Poster canva

“Mr Know-All” The text under interpretation is the story “Mr Know-All” by Somerset Maugham. Somerset Maugham is a well-known English novelist, short-story writer, playwright and essayist. His style of writing is clear and precise. In his works such as “Of Human Bondage”, “The Moon and Sixpence”, “The Happy Man”, “The Ant and the Grasshopper” Maugham doesn’t impose his views on the reader. He just puts a question and leaves it to reader to answer it. The plot of the story “Mr Know-All” develops around Max Kelada who voyaged from San-Francisco to Yokohama. During this voyage he annoyed all the passengers of the ocean-going liner and as the result he got a nickname “Mr Know-All”. The main idea of the text can be formulated as “appearances are often deceptive”. In the story the author raises the problem of stereotypes and racial prejudices. There are four main characters: Mr Know-All Max Kelada; the narrator, Mr Kelada’s fellow passenger and a typical snobbish Englishman; Mr Ramsay, a typical American fellow from the Middle West, and his modest wife with pleasant manners and a sense of humour Mrs Ramsay. The story “Mr Know-All” was written in 1925 when Britain was still an empire and controlled countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. These countries were Britain colonies and officially all their citizens were British but in reality true Englishmen from the British Isles considered them as second-rate people. This fact should be mentioned to explain why the story begins with the description of the narrator’s negative attitude to Max Kelada. From the very beginning the narrator was prepared to dislike Max Kelada even before he knew him and the first reason of it was his name. The metaphor “when I was told the name of my companion my heart sank” and phrase “I should have looked upon it with less dismay if my fellow passenger’s name had been Smith or Brown” proves the idea that the narrator has already created a stereotyped image of Mr Kelada only on the base of his surname. The second reason why the narrator did not at all like Mr Kelada was his luggage. When the narrator went on board he found Mr Kelada’s luggage already below. He did not like the look of it: there were too many labels on the suitcases, and the wardrobe trunk was too big, there was scent, hairwash and brilliantine of the Monsieur Coty and ebony brushes with his monogram in gold on the washing-stand. Such detailed description of Mr Kelada’s things demonstrates that even the fact that a person named Max Kelada could have such expensive things could incur enmity of a typical Englishman. The narrator was playing patience when at least he got acquainted with Mr Kelada. Max Kelada was short and of a sturdy build, clean-shaven and dark skinned, with a fleshy, hooked nose and very large lustrous and liquid eyes. His long black hair was sleek and curly. He spoke with a fluency in which there was nothing English and his gestures were exuberant. This direct and practically full description of the character gives us an opportunity to understand that all fears of the narrator were confirmed. Moreover, the phrase “British to the backbone, that’s what I am” sounds ironically from Mr Kelada’s side because thanks to his description we see that he is not an ordinary Britishman, the anaphorical parallel constructions “He talked of New York and of San Francisco. He discussed plays, pictures, and politics. He was patriotic” and the antithesis “The Union Jack is an impressive piece of drapery, but when it is flourished by a gentleman from Alexandria or Beirut, I cannot but feel that it loses somewhat in dignity” show us that after conversion with Mr Kelada the narrator was absolutely sure that he did not like Mr Kelada. The phrase “I did not like Mr Kelada” with its variants was mentioned five times. So, we can think that nothing could change the situation and the narrator had to bear Mr Know-All during the whole voyage. He not only shared a cabin with him and ate three meals a day at the same table but he could not walk round the deck without Mr Kelada’s joining him. The parallel constructions: “He ran everything. He managed the sweeps, conducted the auctions, collected money for prizes at the sports, got up quoit and golf matches, organized the concert and arranged the fancy-dress ball”, the hyperbole “ He was everywhere and always”, the oxymoron “He was certainly the best hated man in the ship”, the epithets “hearty, jovial, loquacious and argumentative” and the use of the word “mercy” in the phrase “For the better part of an hour then he had us at his mercy” underline that Mr Kelada was not only the problem of the narrator but the most irritating issue of the whole ship and the meeting with Mr Kelada was inevitable for all passengers of the liner. In spite of the fact that Mr Know-All irritated everyone he found a man who liked to dispute with him and their discussions were always acrimonious and interminable. This man was Mr Ramsay who was in the American Consular Service and was stationed at Kobe. He was quite typical American: a great heavy fellow from the Middle West, with loose fat under a tight skin. He travelled with his wife Mrs. Ramsay who was a very pretty little thing, with pleasant manners and a sense of humour. Despite the fact that her husband didn’t earn much many she was dressed very simply but she knew how to wear her clothes. So, one evening at dinner the conversation by chance drifted to the subject of pears. The talk was about the cultured pearls which the cunning Japanese were making. During the talk we meet one more character a doctor who remarked that they must inevitably diminish the value of real ones. We may think that this character was not important for the story but it’s not so. On the contrary it was him who suggested the statement for a heated argument between Mr Kelada and Mr Ramsay which led to the disclosure of some interesting facts. So, Mr. Kelada, as was his habit, rushed the new topic and told us all that was to be known about pearls. Mr Ramsay wasn’t an expert in pearls but he could not resist the opportunity to have a fling at the Levantine. Here the narrator replaced the name and even the nickname of Mr Kelada by the word “Levantine” to stress that Mr Kelada was not an Englishman, he was someone from the east of Mediterranean and in this case he differ greatly from all of them. The epithet “a heated argument” and the repetition “I had seen Mr. Kelada vehement and voluble before, but never so voluble and vehement as now” emphasize that this argument was special for Mr Kelada and he knew what he was talking about. At last something that Ramsay said stung him, for he thumped the table and shouted that he going to Japan just to look into this Japanese pearl business and he was an expert in it. Everybody was shocked to know about Mr Know-All’s work. And for Mr Kelada this argument became more interesting because he could become a triumpher. But it didn’t happen so. At attempting to get Mr Know-All on the ground Mr Ramsay asked him to define the price of a pearl chain that Mrs Ramsay wore. Mr Kelada said that it was bought on Fifth Avenue for thirty thousand dollars. Ramsay smiled grimly and said that his wife bought that string at a department store the day before they left New York for eighteen dollars and suggested a deal the cost of which was a hundred dollars. Mr Kelada agreed to bet on it and asked Mrs Ramsay to give him her pearls to prove that they were real. Mrs Ramsay didn’t want to take off it and tried to deny doing it. But her husband insisted and he handed the chain to Mr Kelada. Looked at it through a magnifying glass and closely examined it he was ready to speak but he stopped suddenly caught sight of Mrs Ramsay’s face. The simile “It was so white that she looked as though she were about to faint”, the epithets “wide and terrified eyes” and the metaphor “They held a desperate appeal” emphasize that Mrs Ramsay kept something from her husband and was horrified that the truth could come out. Mr Kelada noticed it, made an effort over himself, said that he was mistaken and Mrs Ramsay’s chain was very good imitation, and handed a hundred dollar note to Mr Ramsay. Next morning when the narrator got up and began to shave he saw a letter pushed under the door. it was addressed to Max Kelada. He opened it and took of a hundred-dollar note. The narrator looked at Mr Know-All and asked if the pearls were real. Mr Kelada said if he had a pretty little wife he shouldn't let her spend a year in New York while he stayed at Kobe. At that moment the narrator did not entirely dislike Mr. Kelada. Here it is necessary to pay attention to the narrator’s phrase “ I did not entirely dislike Mr. Kelada”. He changed his opinion about Mr Know-All but he didn’t say “I like Mr Kelada”. He changed the attitude to Mr Know-All but he remained a snobbish Britishman with prejudice that’s why he couldn’t afford to say that he liked a person like Mr Kelada so he said “I did not dislike”. To my mind the main idea of the text that appearances are often deceptive is disclosed and proved through the behaviour of two characters: Mr Kelada and Mrs Ramsay. Mrs Ramsay considered to be a modest faithful wife but in reality she was untrue to her husband and tried to hide it. And when the truth practically came to light Mr Kelada behaved like a generous gentleman and didn’t tell Mt Ramsay that a pearl chain was a present of some rich man though he wasn’t a man who could his tongue. In my opinion the main message of the story is quite obvious: we shouldn’t reduce all to the same level. We shouldn’t refer to the stereotypes and prejudices. Sometimes we can make a mistake and accept a wolf in sheep’s clothing as your friend and a person who can’t say a “boo” to a goose as your enemy and the reason of it is that appearances are often deceptive.