s “greatness” is as an artist, yet the narrator claims that he was great due to his authenticity, not because he was technically skilled. This argument suggests that to make art of genuine quality, the artist must be “authentic” before anything else. Yet the fact that Strickland did not become famous as an artist until after his death also implies that society may have trouble appreciating an authentic individual artist in his own time.
Themes
After the first article rehabilitating Strickland’s reputation as an artist, many writers in London and painters in Paris published articles about their memories of him. Legends about Strickland began to emerge—people naturally love creating legends—though Strickland’s son Rev. Robert Strickland attempted to stop them by writing a biography of his father in which he falsely described Strickland as a moral family man. This biography led to a depreciation of Strickland’s art—until a cynical, misanthropic biographer, Dr. Weitbrecht-Rotholz, was able to refute all Rev. Robert Strickland’s claims, in particular by reprinting a letter by Strickland in which he admitted his wife Mrs. Strickland was “an excellent woman”—and then wished she “was in hell.”
Strickland’s art temporarily lost value after Strickland’s son Robert portrayed him as a moral family man. This detail suggests that, while society may fail to appreciate authentic and individualistic artists in their own time, people ultimately want artists to be authentic—even if that authenticity includes antisocial or immoral behavior. Indeed, people may want an artist to be immoral so they can vicariously enjoy his antisocial individualism. Strickland’s antisocial desire that his “excellent” wife were in “hell” hints that questions of marriage, sexuality, and gender may be important to his development as a character.
Themes
Chapter 2. The narrator suggests that he could justify writing about Strickland because he knew Strickland well—before Strickland became a painter and again in Paris—but says he won’t resort to “excuses.” Contemplating how many books are published each day to little success, he concludes that writers should write to enjoy and express themselves—not for external rewards. He contemplates how, during the war, the younger generation embarked on a new style—and compares himself to the now-forgotten poet George Crabbe, who kept composing poetry in an antiquated style after Keats, Wordsworth, and Shelley exploded on the scene.
George Crabbe (1754–1832) was an English surgeon who wrote poetry primarily in heroic couplets—not an innovative form—that nevertheless honestly depicted the lives of poor, working-class and rural people, an unusual subject in literature at the time. John Keats (1795–1821), William Wordsworth (1770–1850), and Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822), more famous poets about a generation younger than George Crabbe, rejected antiquated poetic forms of the kind Crabbe used—yet Wordsworth, at least, was a friend of Crabbe’s and praised the verisimilitude of his poetry. By comparing himself to the unfashionable but honest and earthy Crabbe, the narrator suggests that he will tell the truth. By arguing that writers should write to express themselves and not to please others, he suggests that individual authenticity is a surer way to happiness than chasing social approval.
Themes
Chapter 3. The narrator explains how he published his first book as a very young man. The London literary landscape is now much changed: its center of gravity is Bloomsbury, not Kensington, and it is sexually and verbally crude, as well as gender-egalitarian, in a way the narrator’s generation was not. He recalls going to literary parties where he was conversationally awkward but the authors around him were amazing talkers—especially when criticizing a fellow-author or when talking about the business side of publishing.
Kensington and Bloomsbury are neighborhoods in west-central London; while Kensington is associated with affluence, Bloomsbury is associated with fashionable bohemianism. In mentioning Bloomsbury’s literary scene, the narrator is likely referring to the Bloomsbury Group, a loose collection of early 20th-century English writers—the most famous of whom is Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)—who lived in and around Bloomsbury. The narrator’s implicit criticism of the Bloomsbury group for its sexual openness and relative gender egalitarianism suggests his discomfort with women’s self-expression and autonomy despite his valorization of individualism.
Themes
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Chapter 4. In a flashback, an author named Rose Waterford introduces the narrator to Strickland’s wife, Mrs. Strickland, whom Rose cynically describes as a giver of parties for authors. Days later, Mrs. Strickland invites the narrator to lunch. All the guests are writers, and the dining room is stylish in a boring, conformist way. Afterward, Rose tells the narrator that Mr. Strickland is a “dull” stockbroker, and that the Stricklands have a happy marriage and two children.
From what the narrator has already revealed about Strickland’s later life, readers know that he is not just a “dull” stockbroker and that he is likely not happy in his marriage. Thus, readers can interpret Rose’s self-assured characterization of Strickland’s life as ironically ignorant. By describing Mrs. Strickland as a giver of parties for artists—a social hanger-on rather than a creative herself—with conventional taste in interior décor, the novel hints that Mrs. Strickland represents the social mores that Strickland must flee in order to authentically express himself as an artist.
Themes
Literary Devices
Chapter 5. The narrator and Mrs. Strickland become friends. Mrs. Strickland has a gift for listening sympathetically such that the narrator feels he’s doing her a favor, not vice versa. When he says as much to Rose, Rose cynically suggests that Mrs. Strickland needs to express sympathy the way a cow needs to be milked. The narrator also likes Mrs. Strickland’s domesticity. One day, he asks why he hasn’t met Strickland. Mrs. Strickland says that he’s a “dull” stockbroker who’s not interested in art—though in a way that conveys she wants to shield her husband from criticism. She agrees to invite the narrator to a dinner party with Strickland.
The novel undercuts even Mrs. Strickland’s apparent good qualities, like sympathetic listening, by comparing them to the merely physical needs of a domesticated female animal—a cow needing to be milked. Thus, again, it sets her up as a representative of domestication and social convention against which the artist Strickland—who the reader knows is not in fact “dull”—must rebel.
Themes
Chapter 6. One day, Mrs. Strickland invites the narrator to a dinner party that she warns him will be deathly boring. Indeed, it is boring: everyone is conventional, and no one seems to enjoy themselves. There the narrator meets Strickland. The narrator is surprised to find that Strickland is a large man—for some reason he expected a small one. Otherwise, Strickland is dull as anticipated: “a good, dull, honest, plain” person one wouldn’t particularly want to talk to.
The novel associates social convention with boredom and lack of enjoyment, emphasizing its own commitment to individualism and authenticity. In this conventional setting, the narrator mistakes Strickland—whom he will later recognize as having “greatness”—as a morally “good” but uninteresting person. This mistake shows how social convention enforces the appearance of morality and prevents individuals from recognizing one another’s true personalities.
Themes
Literary Devices
Chapter 7. Just before the Stricklands go on vacation to the coast, the narrator runs into Mrs. Strickland out shopping with her daughter and her son Robert and invites them to eat ices with him. The narrator finds the children “extraordinarily nice.” Afterward, feeling “lonely,” the narrator contemplates the peaceful attractions of the Stricklands’ quiet family life—but realizes that he wants for himself something “wilder.”
By emphasizing that Strickland’s children are “extraordinarily nice” and that the family seems to live a peaceful existence, the novel points out the potential attractions of a conventional life within a nuclear family. Yet the narrator, despite his loneliness, rejects these attractions in favor of something “wilder,” a rejection hinting that, in the novel’s view, genuine artistic temperaments and conventional family lives are incompatible.
Themes
Chapter 8. The narrator acknowledges that he hasn’t represented the Stricklands vividly as individuals—but they weren’t vivid as individuals to him. They seemed like just “part of the social organism.” Looking back, he will wonder whether he should have seen signs of Strickland’s genius earlier—but he thinks not.
By downplaying the individuality of Mrs. Strickland and her two children and representing them instead as “part of the social organism,” the narrator tacitly admits that he considers them symbols of the social conventions Strickland needed to escape to create great art rather than as people in their own right. By implying that he couldn’t have seen Strickland’s genius while Strickland was in the role of “family man,” moreover, the narrator again implies that conventional family life is incompatible with artistic genius.
Themes
After the narrator returns from vacation, he runs into Rose, who informs him with gossipy joy that Strickland has left Mrs. Strickland. Rose claims to know nothing of the affair except that a young woman in a tea shop quit her job at the same time. The narrator feels more excited about this novelistic incident than sorry for Mrs. Strickland. He had tentative plans to visit her and now wonders whether he should go.
When Rose mentions that a young woman in a tea shop quit her job around the time that Strickland left his wife, she is implying that Strickland abandoned his family for another woman. That the narrator’s primary reaction is excitement over an incident that might yield fictional material—and not sympathy for his friend, whose husband has just left her—hints that artists’ drive to understand and experience varied life events renders them less moral or straightforwardly sympathetic to others.
Themes
Literary Devices
The narrator goes to Mrs. Strickland’s and asks the maid whether it’s a convenient time for a visit. The maid leaves, returns, and brings the narrator to the drawing room, where he finds Mrs. Strickland with her brother-in-law Colonel MacAndrew. Though she has clearly been crying, she makes polite conversation with the narrator. Then she asks whether the narrator wants a cigarette, can’t find any, starts sobbing, and flees the room. The narrator realizes that it was probably Strickland’s job to buy the cigarettes.
Mrs. Strickland’s attempt to make polite conversation despite her devastation shows her strict adherence to social norms and thus underscores her function in the novel as a symbol of social repression. Her outburst of tears, meanwhile, emphasizes that Strickland has genuinely harmed her in abandoning his family.
Themes
The narrator tries to excuse himself, but Colonel MacAndrew begins talking about how Strickland has abandoned Mrs. Strickland and the children with no money and how she ought to divorce him. Mrs. Strickland returns, apologizes for crying, and asks whether people are talking about her. The narrator admits Rose told him Strickland left but omits Rose’s mention of the tea-shop woman. When the narrator leaves, Colonel MacAndrew accompanies him.
Here the novel expands on the harm that Strickland has caused his family by pointing out that the damage is not solely emotional—he was also his family’s primary breadwinner, so his decision to abandon them exposes them to economic precarity. Yet at the same time, when Mrs. Strickland asks whether people are talking about Strickland’s departure, the novel also implies that Mrs. Strickland is upset not only because she loves her husband but also because she is worried about superficial appearances—thus linking her yet again to society and conventionality in contrast to individualism and authenticity.
Themes
Chapter 9. In the street, Colonel MacAndrew exclaims that the family only knows Strickland has run off to Paris—they don’t even know what woman he’s run off with. Strickland gave Mrs. Strickland no explanation—while she was on vacation with the children, he simply wrote her a short letter saying he was leaving her. When the narrator asks what Mrs. Strickland will do, the Colonel says he’ll go to Paris to find “proofs.” Currently, Mrs. Strickland only has 200 or 300 pounds and her furniture to her name.
No-fault divorce was not legal in the UK in the early 20th century. When Colonel MacAndrew talks about going to Paris to find “proofs,” he presumably means proof that Strickland has committed adultery or other legal grounds on which Mrs. Strickland could seek a divorce. The legal difficulty that Mrs. Strickland would have divorcing her husband as well as the economic difficulty he has left her in emphasize the selfishness of his decision to abandon the family abruptly and without explanation.
Themes
Chapter 10. After a day or two, Mrs. Strickland asks the narrator to visit her. When he arrives, he’s surprised to see her wearing a black dress suggesting mourning, playacting the emotion she really feels. She asks whether he’ll go to Paris and talk to Strickland instead of Colonel MacAndrew, who she fears will make things worse. The narrator hesitates, as he barely knows Strickland and imagines that Strickland will simply tell him to mind his own business.
The narrator’s surprise and implied discomfort with Mrs. Strickland acting out her devastation in a socially legible way—wearing a black dress—emphasize his commitment to authenticity in contrast to social conventions.
Themes
Mrs. Strickland gets lost in thought for a moment. Then she says that, after 17 years of marriage, she’s terribly surprised that Strickland left her—she had “no warning” of an affair. She bursts into tears, calms herself, and tells the narrator of their early romance—the details of which strike him as generic and unsurprising. She expresses shock that Strickland would leave his children and then shows the narrator the brief, unemotional letter Strickland wrote announcing he was leaving her. She tells the narrator that the other woman must have made him into “another man” over time—he told her he was going to the club to play bridge at night, but Colonel MacAndrew found out that was a lie.
The novel has already established that Mrs. Strickland is a deeply conventional person despite her enthusiasm for writers. As such, readers may suspect that her assumption Strickland left her for another woman is false—the consequence of an overly conventional mind, which assumes that sex and romance are driving motives in behavior and that a “bad” woman can exert overwhelming power over a helpless man, changing him into “another man.”
Themes
Literary Devices
When Mrs. Strickland wonders how she and the children will survive, the narrator promises to go to Paris, so long as she tells him what she wants. Mrs. Strickland says she wants Strickland to return to her. When the narrator says Colonel MacAndrew suggested divorce, Mrs. Strickland asserts that she’ll never divorce Strickland and let him marry the other woman—for the children’s sake. Privately, the narrator believes that Mrs. Strickland is motivated not by the children but by “very natural jealousy.”
Mrs. Strickland claims to have an altruistic, moral motive for refusing to divorce her husband—she wants him back on behalf of their helpless children. When the narrator secretly suspects that Mrs. Strickland is lying (her motive is really personal “jealousy”) it shows his suspicion that conventional morality is just a cover for baser and more selfish emotions—emotions with which the narrator is actually more sympathetic, as evidenced by his calling Mrs. Strickland’s jealousy “very natural.”
Themes
The narrator asks whether Mrs. Strickland still loves Strickland. She says she doesn’t know, but she’ll forgive him if he returns and no one finds out. The narrator is disturbed by her concern with gossip; he doesn’t yet know how important social opinion is to women, how it taints their passions with “insincerity.” Mrs. Strickland bursts out that it’s “horrible” for a middle-aged man to have an affair and that she’d rather die by suicide than live without Strickland. The narrator, angry with Strickland, agrees to help her.
Mrs. Strickland’s estrangement from her own emotions—she doesn’t even know whether she still loves her husband—and her concern that people will find out he left her underscore yet again that she represents social convention as against individual authenticity. The narrator as a young man is disturbed by her concern for appearances, which shows his contrasting investment in individual authenticity. Meanwhile, the older narrator looking back on this incident reflects that women are naturally socially minded and thus tainted by “insincerity”—a claim revealing his low opinion of women in general.
Themes
Literary Devices
Chapter 11. As the narrator travels to Paris, he doubts the wisdom of his journey. He realizes that Mrs. Strickland, though genuinely upset, also cried to tug at his heartstrings, and he’s as yet too young to realize human complexity: “how much pose there is in the sincere.” Yet he’s pleased to be going on a rather novelistic “adventure” to retrieve an erring husband.
Though the young narrator implicitly dislikes Mrs. Strickland’s “pose” of devastation, the older narrator looking back on the same incident contemplates “how much pose there is in the sincere”—suggesting that he judges Mrs. Strickland less harshly in retrospect now that greater experience has taught him how often people act out their real, “sincere” emotions in an inauthentic, “posing” way—presumably in order to communicate their authentic feelings to others. Meanwhile, his desire to make a novelistic “adventure” out of the Stricklands’ trouble hints yet again that artists—perhaps immorally—view other people’s pain as potentially useful material for art.
Themes
The narrator asks at his hotel about the Hotel des Belges, where Strickland is staying. To his surprise, the only Hotel des Belges is in a shabby area. The following evening, he goes to the hotel, which is old and dirty, and asks the porter about Strickland. The porter says that Strickland is in room 32. When the narrator asks (in French) whether there’s a woman with him, the porter says Strickland is alone.
When the porter says that Strickland is alone in his hotel room, it hints that Mrs. Strickland and the others were wrong to assume that Strickland left his family for another woman: they were projecting a conventional adultery narrative onto an unconventional man they don’t understand.
Themes
The narrator climbs the stairs and knocks on the door to Room 32. Strickland opens the door. When the narrator explains that he and Strickland met the previous July, Strickland invites him in. The room is small and ugly, but Strickland seems “at home”—unlike how uncomfortable he seemed in his actual home when the narrator first met him. When the narrator explains he’s come on behalf of Mrs. Strickland, Strickland invites him out for a drink and dinner. The narrator asks whether Strickland is alone. Strickland says yes—he hasn’t spoken to anyone in days, as his French is bad. The narrator wonders about the mistress.
That Strickland seems more “at home” in a cramped, lonely hotel room than at a party in his affluent, supposedly comfortable house in London suggests that his personality is fundamentally at odds with the conventional English social sphere in which he used to live. Strickland’s claim that he hasn’t spoken to anyone in days clearly hints that there is no “other woman”; that the narrator clings to the idea anyway suggests how Mrs. Strickland’s conventional interpretation of her husband has blinkered the narrator.
Themes
The narrator and Strickland go to a café in a poor neighborhood. When the narrator struggles to begin, finding that the sentiments he wanted to express seem out of place in Paris, Strickland tells him to say what he has to say—once that’s done, they can have a fun night. When the narrator asks whether Strickland has considered Mrs. Strickland’s misery, Strickland replies, “She’ll get over it.” Strickland freely admits that his wife doesn’t merit such treatment and his behavior is “monstrous”—but as he’s economically supported her their whole marriage, she can try to support herself now, as she doesn’t matter to him anymore. Unwillingly, the narrator almost laughs at Strickland’s “cheerful effrontery.”
Strickland’s attitude toward Mrs. Strickland seems cruel, and he himself admits his behavior is morally “monstrous,” yet he justifies himself by saying that he supported her economically for a long time and no longer cares about her. This justification indicates that Strickland resented his wife’s dependence on him and that he rejects the emotional “dishonesty” of staying with a woman he doesn’t care about. The narrator, despite himself, is amused by Strickland’s “effrontery”—that is, his lack of shame at flouting social norms. That the narrator is amused rather than horrified hints at the narrator’s own uneasy relationship with social norms and conventions.
Themes
When the narrator asks Strickland about his children, Strickland says he’s given them a more comfortable childhood than most get—and besides, Colonel MacAndrew will fund their education. Strickland used to like them when they were small, but now that they’re older, he doesn’t care about them either way. When the narrator asks whether Strickland doesn’t care that everyone will judge him, Strickland says no. Thoughtfully, the narrator suggests that perhaps everyone worries about judgment and “conscience” —but Strickland suggests that the narrator’s an idiot.
Strickland’s abandonment of his two children may strike readers as more disturbing than his leaving his dependent wife, yet Strickland is just as remorseless in his attitude toward them, showing his fundamental lack of moral qualms in rejecting his duties toward others. Interestingly, the narrator associates social judgment with “conscience”—suggesting that people’s moral compasses are really just internalizations of social judgments. This association implies that Strickland has no conscience because he has not internalized others’ social judgments of him.
Themes
Strickland suggests that Mrs. Strickland should divorce him and remarry. The narrator says she absolutely refuses. When Strickland says divorce doesn’t matter to him either way, the narrator suggests that he’s lying—they all know he ran off with someone. Strickland bursts out laughing and then says that women are stupid—though they may assume that a man would only leave a woman for another woman, Strickland wouldn’t have done what he did for love.
Here Strickland not only conveys his contempt for women’s intelligence in general but more specifically his belief that women overestimate the importance of romantic and sexual relationships to men: Strickland is not fundamentally motivated by love, sex, or romance.
Themes
When the narrator asks why Strickland left, Strickland replies, “I want to paint.” He explains that his father forced him to go into business when he was a young man who wanted to paint—when young Strickland claimed to be playing cards at the club, he was at a painting class. Though the narrator suggests that Strickland might never become a great painter, Strickland keeps repeating, “I’ve got to paint.” Though impressed by Strickland’s passion, which is as if he’s “possessed of a devil,” the narrator criticizes his behavior. Strickland, unbothered, suggests they go have dinner.
The behaviors that Mrs. Strickland and Colonel MacAndrew took as evidence of Strickland’s adultery were clues that he was pursuing an artistic passion. In a sense, this revelation makes Strickland’s behavior more confusing: why did he need to abandon his family in order to paint? Yet it also implies Strickland’s hierarchy of values: art is far more important to him than sex, romance, family, social approval, or acting morally. The narrator emphasizes both the strength of Strickland’s artistic drive and its potentially disturbing qualities when he compares it to demonic possession.
Themes
Chapter 13. The narrator thinks he ought to refuse to dine with Strickland, but he’s hesitant to “assum[e] the moral attitude”—so they go to a restaurant. The narrator is curious about Strickland and tries to learn more about him through conversation, but Strickland is inarticulate, not a verbal thinker. At one point, a French sex worker tries to pick Strickland up, even offering to have sex with him for free. Strickland rudely rejects her. When the narrator criticizes his rudeness, Strickland says that her overtures disgusted him and that he didn’t come to Paris for women.
The narrator’s reference to “assuming the moral attitude” suggests that the narrator sees morality as a pose that people adopt rather than an essential part of their character—and his unwillingness to adopt such a pose emphasizes yet again his commitment to honesty and authenticity even when they are morally compromising. Strickland’s intense negative reaction to the sex worker’s offer suggests that he doesn’t merely disregard sex—he seems to fear that women and sexuality could interfere with his artistic purpose in some way.
Themes
Chapter 14. Journeying back to London, the narrator concludes that perhaps Strickland really does have an intense artistic urge that compelled him to abandon his family—even though Strickland’s own comments hinted that Strickland wasn’t yet a technically skilled artist. The narrator also notes that the most disturbing thing about Strickland is, unlike nearly everyone, he genuinely doesn’t care what others think of him—though internalizing social opinions is the basis for all moral sentiments. In this sense Strickland is heinously immoral. The last thing he said to the narrator was that he hoped the narrator would convince Mrs. Strickland she was well rid of him—but, Strickland adds, she might not realize it, as “women are very unintelligent.”
Here the narrator makes explicit his belief that morality and conscience are just internalizations of social opinions, never authentic, individual commitments. He also accepts Strickland’s claim that his art compelled him to abandon his family without asking why the abandonment was necessary to the art—suggesting his uncritical acceptance and perhaps romanticization of Strickland’s antisocial behavior. Finally, because Strickland is associated with authentic individuality, his casual misogyny( i.e., the claim that “women are very unintelligent”) by implication associates women with conventional attitudes and social policing.
Themes
Literary Devices
Chapter 15. Back in London, the narrator visits Mrs. Strickland, who’s with her sister Mrs. MacAndrew and Colonel MacAndrew. When the narrator explains that Strickland left to paint, Mrs. Strickland protests that she would have been happy to encourage her husband’s art, while Mrs. MacAndrew insists Strickland must be lying—he really left for a woman. The narrator says there is no woman. Though the MacAndrews protest, he eventually convinces them.
When Mrs. Strickland protests that she would have encouraged Strickland’s art, it underscores yet again that Strickland’s abandonment of his family is undermotivated—unless something about his family would have prevented him from creating art even if they were supportive. Given that Strickland is portrayed as authentic and honest to the point of immorality, while Mrs. Strickland is highly conventional, the novel may be suggesting that Mrs. Strickland would have functioned as a conventional “straightjacket” on Strickland’s individual creativity even if she had tried to encourage his art. Meanwhile, the MacAndrews’ insistence that Strickland must be committing adultery and isn’t actually interested in art reinforces their conventionality.
Themes
Mrs. MacAndrew and Colonel MacAndrew suggest that Strickland will return if there’s no other woman involved. Mrs. Strickland declares he never will: he would have gotten sick of a woman, but not of this. Besides, she no longer wants him back—she can’t forgive him. The narrator asks whether she means that she could forgive Strickland for preferring another woman but not “an idea.” Angrily, she says she imagined reconciling with him even on his deathbed—but now she hopes he dies alone. The narrator is displeased with her vindictiveness, not yet realizing how complicated people can be.
The contrast that the narrator draws between another woman and “an idea” suggests that, in the novel, women represent physicality, sexuality, and the body, whereas art represents ideas and the mind—indicating that for male artists, too much contact with women may be deadly to artistic creativity. Interestingly, the young narrator seems to disapprove on a moral basis of Mrs. Strickland’s vindictiveness in the moment. In contrast, retrospective narrator, looking back on his experience as a young man, will acknowledge that people are complicated—suggesting that the narrator has become even less invested in conventional morality over the course of his life.
Themes
Attempting to soothe Mrs. Strickland, the narrator says that Strickland seems out of control of his behavior, as if possessed. Mrs. MacAndrew says that that’s a reach—Strickland is just selfish. The narrator agrees outwardly, though he doesn’t think selfishness really explains anything. Then he leaves.
When the narrator repeats the metaphor of demonic possession to describe Strickland’s desire to create art, it suggests not only the power and spiritual dimensions of Strickland’s artistic drive but also its moral danger (demons being naturally associated with evil and disaster).
Themes
Chapter 16. Aware that people quickly tire of others’ misery, Mrs. Strickland begins to act “brave” and “cheerful,” not complaining of her woes. She asks the narrator not to openly contradict the story that Strickland ran away with a woman. This theory creates sympathy for Mrs. Strickland and helps her get clients for her new typewriting business while the MacAndrews look after her children.
Mrs. Strickland conforms her outward behavior to what society expects of her, acting “brave” and “cheerful” to make others comfortable even though she has just suffered a devastating loss. And she manipulates social sympathy to support herself economically now that she can no longer rely on her husband. This reaction shows both the positive and negative sides of Mrs. Strickland’s character: her resilience and resourcefulness on the one hand, and her manipulativeness and inauthenticity on the other.
Themes
