The Moon and Sixpence is produced after Maugham travelled to the Pacific and it is based on the life of Paul Gauguin。 Paul Gauguin is a French post-impressionist artist whose genius is not highly appreciated until after his death。 Gauguin initially engaged in stock brokerage and had a family of four children which is considered as the common life for most common people (张雪芹，2012)。 However, the harmony of family, the stability of career and the richness of wealth failed to prevent his innermost enthusiasm for art。 Finally he abandoned his family, left his home and returned back to Paris。 From then, Gauguin started his artistic pursuit。 The main character Charles Strickland in this novel shared all most the same life trace with Gauguin as a middle-aged English stock broker who abandons his wife and children abruptly to pursue his artistic desire（李冰，2013）。 However, different from Gauguin, the change happening on Strickland seemed more cruel and unexpected from an unremarkable man to a lunatic fringe in most people’s eyes。 The only message he left to his wife was just a few words “I will never come back。 My decision will never be changed。” (The Moon and Sixpence, 2006) Besides that, Strickland once lured Blanche, the wife of Stroeve who admired Strickland’s artistic genius and has helped him recover from a life-threatening condition。 Later, Strickland discarded Blanche for all he really sought from her was just a model to paint, not a lover companionship, which caused Blanche’s suicide。 Among these descriptions about Strickland, it seems that he has abandoned all common sense, morality and social contacts, and devoted his body and soul to the pure art painting。 Just like the narrator “I” in the novel, the reader as me show the scorn and disdain towards Strickland’s personality and behavior, however, in the meantime, is deeply absorbed by his sole dream for art。 Meanwhile, the novel is written in the first person perspective and the whole story of the Character Strickland’s life is recorded from what “I”—the narrator has witnessed, has heard。 Therefore, the narrative technique of this novel has also attracted many critics’ interests in their research。 A novel can be regarded as a particular way of “talk” between the readers and the author (Nakai M, 2003), and this novel was written in the perspective of a narrator “I”。 As a witness, “I” has tried to record Strickland’s life experiences in an objective way。 But in the meantime, “I” was involved in the whole story and inevitably。 They focus on the narrative technique of this novel(于雯, 2010), revealing the relationship between the narrator and the author, in order to show Maugham’s emotion and attitudes towards the main character Maugham。 In general, most of these articles tended to reveal the theme and character through its archetype, the narrative content itself of this novel (Burt F D, 1985)。文献综述

As for the title of this novel, Strickland has separated his “moon” – the art from “sixpence” -- reality clearly。 And just from this title, it infers the meaningful hints in the theme of the novel and the characters of Strickland。 According to previous studies by Anthony Curtis and John Whitehead (1987), the meaning of the moon and sixpence is not explicitly revealed in the book, instead, is taken from a review of Of Human Bondage in which the novel’s protagonist, Phillip Carey, described “so busy yearning for the moon that he never saw the sixpence at his feet。” And a letter in 1956 from Maugham had such sentence “If you look on the ground in search of a sixpence, you don’t look up, and so miss the moon。”

The Moon and Sixpence has taken famous artist Paul Gauguin as the archetype of his main character, so it has attracted many critics and researchers to study this work。 The whole novel centers on the major character Strickland。 According to my process of information searching and collecting, many scholars are keen in comparing the image of Strickland and of Gauguin。 The differences and similarities between Paul Gauguin and the character are the focus and the novel elaborates the influence of painting skill on literary work (郭晓林, 2013) 。 And the author has given the refined descriptions and portrayals of all characters from their physical description, facial expression to the dressing, which is just like a portray-painting。 The painting skill on literary work gives the vivid first impression of characters。