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Personification
Definition of Setting
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or it can be an imagined... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the... read full definition
Setting
Explanation and Analysis:
W. Somerset Maugham's The Moon and Sixpence takes place in the late 19th century, the period during which the real-life artist Paul Gauguin lived. Narrated by an unnamed character, the novel follows the life and death of Charles Strickland, a fictional artist loosely based on Gauguin. The narrator takes the reader through two different times: the period during which Strickland lived and the period after Strickland's death.
In trying to reconstruct Strickland's artistic journey, the narrator begins the story in London at intellectual gatherings, where he first meets Strickland. Once Strickland abandons his family to become an artist in Paris, the narrator follows him at Mrs. Strickland's behest, in an attempt to recalibrate his moral compass. Five years later, the narrator more permanently moves to Paris, where he rekindles a friendship with Strickland and meets the Stroeves.
The later years of Strickland's life do not involve the narrator. As a result, the narrator traces Strickland's steps after his death, traveling to Tahiti to piece the years together. The narrator learns that after Strickland moved to Marseilles, France, he became destitute and was forced to hop between jobs on ships to survive. Strickland eventually landed in Tahiti, where he married a teenage Tahitian girl and spent the remaining years of his life.
