The Razor’s Edge (Cyclopedia of Literary Places)
At a glance:
- Author: W. Somerset Maugham
- First Published: 1944
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Psychological realism
- Time of Work: Early twentieth century
- Genres: Long fiction, Philosophical realism
- Subjects: Values, Perception, Philosophy or philosophers, Twentieth century, Social issues, Paris, Chicago, Spiritual life or spirituality, Good and evil, Mysteries, India or East Indian people, Idealism
- Locales: Paris, France, Chicago, IL, Riviera, India
Places Discussed
*Chicago. Illinois’s largest city, which in the early twentieth century was one of the most prosperous of midwestern cities and a major center of the rapidly expanding industrial economy of the United States. In W. Somerset Maugham’s novel, Chicago symbolizes rising American materialism. By setting the novel’s opening scenes there, Maugham emphasizes the materialism that his young seeker, Lawrence Darrell, seeks to leave behind him. The narrator—Maugham himself—first meets Darrell at the Chicago home of Mrs. Bradley and her daughter Isabel, to whom...
[The entire page is 958 words long]
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