Women’s Quest for Independence in Maugham’s The Painted Veil

Abstract

The research focuses on William Summerset Maugham’s novel The Painted Veil which revolves around its major character, Kitty and her journey towards the recognition of the self. She was ill bred; she was neither well educated nor economically independent. All she taught was to abide by the norms and values set forth by patriarchy. Her realization that she was neither financially sound nor socially supported by anyone makes her surrender and marry a man whom she was not at all in love with. She has adulterous relation with Charlie Townsend. As a punishment of adulterous relation, Walter, without second thought, intimidates and takes her to a cholera infested land to die. Walter does not forgive Kitty because he is in love with Kitty’s physical beauty nor her inner beauty. But she gathers the experience of living at different places with various walks of life. In the Mei-Tan-Fu she sees the sacrifice job of the nuns, miseries of the people and meaningless death. This makes her to see the world in different perspective. She does not confine herself into the house but wants to do something new and she engages in orphan house for volunteer service. She learns from her follies and she leads towards her awakening and becomes an independent woman in that epidemic land and is able to carve a niche on her own.