Analysis of Luncheon Maugham Анализ "Ланч" Моэм

"The luncheon"

The author of the text is William Somerset Maugham who  was a British playwright, novelist and short story writer. Maugham's style is clear-cut and elegant. The attitude of the novelist to his character is more to be cynically sarcastic. He likes to play with contrasts and contradictions. His images are disclosed in sarcastic way.

The narrator, a book writer, recognizes a woman with whom he had lunch years ago. He

suddenly remembers the particular incident. She has invited him for a luncheon as she likes his works. He has been shocked at that time because she has chosen almost the most expensive restaurant in Paris but he has just a few coins for the rest of month. She starts to order expensive dishes one by one so he spends all his money. Finally he feels avenged seeing her really fat.

First of all I'd like to say some words about the title of the text "The Luncheon". The title of the text is rather ironical. If we consult a dictionary, we can find out that the word "luncheon" means a "light snack", but as we can see here a light snack turns to be an abundant and expensive meal.

The text represents the first person narration. The author with narrator`s words introdeces us a description of situation which is a flash-back to the case which happened 20 years ago and we can see that this flash back becomes an important detail "Did I remember?" Cause in the end of the story the flash-back goes when the narrator comes back to the present time and reveals us that he had been revenged.

The message of the text is that all of us are unexperienced and naive as result of it for a while but it`s not a motiv to use it in somebodies`s cunning aims. Carma will achieve all of us. As we learn with an euphemism the narrator is very poor person so he can hardly keep body and soul together. By the way he keeps some traditional concepts and he`s educated polite person: " I was flattered,and I was too young to have learned to say "no" to a woman". Just by the time you get it that it`s not possible to be polite with everyone.

The tone of the text is ironical. Irony is presented here in a stressed form, mainly in scene of restaurant. The atmosphere is not homogeneous. It changes from tense to sarcastic atmosphere. The tense atmosphere is created by the words of narrator, such as:

“I was startled», «My heart sank a little», «I fancy I turned a trifle pale», «My heart sank», and

«Panic seized me”. From the every next expression we feel the gradation of intensity.

This atmosphere is created through narration, description and dialogs. The dialog between the narrator and his companion depicts inconsistency of her words with her actions. It is observed hrough parallel construction: “I never eat anything for luncheon.-I never eat more than one thing.” ,” I never eat more than one thing unless caviar” „I never drink anything for luncheon except white wine”. Obviously it makes the narrator nervous.

The author uses: epithets little luncheon and modest luncheon as a contradiction with the luxury restaurant Foyot's at which the French senators eat. I think it is used to achieve the ironical effect.

And the he uses other epithets describing the meal to reveal the narrator`s attitude to it and the comic of situation: about asparagus“they were enormous, succulent and appetizing” ”they smelt of the mettled buter” metaphor about peaches ”they had blush of an innocent girl; they had rich tone of an Italian landscape”.

Maugham gives us an impression of the woman by a hyperbole: “she gave me the impression of having more teeth, white and large and even, than were necessary for any

practical purpose. So we understand that author doesn`t like her and reason of it in her mouth cause she is too talkative.

And also we learn about her through her actions, behaviour and speech: e.g she repeats "I never eat anything for luncheon", but she eats everything she can, as the metaphor and illusion in narrator`s words sounds: "I watched the abandoned woman thrust the asparagus down her throat in voluptuous mouthfuls and in my polite way discoursed on the condition of the drama in the Balkans." So we can make a conclusion that the woman is smart, experienced, selfish, cold, without any feeling except to fulfill her desires.

Personally I think that this text is interesting because you don’t know how it is going to end.
I think that this problem described by the author is very actual nowadays, not over eating, but it`s too, but women`s utilizations of naive guys just only to their advantage. By the way we can generalize that the problem is about utilization of naive people. (without any gender`s affiliation)