Salvatore by Somerset Maugham

SALVATORE. by W. Somerset Maugham

The story Salvatore by Somerset Maugham is a very short, simple and straightforward story written in third person narrative technique. The author just tells the readers the story of a fisherman named Salvatore who lived in an Italian Island.

The story is actually a biographical sketch of the protagonist (main character) Salvatore in chronological order ( three parts, that are connected which each other. The story begins when he was a boy of fifteen and ends when he is a middle-aged man with two children and a wife living peacefully a hard life of a common fisherman.

The author describes Salvatore first as a boy of fifteen with a pleasant face, laughing mouth, and carefree eyes. He was a skilled fisherman and a swimmer too, and while reading this story we can realize, that his life was very far from perfect.

The first part of his life is a childhood, and from the beginning of this story we realizes, that Maugham may be exploring the theme of responsibility, because Salvatore was looking after his young brother, and it proves that despite of the fact that Salvatore was too young (we know that he was only 15 years old), his parents trusted him to take care of his younger siblings. So, Salvatore’s actions spoke louder than words. Despite of the fact that he had a lot of abilities to do, he tried to enjoy every moment of his childhood.

The second part is his maturity, and in my opinion Salvatore became more strong-willed, became more strong-willed, because he left home g-for military service to become a sailor in the Navy. He takes everything in his stride particular the fear when he has to enlist in the Navy. Of course he doesn’t want to leave home, but he knows that he must accept the position he finds himself in. He felt nostalgic and missed his home’s islands, which now he realized were parts of his life as important as his hands or his legs. So, there is no place like home. In Salvatore’s military service we can observe some settings, like Specia, Venice, Bari,China. In this part of the story I realized, that Salvatore was a very courageous person, because he fell in when he was in his China, and he was suffering from rheumatism and he was considered unfit for further service.He didn’t mind his illness and rather felt happy to return to his own home, and he was very emotionally welcomed by his parents and his brothers with «great of deal of kissing» and «cry of joy».

And we may see the main conflict of this story when Salvatore was looking for his girl in the crowd, but in vain. Unfortunately, she doesn’t want to marry him, because her position on the society was higher, than Salvatore’s. She was «like a daughter of Caesar». And Salvatore didn’t have bad word about her after her betrayal.

And the last part of this story is his adulthood when he got married to Assanta, who was as ugly as a devil, but she had a kind heart, as Salvatore. Birds of a feather flock together. Her husband had been killed in Africa, while doing his military service, and that would allow us to understand the political vision of that time. He became a father of his own children, and his family became the main value of his life. Salvatore was devoted to his family. He was full of love and care for his kids. He enjoyed giving them a bath at the sea. He observed a delicacy while handling his kids. The strong hard hands became tender and delicate just like flowers as he held them affectionately.