# Hypocrisy and Moral Compromise in On a Chinese Screen

> Theme guide for On a Chinese Screen by W. Somerset Maugham.

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.

## Where it surfaces

- [V: The Cabinet Minister](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_a_chinese_screen_se/chapters/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](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_a_chinese_screen_se/chapters/vi-dinner-parties): The English lady's shifting loyalties and the diplomats' superficiality reveal moral emptiness.
- [I: Legation Quarter](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_a_chinese_screen_se/chapters/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](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_a_chinese_screen_se/chapters/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](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_a_chinese_screen_se/chapters/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](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_a_chinese_screen_se/chapters/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](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_a_chinese_screen_se/chapters/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](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_a_chinese_screen_se/chapters/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.
- [XVII: Henderson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_a_chinese_screen_se/chapters/xvii-henderson): Henderson's socialist ideals and democratic pretensions are starkly contradicted by his casual cruelty and sense of racial superiority, epitomized by kicking the rickshaw boy.
- [XIX: The Point of Honour](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_a_chinese_screen_se/chapters/xix-the-point-of-honour): The Vicomte maintains his honour and dignity while profiting from his wife's infidelity, illustrating a moral compromise that upholds social appearances.
- [XXI: Dr. Macalister](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_a_chinese_screen_se/chapters/xxi-dr-macalister): Dr. Macalister's land purchase for the mission school, though not dishonest, was unscrupulous and led to his resignation, highlighting the tension between his principles and his commercial instincts.
- [XXIII: God's Truth](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_a_chinese_screen_se/chapters/xxiii-god-s-truth): The missionary's refusal to show basic human kindness to Birch, despite his Christian calling, highlights moral hypocrisy.
- [XXVIII: The Dining-Room](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_a_chinese_screen_se/chapters/xxviii-the-dining-room): The mention of sending away Chinese mistresses upon marriage and providing for Eurasian children at a Shanghai school hints at moral compromises.
- [XXX: The Consul](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_a_chinese_screen_se/chapters/xxx-the-consul): The consul's moral outrage at Miss Lambert's situation contrasts with his own obliviousness to the opium trade conducted at his consulate, highlighting hypocrisy.
- [XXXII: The Fannings](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_a_chinese_screen_se/chapters/xxxii-the-fannings): Fanning's aggressive, bullying manner towards the Chinese is revealed as a facade for his own shyness, while his wife actively reinforces this false persona, illustrating the hypocrisy and moral compromise inherent in maintaining colonial authority.
- [The Stranger](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_a_chinese_screen_se/chapters/xxxv-the-stranger): The missionary feels stung by the implication that the missions' summer exodus is a dereliction of duty, and he rationalizes it as a practical necessity, while resenting the comparison to the Roman Catholics.
- [XXXVI: Democracy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_a_chinese_screen_se/chapters/xxxvi-democracy): The official's public display of authority contrasts with his private egalitarian behavior.
- [XXXVII: The Seventh Day Adventist](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_a_chinese_screen_se/chapters/xxxvii-the-seventh-day-adventist): The missionary treats his evangelical work as a mere business proposition, lacking passion or a true calling, and resents having to conform to Chinese customs despite being a guest in the country.
- [XXXIX: The Missionary Lady](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_a_chinese_screen_se/chapters/xxxix-the-missionary-lady): The missionary lady's self-assured charity and the narrator's ironic participation in a dialogue of empty clichés expose the hypocrisy beneath their moral and intellectual posturing.
- [The Skipper](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_a_chinese_screen_se/chapters/xli-the-skipper): The skipper's denial of being a working man despite his occupation, and his contradictory disdain for socialism while being a laborer himself.
- [XLII: The Sights of Town](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_a_chinese_screen_se/chapters/xlii-the-sights-of-town): The narrator philosophically notes that evil (the baby tower) enables good (the orphanage), suggesting a moral compromise in the face of suffering.
- [XLIV: The Normal Man](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_a_chinese_screen_se/chapters/xliv-the-normal-man): Webb maintains a cheerful, normal exterior while hiding profound personal grief and a sense of unfairness about his daughter's marriage, revealing a disconnect between appearance and reality.
- [XLVII: Failure](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_a_chinese_screen_se/chapters/xlvii-failure): He clings to a grand style and assurance even in ruin, a hypocrisy that masks his inability to adapt or succeed.
- [One of the Best](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_a_chinese_screen_se/chapters/lii-one-of-the-best): Despite being praised as 'one of the best' for his generosity and sociability, he openly despises the very country and people that enable his comfortable existence, revealing a moral compromise.
- [The Vice-Consul](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_a_chinese_screen_se/chapters/lvi-the-vice-consul): The vice-consul participates in the execution process yet later boasts about it, revealing a compromise of his own moral sensibilities.

## Links

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