Not Your Disney Flotsam and Jetsam (A Repost)

More Maugham reviews are forthcoming

As I get into my fall semester, I have realized that I need to read my primary sources. So I have decided to use my newsletter to write about them and give some impressions. I cannot be as dry as Maugham, nor can I be as dispassionate. My thesis is going to focus on three short stories by W. Somerset Maugham that are set in Malaysia, which in Maugham’s time was called Malaya, and Borneo.

The Plot 

The first short story I will be looking at is “Flotsam and Jetsam”, a short story set in Borneo. It was published in 1947 and anthologized along with Penguin Classics Volume 2 in 1963, which I will be citing from. Norman Granger and his wife live in a failing rubber plantation: Mr. Grange is a rubber planter while his wife is taking care of the house: “Mrs. Grange reached. That changes when a man on the verge of dying from malaria named Skelton is dropped off at their estate. After some very nice dialogue between them regarding Skelton:

‘“Who is he?’

‘How the hell should I know? They’re just bringing him up’...’Shut up and do as I tell you’” (Maugham, 65) 

Mr. Grange grabs Skelton’s luggage and has the locals put him in the guest bedroom. 

Skelton wakes up and asks his servant Kong where he is and what is happening to him. Kong tells him that he is in the Grange’s house and that he’d like to meet the guy who basically saved him from becoming another casualty. While he looks uncomfortable with strangers, Skelton notices something ill at ease in his face, his “hard, shifty little eyes were disconcerting…” (Maugham, 68). After this unsettling encounter, he meets Mrs. Grange, who seems like a nicer person than her husband. But she is just as unsettling as her husband, as “the strangest thing about her was a tic she had that made her jerk her head as though she was beckoning you to an inner room” (Maugham, 68). Skelton tries throughout his stay to come to that proverbial inner room, from asking her to talk because he has not seen a White man in two years (he’s been studying indigenous peoples that have no contact with “civilization”) to asking if she wants to get back to England. While she divulges quite explicitly her previous career as a second rate actress and the fact that she hates Norman’s familial ties to Borneo (his father is in the imperial service), Skelton cannot have as much of an in-depth conversation as he would like. 

That is because every time Mrs. Grange comes to some sort of revelation about her personal relations (read: perceptions by Skelton as a loose woman and her time as an actress before she met him). Within these conversations is a reference to ‘'a damned funny business’' that scares the heck out of Skelton (he is not Ashenden or Maugham, so I can see why he doesn’t want to hear this). After referring to this, she either leaves or speedruns to somewhere where she thinks her husband won’t find her. But he does. 

In the midst of asking Skelton to dine with him at brunch, his eyes give his guest an understanding ‘that in the searching look ... .there was mistrust and animosity.’” (Maugham 79). He has suspected that his wife has referred to an incident that should not ever be brought up for some legal or criminal reason, so he tells Skelton that he will be leaving the next morning. After going through the formalities of the guest giving his host a gift, Skeleton leaves, thankful that he did not have to learn about whatever happened between the two to leave Mrs. Grange so unhinged.

Unfortunately, dear reader, you (and I) are not Skelton. This is most definitely fortunate, as we haven’t gotten sick from malaria and had to deal with proto- “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” couples. But every writer, and this includes Maugham, has to not try and manufacture plot holes. 

So we learn that after the first year of living with Norman, and realizing that the different environment and the allure of marrying an actress (and keeping up that same passion) wore on her. In an argument, she discovers that he hates England, where she wants to go back to. After the second year, they got a more successful rubber plantation owner-operator Jack Carr. He seems more of Mrs. Grange’s speed, having been educated in being a gentleman (Maugham, 84), so of course they have an affair. And because in short stories with some sort of romantic affair like this, she gets pregnant, Jack leaves on business, and then they paddle to the pathway and meet. They kiss and then she feels Jack fall over (spoiler alert: he gets shot and dies). Norman straight up admits to killing him and then tells his wife to ‘“shut up.’” (Maugham, 85) and immediately says it’s an accident. She has a miscarriage and then gets the nervous tic. The talk and rumors among the locals leads to an investigation by the British authorities. The fear that the indigenous people for the British outweighs the desire to give evidence. A few key witnesses even leave. Because of this the official has to accept Mr. Grange’s version of events, even though ‘“It all looks damned fishy to me…’” (Maugham, 85). Because of her disability, she has had to stay with him for the rest of her life. At the end, having told her story (albeit indirectly), she notices Mr. Grange is back, paints her makeup “like a red nosed comedian in a music-hall” (Maugham, 86) and states “‘To hell with life!’” (Maugham, 86).

Points to Discuss

Ah yes, marital drama. Not like Maugham ever experienced that in his life (waves a Tiger beer like Gerald Haxton). But beneath the cliched “trouble in paradise” theme is a deeper one, one that deals with authority. The only other White person that the Grangers see is the District Officer, a colonial official who previously investigated the affair with Jack. In fact, the District Officer’s investigation led to many people who witnessed the incident leaving/disappearing as they are scared of retaliation from Mr. Grange for speaking against him–although he is a poor planter, he does have influence with the District Officer due to his family history–. At the same time that the District Officer’s presence leads to justice not happening, Mr. Grange’s reaction to the affair between Jack and Mrs. Grange is a similar form of oppression to the one the District Officer does with the subjects. It is no coincidence that he has been raised in a family with a history of joining the colonial authority, as he would know how to make people obey his orders. Just to add to his positionality, he also works on a rubber plantation (albeit a failing one). 

The abuse, whether implied or apparent, of indigenous people continues indirectly with the narrator using various slurs to refer to Asian workers and Chinese people (also, he has one Chinese character speaking in a horrible accent). Pretty typical for a British guy who is used to minorities in subservient positions. But it is still shocking from a guy who, despite his misogyny, has some systemic critiques of narrowminded societies that cannot allow for justice in incidents like the one between Jack and Mr. Grange. In conclusion, I am shocked but not surprised. Quite frankly, this short story allows for me to admire his critiques of authority while also critiquing his handling of non-White characters. I think it is no shock that Skelton is an anthropologist, which also has its own history of complicity in colonialism (see the recent Washington Post article on the Smithsonian brains as a prescient example).

To further these points, and to give a quick speedrun of some of my sources, I am also intend to read a book on the sadistic side of colonialism, with some features on Maugham’s contemporaries, Kipling and Conrad. And yes, I will be reading Said’s Culture and Imperialism and (because I think I like to be a bit of an academic weapon) I am also discussing a dissertation that my dad sent me last year that discusses Maugham’s sexuality and imperialism. I will be searching for discussions on anthropology and imperialism, which, after doing a search on JStor and finding over 2,000 articles that mention the two subjects will not be hard to find (Update: I actually found a journal that mentions the two subjects)