Abstract This paper analyzes the main character in William Somerset Maugham's novel "The Moon and Sixpence" as a tortured and cruel soul, which becomes a symbol of the blessing and the curse of transcendent artistic genius and its cost to humans relationships with the artist. The paper illustrates how this story is a nearly perfect example of the roman a clef form of novel, in it's parallel to painter Paul Gauguin's biography.
From the Paper 'Many of us wish, sometime in our lives, to change everything about ourselves, to reverse the course of our lives, to become different people, to have lives that are fundamentally more interesting and fulfilling and meaningful. Most of us, of course, do not do this, partly out of fear, partly out of laziness, partly because we do not have the talent or means to do so. If we could all become great painters ? or jockeys or chefs or whatever it is we dream about becoming, after all, we should have become those things to begin with. William Somerset Maugham in his novel The Moon and Sixpence examines the life of one man who decides to do just this, and the consequences to that man and his family ? consequences that are both terrible and fundamentally liberating."
