On a Chinese Screen · Question
How does On a Chinese Screen develop the theme of Hypocrisy and Moral Compromise?
Answer
On a Chinese Screen by W. Somerset Maugham develops Hypocrisy and Moral Compromise across the chapters the companion marks for this theme.
Many characters, from missionaries to businessmen, display a gap between their professed values and their actions: Dr. Macalister profits from his mission, the missionary Wingrove secretly loathes the Chinese he serves, and the 'taipan' reflects on drinking colleagues to death while maintaining a facade of respectability.
The narrator notes the minister's genuine love for art while being corrupt, inefficient, and unscrupulous, highlighting the disconnect between aesthetic refinement and moral integrity.
The English lady's shifting loyalties and the diplomats' superficiality reveal moral emptiness.
The English lady's shifting allegiances (praising the Chinese Empress Dowager in Peking, the Sultana Fatima in Constantinople) and the banker's wife's judgmental gossip expose the moral and intellectual dishonesty of the expatriate community.
Evidence in the book
- V: The Cabinet Minister
The narrator notes the minister's genuine love for art while being corrupt, inefficient, and unscrupulous, highlighting the disconnect between aesthetic refinement and moral integrity.
- VI: Dinner Parties
The English lady's shifting loyalties and the diplomats' superficiality reveal moral emptiness.
- I: Legation Quarter
The English lady's shifting allegiances (praising the Chinese Empress Dowager in Peking, the Sultana Fatima in Constantinople) and the banker's wife's judgmental gossip expose the moral and intellectual dishonesty of the expatriate community.
- II: At a Treaty Port
The guests wear evening clothes uneasily, as if performing a duty to their country, while avoiding any genuine connection or understanding of China.
- XI: Fear
Wingrove outwardly praises the Chinese while inwardly feeling revulsion, embodying a deep hypocrisy between his professed faith and his true feelings.
- XIII: Her Britannic Majesty’s Representative
The consul's officious and condescending nature contrasts sharply with his principled stand against barbaric execution, revealing a complex moral character.
- XIV: The Opium Den
The chapter implicitly critiques the moral panic surrounding opium use by showing a peaceful, domestic scene, suggesting that Western condemnation may be hypocritical or based on ignorance.
- XV: The Last Chance
She criticizes Chinese arranged marriages for lacking romance, yet her own calculated efforts to please every man reveal a different kind of transactional approach to marriage.
