The Verger
by
William Somerset Maugham
(Analysis)
William Somerset Maugham wrote ‘The Verger’.
He was qualified for the medical profession but gave up the idea of becoming a
doctor after the success of his first novel. He was a novelist, a short story writer
and a dramatist. His novels are semi-autobiographical in nature.
In
‘The Verger’, William Somerset Maugham ridicules one of modern men’s most
cherished institutions ‘education’.
Albert
Edward Foreman, the verger, has to leave his job from St. Peter’s Neville
Square owing to his illiteracy. After leaving his job, he starts his own
business as a tobacconist and a news agent. Within a short period of ten years,
he becomes the master of ten shops in London and has amassed an amount of
thirty thousand pounds. If he had learnt how to read and write he would have
been the verger of St. Peter’s Neville Square.
Albert
Edward Foreman has been working in the church for sixteen years. He loves his job very much. He keeps his new
gown as full and stiff as though it is made not of alpaca but of perennial
bronze. He wears it with complacence for it is the dignified symbol of his
office and without it he has the
disconcerting sensation of being somewhat
insufficiently clad. He takes pains with it. He presses it and irons it
himself. He never throws his old gown and the complete series is neatly wrapped
up in brown paper lying in the bottom drawer of the wardrobe in his bedroom.
All these words show that he loves his job and he does his work in the church
very well.
In
the words of the new vicar “……….and the general agree with me that you have
fulfilled the duties of your office to the satisfaction of everybody
concerned”. The new vicar is proud of his way of working. He feels proud
because he can quiet a whimpering infant by the manner in which he holds it. He
likes to be complimented on this talent. According to Foreman the new vicar is
the man who wants to have his finger in every pie. Foreman praises him but does
not like him. He has said from the beginning that they have made a mistake when
they gave him St. Paul’s and when the vicar asks him to learn or leave the job
his dislike for the vicar grows intense.
In
the story Maugham is trying to laugh at the ridiculous features of the English
social life. The contemporary English social life has been reflected in the
congregation of St. Peter’s. The congregation or in other words the English
people believed in pomp and show. They were aristocratic in every sphere of
life that’s why the new vicar asks the verger to get the knowledge of reading
and writing. The foreman does not accept the condition lay by the vicar and the
wardens because he considers it his humiliation and leaves his job. He starts
his own business and amasses a large fortune. The story poses a question before
its readers – Is education necessary for financial success and how education
helps a person?
education
does not mean ‘the knowledge of letters and words. Today the world is a place
of specialization and one needs to have the knowledge of one’s profession to
get the financial success. A man who can read and write but not in a condition
to do any of his work properly cannot be said an educated one. Meeting with
other people and behaving with them properly is an education itself.
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