It was probably the sincerity of his personality that prevented him from being dull. Strickland was blind to everything but to some disturbing vision in his soul.(57-64) The creative instinct seized upon this dull broker and some deep-rooted instinct of creation took possession of his whole being. He had the directness of the fanatic and the ferocity of the apostle. Strickland was independent of the opinion of his fellows and convention had no hold of him, no one could get a grip on him and it gave him a freedom which was an outrage.
The only aim of Stickland's life was to create beauty. Not long before his terrible death of leprosy, far from his native land, on the remote island of Tahiti, Strickland realised his lifelong dream. The pictures on the walls of his dilapidated house were his masterpiece. In them Strickland had finally put the whole expression of himself. W. S. Maugham tries to be impartial to his characters. They are neither all good nor all bad: "There is not much to choose between men. They are all a hotchpotch of greatness and littleness, of virtue and vice, of nobility and baseness.".
The reader depicts Strickland as a human being as he is selfish, cruel, pitiless and cynical. But, on the other hand, the reader worships him as a talented artist, a creator of beauty. His passionate devotion to art arouses our admiration.
Strickland as a character.
Charles Strickland lived obscurely. He made enemies rather than friends. (23) There was much in his life which was strange and terrible, in his character something outrageous, and in his fate not a little that was pathetic. (24) It is obvious that there was much in the commonly received account of Strickland's life to embarrass a respectable family. (24) Mr Strickland has drawn the portrait of an excellent husband and father, a man of kindly temper, industrious habits and moral disposition. (24) For there are many who have been attracted to his art by the detestation in which they held his character or the compassion with which they regarded his death.
