The Man with the Scar

W. Somerset Maugham was one of the twentieth century's most popular novelists as well as a celebrated playwright, critic, and short story writer. I have a chance to read some his famous works. Coming with the short story "the man with the scar", I have understood more about his writing style and the meaning of his stories.

In the first place, I must say that I am attracted immediately by the title of the story. Like most of all his works, the titles are often strange and able to rouse readers' curiosity. At the first time accessing to this story, I wonder why it should be "the man with the scar". And at the very beginning lines of the story, the storyteller- a familiar character of his works makes me want to know why the man has this kind of scar? I also like the way the writer describes the man "It was unexpected on that round, fat and good-humored face. He had small and undistinguished features, and his expression was artless. His face went oddly with his corpulent body. He was a powerful man of more than common height…he was far from clean.". Added to this, in the story, the write does talk very much. His style is simply, and sometimes with ironic point of view .Although Maugham's story is at heart rather sad, the writer injects some surprising moments of humour into it. For example, he makes the seemingly superfluous remark that "they make a very good dry martini at the Palace Hotel in Guatemala City". One more thing special of "the man with the scar" as well as many other works is that it is relatively open story, sufficiently inexplicit in its meanings to allow readers to refer. With the writer's rich experience of life and his acute insight nature, he is concerned with many a bitter truth of the modern society, the man with the scar is one of unlucky persons. He is an exile from Nicaragua, a former revolutionary general from Nicaragua, a ruffian, a bandit, with five others, once