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The Casuarina Tree
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The Casuarina Tree is a collection of short stories by W. Somerset Maugham, set in the Federated Malay States during the 1920s. It was first published by the UK publishing house Heinemann on 2 September 1926. The first American edition was published on 17 September 1926 by George H. Doran. It was re-published by Collins in London under the title The Letter: Stories of Crime.[1] The book was published in French translation as Le Sortilège Malais (1928) and in Spanish as Extremo Oriente (1945).[2]
Key Information
The stories are loosely based on Maugham's experiences traveling with his companion Gerald Haxton in the region for six months in 1921 and four months in 1925.[3] He published a second set of short stories based on these travels, Ah King, in 1933.
Maugham was considered persona non grata among the expatriate British community in the Federated Malay States following the publication of The Casuarina Tree, as he was felt to have betrayed confidences and to have painted the community in an unflattering light through his focus on scandal.[4]
Explanation of the title
[edit]The Casuarina tree of the title is native to Australasia and Southeast Asia, often used to stabilise soils.[5] In Maugham's foreword, he writes that the title was a metaphor for "the English people who live in the Malay Peninsula and in Borneo because they came along after the adventurous pioneers who opened the country to Western civilisation." He likens the pioneers to mangroves reclaiming a swamp, and the expatriates to Casuarinas, who came later and served there. He then learned that his idea was incorrect botanically but decided it would suggest the planters and administrators who for him, were in their turn the organisers and "protectors" of society.[6]
Contents
[edit]The stories—
- Before the Party
- P. & O.
- The Outstation
- The Force of Circumstance
- The Yellow Streak
- The Letter
Maugham wrote the introduction, "The Casuarina Tree" and postscript, himself.
Major themes
[edit]The major themes are class division, racial difference, adultery, personal competitiveness, and human nature in reaction to fate.
The strong thread running through the stories is alienation and contrast – between people and cultures. For most of the characters, after a crisis in their circumstances, life seems to take up where it left off and closes over the revelations that brought on the drama.
People who are regarded as sane and level-headed, reliable and "well brought-up" show their unexpected real character in a crisis, their inner workings become exposed in reaction to surprise events. The exceptional circumstances are about being away from the England of law and order, in a wild, unfathomable foreign country where they may be misled, misunderstood, faced with life-or-death decisions, physically and mentally at risk, or beyond the scrutiny of their peers.
Story plots
[edit]Before the Party
[edit]The upper-class Skinner family is preparing to attend a party. Among them is silent older daughter Millicent, mother of a young child and widowed when her husband, a colonial administrator, died of fever eight months earlier while they were living in Borneo; she and her child have returned home to England to live with her parents and sister. During this era, the early twentieth century, when propriety dictated a strict period of mourning, it is one of Millicent's first social appearances since her husband's death.
While the Skinners are gathering to leave, after one question too many from her younger sister, who's heard a rumour that her brother-in-law was a drinker and didn't die of fever after all, Millicent tells the true story of her husband's death. Explaining her discovery that he was an incorrigible drunk with a well-known reputation within the colony, and that he had married Millicent while on home leave largely because he'd been warned he'd be sacked if he didn't find himself a wife who could keep him in line, she describes her dogged attempts to reform him—and to preserve her marriage. (Both Skinner sisters had grown old enough to be considered spinsters, and Millicent in particular had been anxious to marry; she had not imagined herself in love with her husband, but it is a blow to discover just how far from in love with her he had been.)
After having been impressively sober for some months and an attentive husband and father—just when he'd given Millicent reason to believe she had triumphed—he relapses badly, and the discovery is so stark and so bitter that she stabs him to death with the ornamental native sword hanging above the bed where she found him drunk. It was easy to conceal the true cause of death from the local council, and by now the jungle has reclaimed the body in its entirety, so there's no danger whatsoever that her crime will be discovered, Millicent tells her family in conclusion.
Her proper parents and sibling are aghast; her father, a lawyer, considers his duty; but the overall impression is that her family is stunned by the impropriety of Millicent's deed. It simply was shockingly bad form.
The short story was dramatized in 1949 by Rodney Ackland.[7]
P. & O.
[edit]Two people are returning home to the British Isles from the Federated Malay States: a woman who's leaving her husband after many years of marriage, and a middle-aged man heading back to Ireland and retirement after 25 years as a planter. Mrs Hamlyn is forty and has left her husband not strictly because he betrayed her—it is not her husband's first dalliance—but because this time her husband really cares for the woman, and has refused to give up his mistress.
Things aboard ship are merry, as the various passengers plan a Christmas party, until the planter, Mr. Gallagher, develops incurable hiccups. His assistant, Mr. Pryce, becomes exasperated with the doctor's ineffectiveness, confiding to Mrs Hamlyn that the native woman Gallagher left behind put a spell on him: he will die, she swore, before reaching land. Despite a witch doctor's efforts to beat the curse, Gallagher does die at sea, and through his death Mrs Hamlyn becomes aware of the importance of living. She writes a letter of forgiveness to her husband.
The Outstation
[edit]A story of brinksmanship follows two incompatible rivals, the precisely disciplined Resident officer, Mr Warburton, and his newly arrived, uncouth assistant, Mr Cooper. In a battle of class differences, the feisty Cooper, despite his competence in his job, manages to repel his more refined boss and to make enemies of the native helpers. Each man is extremely lonely for the company of another white, but their mutual dislike is such that each wishes the other dead.
The Force of Circumstance
[edit]Guy meets and marries Doris in England while on leave from Malaya; she returns there with him much in love and ready to make a home for him in the same house where he's been the resident officer for ten years.
When a native woman lurks about the compound with her small children and makes an ever-growing nuisance of herself, Guy at last reveals the woman's connection to him, one he had believed Doris need never discover, since residents usually were not sent back to their old posts after returning from home leave. Such domestic arrangements as he had with the native woman are common and expected among unmarried white men in the colony, he assures Doris, and the native women expect the arrangements to end as casually as they begin; there was no love between them, nor any expectation of any; and the woman was paid well to go away and is unusual in her refusal to be gone.
Despite loving Guy and knowing he loves her, despite her appreciation of his loneliness so far from home without white companions, Doris is repelled by the discovery that he lived with a native woman and fathered her children.
The Yellow Streak
[edit]"The Yellow Streak" is an internal story of class snobbery, racism and frail human nature in the face of death. Izzart is an insecure snob with a secret who is put in charge of the safety of Campion, a mining engineer hired by the Sultan of fictional Sembulu to discover mineral possibilities in Borneo. Drink, vanity, carelessness and self-doubt bring Izzart to cracking point when an incident with a tidal wave on the river means it's every (white) man for himself. Not only his weakness, but his inner torment is clear to the more experienced Campion.
In 2020 the Chief Minister of Sarawak suggested that this story be made the basis of tourism promotion in Sri Aman which is well known for the tidal bore featured in the story.[8]
The Letter
[edit]A Singapore-based lawyer, Joyce, is called on to defend Leslie Crosbie, a planter's wife who is arrested after shooting Geoffrey Hammond, a neighbor, in her home in Malaya while her husband is away on business. Her initial claim to have acted in self-defense to prevent Hammond from raping her falls under suspicion after Ong Chi Seng, a junior clerk in Joyce's law office, comes to Joyce with the information that a letter is in existence showing that Hammond had come to Leslie Crosbie's house that night at her invitation.
It emerges that the letter is in the possession of Hammond's Chinese mistress. Using Ong Chi Seng as a go-between, she blackmails the husband, Robert Crosbie, into purchasing the letter at an exorbitant price. Having paid dearly to save his wife from a possible death sentence for murder or at least a period of some years in prison for manslaughter, Robert Crosbie reads the letter and is confronted with the fact of his wife's infidelity – it turns out that she and Hammond had been lovers for years and that she had shot him not to prevent rape, but in a jealous rage when Hammond rejected her and declared his love for his Chinese mistress.
The story is based on the real case of Mrs. Ethel Mabel Proudlock, who shot the manager of a tin mine, William Crozier Steward, on the veranda of her house in Kuala Lumpur in 1911.[9]
This short story was later adapted for the stage by Maugham as The Letter (1927).
Postscript
[edit]In the postscript Maugham explains choosing imaginary names for anywhere outside of Singapore because he based a lot of his material on personal experiences though the characters are composites.[10] In his disclaimer he recounts that while the people are imaginary, an incident in "The Yellow Streak" was "based on a misadventure" of his own.[11]
Notes
[edit]- ^ Rogal, Samuel (1997). A William Somerset Maugham Encyclopedia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. p. 18.
- ^ Stott, Raymond Toole Stott (1950). Maughamiana. London: Heinemann. p. 15. ISBN 0-313-29916-1.
{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help) - ^ Morgan, Ted. Somerset Maugham. London: Jonathan Cape. p. 253. ISBN 0224018132.
- ^ Morgan, Ted. Somerset Maugham. London: Jonathan Cape. p. 251-2. ISBN 0224018132.
- ^ Casuarina Uses Archived 1 February 2008 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ The Casuarina Tree, W. Somerset Maugham, Heinemann (1966), Introduction p viii
- ^ "Before the Party for Adelaide's Independent Theatre". Stage Whispers. April 2017. Retrieved 9 January 2023.
- ^ Borneo Post Jan 20, 2020
- ^ Morgan, Ted. Somerset Maugham. London: Jonathan Cape. p. 253. ISBN 0224018132.
- ^ The Casuarina Tree, p. 231
- ^ The Casuarina Tree, p. 232
External links
[edit]- Full text of The Casuarina Tree at the Internet Archive
The Casuarina Tree
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Background and Inspiration
Maugham's Experiences in the Malay Archipelago
In 1921, W. Somerset Maugham traveled to British Malaya, spending approximately five months in the Federated Malay States, which encompassed the protectorates of Perak, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, and Pahang.[8] [3] Accompanied by his secretary and companion Gerald Haxton, Maugham arrived via Singapore, the bustling entrepôt serving as the administrative hub for the Straits Settlements and gateway to the peninsula's interior.[9] From there, he ventured northward and inland to inspect rubber plantations—vast estates tapping Hevea brasiliensis trees introduced from Brazil in the early 1900s—and remote outstations where district officers enforced British rule over Malay sultans and local populations.[10] [11] Maugham's itinerary involved direct engagements with British colonial personnel, including civil servants in provincial bungalows, estate managers overseeing hundreds of Tamil and Chinese laborers, and transient expatriates in clubhouses stocked with gin slings and billiard tables.[12] These encounters yielded unvarnished accounts of daily operations: the predawn patrols to prevent theft on plantations yielding 1,000 to 2,000 pounds of latex daily per estate, the enforcement of sanitary regulations amid malaria outbreaks, and the logistical strains of monsoon-disrupted supply lines from Singapore.[13] Planters confided in him about the unremitting labor of estate maintenance, where yields fluctuated with volatile global rubber prices—peaking at 3 shillings per pound in 1910 but crashing post-World War I—compelling cost-cutting measures like reduced overseer rations.[14] The equatorial climate, with temperatures averaging 80–90°F (27–32°C) and humidity exceeding 80%, imposed tangible hardships that Maugham documented through on-site notations: pervasive sweat-soaked clothing, fevers from mosquito-borne pathogens despite quinine prophylaxis, and the enervating lethargy that hindered productivity, as workers and overseers alike sought shade under attap-roofed verandas.[3] Isolation amplified these effects, with outstations separated by days of travel via pony or launch along silted rivers, limiting social outlets to fortnightly mails carrying news from England delayed by weeks.[12] A return trip in 1925, extending four additional months, permitted revisits to similar locales, consolidating these causal observations of environmental and logistical pressures on European settlers' routines.[9]Sources and Autobiographical Basis
Maugham's experiences as a British intelligence officer in the Federated Malay States and surrounding regions during World War I, where he gathered information on German activities among expatriate communities, provided direct exposure to the stresses of colonial life that underpin the collection's narratives. During these travels, extending into the 1920s, he observed patterns of human frailty among British planters, administrators, and their families, including adulterous relationships and interpersonal conflicts exacerbated by isolation, which he translated into fictional scenarios without embellishing for moral effect.[9] These elements stemmed from verifiable encounters and local gossip, such as scandals involving unfaithful spouses or inept officials, reflecting causal breakdowns in character under environmental pressures rather than invented drama.[15] His medical training at St Thomas's Hospital in London, completed in 1897, equipped Maugham with an empirical lens for dissecting behavioral motivations, akin to clinical diagnosis, allowing him to depict flaws like resentment or evasion as predictable outcomes of unchecked personal weaknesses observed across multiple cases. This approach, informed by his intelligence work's demands for discerning reliability under duress, emphasized realistic causation over sentiment, drawing from aggregated real-life instances of expatriate dysfunction rather than isolated biographies.[12] While rooted in autobiography, the stories avoid one-to-one correspondences, instead amplifying recurrent empirical patterns—such as the self-destructive isolation of outstation officials or the corrosive effects of tropical ennui on relationships—to generalize from observed truths without fabricating resolutions.[9] Maugham explicitly noted in contemporaneous accounts that such tales derived from "facts" he had "witnessed or heard," prioritizing unvarnished reporting of human conduct over narrative contrivance.[1]Publication History
Original Release and Context
was first published in 1926 by William Heinemann in London, with a first printing limited to 5,000 copies.[16] The collection comprised six short stories drawn from the author's experiences in the Federated Malay States, prefaced by an introduction explaining the titular metaphor.[17] In the United States, George H. Doran Company issued an edition the same year.[18] This release followed Maugham's earlier short story volume The Trembling of a Leaf (1921), building on his established reputation for narratives depicting British colonial life with detached realism.[19] The book's appearance in 1926 occurred during the interwar period, a time of widespread disillusionment in Britain after the Great War's immense losses, which eroded faith in pre-1914 imperial optimism.[1] Amid emerging anti-colonial movements and scrutiny of empire's sustainability, Maugham's stories portrayed the personal failings and isolation of colonial administrators without endorsing ideological critiques or romantic idealization, appealing to audiences interested in unvarnished accounts of distant outposts.[20] Contemporary reviews, such as one in The New York Times on October 17, 1926, noted its focus on expatriate dynamics "east of Singapore," reflecting the era's fascination with exotic yet flawed imperial settings.[1]Subsequent Editions and Adaptations
Following its initial publication in 1926 by William Heinemann, The Casuarina Tree saw reissues in collected formats, including pairing with The Narrow Corner in the Heron Books edition of Maugham's works during the mid-20th century.[21] A continental edition appeared through Tauchnitz in 1928 as part of their Collection of British and American Authors.[22] These and subsequent reprints, such as those by Start Classics in the 2020s, preserved the original text with no substantive alterations beyond formatting or binding updates.[19] Modern paperback editions continue availability through print-on-demand services, including leather-bound reprints by Gyan Books in 2023, which reproduce the 1926 content in black-and-white format for archival purposes.[23] No evidence exists of authorized textual revisions across these versions, reflecting Maugham's practice of minimal emendation for his short story collections post-initial release. Among adaptations, the story "The Letter" was dramatized by Maugham himself into a three-act play of the same name, premiering in 1927 and staging in London and on Broadway.[24] This led to cinematic versions, including a 1929 early talkie directed by Herbert Brenon and a 1940 remake starring Bette Davis under William Wyler, both retaining core elements of infidelity, murder, and colonial intrigue from the original narrative.[25] [26] No major screen or stage adaptations of the full collection or other individual stories, such as "The Outstation" or "P. & O.," have been documented, though isolated radio broadcasts of select tales occurred via BBC in the mid-20th century, adhering closely to the ironic tone of expatriate disillusionment.[27]Title and Preface
Symbolism of the Casuarina Tree
The Casuarina tree (Casuarina equisetifolia), native to Southeast Asia including the Malay Peninsula, features slender, drooping branchlets resembling pine needles, with reduced scalelike leaves arranged in whorls, giving it a feathery, wispy appearance suited to coastal and harsh tropical conditions.[28] These trees thrive in sandy, nutrient-poor soils by fixing atmospheric nitrogen through symbiotic root nodules, demonstrating ecological adaptability that enables survival in environments inhospitable to many other species.[29] In local Malay traditions referenced by Maugham, the Casuarina carries associations with the supernatural, including legends of mystery and prophecy, as well as beliefs that its branches, if carried onto boats, invoke dangerous storms—an intermediary role between the natural and uncanny worlds.[5] Such folklore underscores the tree's perceived otherworldliness despite its commonplace presence in the tropical landscape.[30] Maugham, in his 1926 introduction, explicitly likens the Casuarina to British expatriates in Malaya, portraying it as "grey, rugged and sad, a little out of place in the wanton tropics," emblematic of their transplanted resilience amid cultural and environmental alienation.[31] This metaphor highlights the planters' endurance in the region's demanding climate and isolation, akin to the tree's ability to persist without deep rooting in native soil, yet emphasizes an inherent transience and disconnection from their European origins, reflecting observed psychological strains without implying permanence or harmony.[5] The parallel draws on empirical realities of colonial life, where expatriates maintained operations in rubber estates and outstations but often grappled with rootlessness, as evidenced by high turnover rates among British administrators and planters in the Federated Malay States during the 1920s.[31]Content of the Author's Introduction
Maugham declares in the introduction that the stories comprising The Casuarina Tree are founded on actual incidents he witnessed or learned of during his 1921–1922 travels through the Federated Malay States, though he acknowledges exercising the storyteller's license to invent details, alter sequences, and composite characters for dramatic coherence.[32] He explicitly disavows any aim to romanticize or boost imperial exploits, countering the era's tendency toward idealized portrayals of British administrators and planters by focusing on factual observations of human conduct stripped of veneer.[1] The remote setting of Malaya, with its scattered outstations far from urban centers and familial oversight, serves as a crucible that intensifies innate traits, rendering observable the otherwise latent weaknesses like moral cowardice, marital infidelity, and petty resentments among expatriates otherwise unremarkable in England.[3] Maugham notes that such isolation—geographic and social—functions causally to provoke these revelations, as the lack of external checks allows underlying dispositions to manifest without mitigation.[33] Stylistically, Maugham adopts an impartial, ironic detachment in recounting events, eschewing didactic commentary to permit the inexorable logic of circumstances and temperament to unfold, thereby illuminating character without authorial intrusion or prescriptive ethics.[32] This approach prioritizes evidentiary presentation over judgment, enabling readers to discern the deterministic interplay of environment and personality in shaping outcomes.[34]Story Summaries
Before the Party
"Before the Party" is a short story by W. Somerset Maugham, first published in the December 1922 issue of Nash's Magazine and later included in the 1926 collection The Casuarina Tree.[35] Set in an upper-middle-class English family home in London, the narrative unfolds over a single afternoon as the Skinner family prepares for a garden party attended by notable figures, including the Bishop of Southwark.[36] The family comprises the socially ambitious Mrs. Skinner; her mild-mannered husband, a solicitor; their elder daughter Millicent, a recent widow who has returned from Borneo with her young daughter Joan; and the younger daughter Kathleen, an unmarried woman noted for her plain appearance and sharp observations.[37] The plot hinges on the family's efforts to maintain decorum amid preparations, with Mrs. Skinner fretting over attire and etiquette to uphold their status. Tensions surface when Kathleen discloses private knowledge about Millicent's late husband, Harold, contradicting Millicent's public account that he succumbed to fever in the tropics.[38] Millicent recounts her marriage in Borneo, detailing Harold's chronic alcoholism, her initial optimism for reform, the birth of Joan, and repeated relapses that strained their colonial life.[37] This revelation unveils hidden grief, resentment, and hypocrisy within the family, contrasting their rigid adherence to social rituals—such as precise dress and punctuality—with the raw personal tragedies rooted in expatriate experiences. The story concludes as the hired car arrives, compelling the family to compose themselves and proceed to the event, prioritizing outward civility over internal turmoil.[39]P. & O.
In "P. & O.", the narrative centers on Mrs. Hamlyn, a middle-aged Englishwoman traveling aboard a Peninsular and Oriental (P&O) steamer from Singapore to England, intending to seek a divorce from her husband due to a failed infatuation in the East.[1] On board, she encounters Mr. Gallagher, a robust Irish planter who, after 25 years in the Federated Malay States, has abandoned his long-term Malay concubine of over a decade, leaving her with financial provisions but no emotional farewell.[8] The two passengers, isolated by the sea voyage's confines, develop a fleeting shipboard flirtation, with Gallagher sharing details of his detached colonial life and plans to marry an Irish woman upon returning to County Galway.[33] As the ship progresses, Gallagher suddenly succumbs to violent, incurable hiccups shortly after departing Singapore, prompting speculation among passengers—narrated through Mr. Pryce, Gallagher's former machinery manager—that it stems from a voodoo-like curse invoked by the spurned concubine.[8] Despite a makeshift ritual organized by Pryce to counteract the supposed hex, including symbolic gestures mimicking local superstitions, Gallagher's condition worsens; the vessel diverts to Aden for medical intervention, heightening onboard anxiety and class-divided tensions among first-class travelers wary of colonial "native" influences encroaching on their rational worldview.[33] He dies en route and is buried at sea, an event that starkly underscores the voyage's maritime isolation, where transient encounters amplify delusions of renewal amid the empire's undercurrents of emotional detachment.[8] Witnessing Gallagher's rapid decline and demise catalyzes Mrs. Hamlyn's ironic self-revelation: the fragility of human attachments in expatriate existence prompts her to abandon divorce plans, opting instead to reconcile with her husband upon arrival in England, emerging with a renewed, if sobered, perspective on her own romantic illusions.[1] The story integrates realistic depictions of P&O passenger dynamics—drawn from Maugham's observations—with psychological exposure, as the supernatural-tinged death unmasks underlying vulnerabilities without resolving into overt moral judgment.[8]The Outstation
"The Outstation" depicts the intensifying antagonism between two British colonial officials stationed at a remote outpost in British North Borneo during the early 20th century. The Resident, Mr. Warburton, a once-prosperous Englishman ruined by gambling who entered colonial service for financial stability, upholds rigid social formalities such as dressing for dinner and maintaining a manicured garden despite the jungle surroundings. His newly arrived assistant, Allen Cooper, an Australian of modest origins lacking university education or refined manners, immediately chafes under Warburton's perceived airs of superiority, fostering mutual disdain rooted in class disparities.[40][41] Tensions mount through petty disputes, including Cooper's habit of reading Warburton's delayed English newspapers in random order rather than chronologically, his shabby attire, and his brutal treatment of native servants, which Warburton views as unbecoming of a gentleman administrator. Cooper's heavy drinking exacerbates his resentment, leading him to publicly label Warburton a snob and encroach on the Resident's bungalow uninvited. Warburton, unable to secure Cooper's transfer through official channels, confronts him physically during a quarrel, striking the younger man after Cooper mocks colonial hierarchies. The isolation of the outstation, with no other Europeans present, amplifies these frictions, eroding any pretense of collegial duty.[40][41] Cooper's unchecked envy and defiance culminate in tragedy when his abusive conduct toward the Malay houseboy Abas—entailing withheld wages, beatings, and threats—provokes Abas to stab him to death one night. Warburton subsequently employs Abas as his own servant after a brief imprisonment, restoring order to the station but underscoring how personal snobberies and retaliatory pettiness, unchecked in frontier solitude, compromise administrative efficacy and invite violent reprisal from subordinates.[40][41]The Force of Circumstance
"The Force of Circumstance" is set in the remote district station of Sembulu in the Malay Peninsula during the British colonial era, where the oppressive tropical heat, monotonous routine, and encroaching jungle underscore the story's themes of environmental determinism and personal transformation.[42] The protagonist, Guy, a 29-year-old British district officer, has spent nearly a decade in Malaya, adapting deeply to local customs and forming a long-term relationship with a native woman that produced two half-caste children.[42] During a furlough in England in 1923, Guy meets and rapidly marries Doris, a 22-year-old typist from Kent, concealing his past to preserve the illusion of a fresh start; he dismisses his former partner and children before Doris's arrival but fails to fully sever ties.[42] Upon Doris's arrival by steamer in Sembulu after a four-month separation from Guy, she initially experiences enchantment with the exotic landscape—the broad river, lush foliage, and distant mountains—but this fades into disillusionment amid the isolation, stifling climate, and lack of European society.[42] Over the ensuing months, Doris's vitality wanes; she grows peevish and indifferent, her English sensibilities clashing with the exigencies of colonial life, where social visits are rare and entertainment limited to occasional bridge games or trips to the club.[42] The turning point occurs when Doris encounters Guy's former Malay consort and their children loitering near the bungalow, prompting Guy to confess the relationship as a pragmatic necessity for white men in the tropics to maintain sanity and avoid graver moral lapses, such as fleeting encounters with unwilling natives.[42] He argues that the "force of circumstance"—the inexorable pressures of solitude and environment—compelled such arrangements, a pattern observed in numerous expatriate cases leading to marital dissolution upon return from leave.[42] Doris, repulsed by the half-caste offspring and the revelation's intrusion into her idealized union, confronts the irreversible alterations wrought by Malaya's influence on both her husband and herself.[42] Despite Guy's assurances of his genuine affection and the past's irrelevance, Doris insists on departure, packing her belongings—including the chintz covers and modern furniture symbolizing her imported domesticity—and sailing back to England, leaving Guy to revert to sarong and slippers in resigned adaptation.[42] The narrative highlights the irony of Guy's attempt to impose control over fate through secrecy, only for circumstance to expose the futility, as the tropical milieu erodes pretensions of moral autonomy and enforces pragmatic concessions among Europeans.[42] First published in February 1924 in The Cosmopolitan magazine, the story exemplifies Maugham's observation of real colonial dynamics, drawn from his own 1921 travels in the region.[42]The Yellow Streak
"The Yellow Streak" centers on Captain Izzart, a British colonial administrator of aristocratic descent, tasked with escorting David Campion, a mining engineer, down a Borneo river to inspect a remote site. Their prahu, manned by native Dyak crew, encounters a sudden tidal bore—a powerful upstream surge—causing the vessel to capsize violently.[43][44] Campion is thrown into the churning waters and clings desperately to an overhanging tree, while Izzart, gripped by panic, flounders ineffectually and fails to mount a rescue, leaving the Dyaks to haul Campion to safety.[30][45] In the aftermath, as the group reaches a settlement, Izzart attempts to fabricate a narrative of composure, boasting of his family's storied bravery, including tales of ancestral heroism in battle. Campion, however, confronts him privately, revealing knowledge of Izzart's father—a decorated officer whose own cowardice during a Zulu uprising in 1879 was hushed up through influence and led to his suicide. This inherited "yellow streak," Campion asserts, manifests not as overt fear but as a paralyzing hesitation under existential threat, undermining Izzart's self-image as a nerve-tested imperial servant.[46][47] The narrative draws from Maugham's personal ordeal in Sarawak in October 1921, when a similar tidal bore overturned his boat during a journey with companion Gerald Haxton, though Maugham himself displayed resolve by clinging to the craft amid the chaos.[10] This real event underscores the story's exploration of psychological determinism, positing that character flaws like cowardice may stem from genetic predisposition rather than mere situational pressure, as evidenced by the parallel paternal history. Izzart's snobbery and rationalizations serve to heighten the irony, portraying a man whose vaunted lineage crumbles under scrutiny, blending adventure thriller elements with introspective fatalism.[48][3]The Letter
In W. Somerset Maugham's short story "The Letter," published in the 1926 collection The Casuarina Tree, the narrative unfolds in the British colonial setting of Malaya, focusing on the Crosbie family—a rubber plantation manager named Robert Crosbie, his wife Leslie, and their household.[49] The plot begins when Leslie fatally shoots Geoffrey Hammond, a neighboring British planter, at their home during Robert's absence on a business trip to Singapore.[49] Leslie insists the incident was self-defense, claiming Hammond arrived uninvited to borrow a book and attempted to assault her, forcing her to grab Robert's revolver and fire six shots.[49] The British expatriate community in the region rallies in support of Leslie, viewing the killing as a defense of colonial honor against an aggressor.[49] Household servants provide sworn testimony corroborating her account of an attempted rape, despite inconsistencies, and Robert stands loyally by her side throughout the preliminary inquiry.[49] The case proceeds to trial in Singapore, where Leslie is defended by the experienced lawyer Mr. Joyce, who anticipates an acquittal due to the sympathetic witnesses and the community's aversion to scandal tarnishing British prestige.[49] Complicating the cover-up, Joyce learns from Ong Chi Seng, a shrewd Chinese clerk in his office, of a damning letter written by Leslie to Hammond, explicitly inviting him to the house that night and professing her passion for him.[49] The letter, in the possession of Hammond's jilted Chinese mistress, serves as irrefutable evidence of Leslie's adultery and premeditated motive, potentially leading to a murder conviction if revealed.[49] Ong offers to procure and suppress the document for $10,000, exploiting the situation for personal gain, and Joyce, prioritizing the preservation of social order over strict justice, agrees to the blackmail payment after Leslie's public acquittal.[49] In the story's resolution, Joyce delivers the letter to Robert, who privately confronts Leslie with its contents, exposing her deceit and the perjured testimonies that shielded her.[49] The Crosbies maintain their public facade in the colony, but the revelation shatters their domestic life, highlighting the lengths to which colonial elites go to safeguard appearances at the expense of truth.[49] Maugham drew inspiration for the tale from the 1911 Kuala Lumpur trial of Ethel Proudlock, a British teacher's wife who shot and killed her alleged assailant, William Steward, leading to a controversial acquittal amid racial and social tensions in Malaya.[50][51]Themes and Motifs
Expatriate Isolation and Alienation
In The Casuarina Tree, W. Somerset Maugham employs the titular tree as a potent symbol of the expatriate Britons' rootless existence in the Federated Malay States, evoking their psychological detachment from homeland and cultural moorings. Introduced from Australia and thriving in alien tropical soils without deep native anchorage, the casuarina mirrors the transient, uprooted lives of colonial administrators, planters, and officials who endure prolonged separation from Britain, fostering a pervasive sense of exile and disconnection.[52] This motif permeates the collection, portraying isolation not as mere physical distance but as an existential void that erodes personal stability and social norms. Across the stories, expatriate characters exhibit patterns of ennui-induced moral erosion, where the monotony of remote postings breeds listlessness, excessive drinking, and illicit relationships as futile antidotes to boredom and loneliness. Planters and district officers, confined to isolated estates or outstations amid vast rubber plantations, often descend into alcoholism—consuming gin pahits and other spirits in ritualistic excess—or pursue affairs with local women, reflecting a breakdown in self-discipline under the strain of cultural and emotional severance.[53][54] These behaviors underscore a causal link between geographic isolation and behavioral regression, where the absence of familiar societal restraints amplifies innate human frailties rather than heroic resolve. Maugham's depictions draw from empirical observations during his 1921–1922 travels through Malaya, where he encountered real colonial personnel whose lives deviated sharply from official narratives of duty and fortitude. He noted planters' habitual inebriation and domestic infidelities as common responses to the tedium of oversight-free existence, with many succumbing to vice after years of solitude that severed ties to metropolitan oversight and family.[53][55] Such firsthand accounts, gathered from bungalows and clubs, reveal isolation's tangible toll: elevated rates of alcohol dependency and relational instability among expatriates, contrasting with the era's sanitized imperial propaganda. This unflinching realism counters idealized portrayals of empire-builders as paragons of moral vigor, instead exposing how environmental and psychological pressures precipitate weakness and ethical compromise. By humanizing expatriates as prone to disillusionment and self-sabotage—adrift like the casuarina in foreign winds—Maugham dismantles myths of inherent British superiority, attributing lapses to the inherent stresses of colonial uprooting rather than individual depravity alone.[12][56]Imperial Decay and Human Weakness
In The Casuarina Tree, Maugham illustrates the fragility of British imperial authority in Malaya through characters whose personal defects—cowardice, prejudice, and moral lapses—erode their capacity to uphold order, independent of external pressures like native unrest. These portrayals emphasize causal mechanisms rooted in individual psychology: isolation amplifies innate frailties, leading to lapses in judgment that compromise administrative efficacy, yet the empire's structure endures beyond such failures.[3] A prime example appears in "The Yellow Streak," where Captain Izzart, tasked with navigating perilous waters, panics during a crisis involving a sinking ship and native crew, fleeing responsibility and exposing a hereditary "streak" of timidity that renders him unfit for command. This episode, drawn from Maugham's observations of real colonial figures, underscores how unaddressed personal fears can precipitate operational breakdowns in remote postings, where decisive action is paramount.[48][30] In "The Outstation," class-based resentments between the aristocratic Resident Warburton, who indulges in leisure and favoritism toward locals, and his subordinate Cooper, whose tyrannical treatment of natives stems from inferiority-driven rigidity, culminate in Cooper's suicide after petty conflicts escalate. Such interpersonal dynamics reveal how snobbery and authoritarian overcompensation, rather than systemic policy, foster dysfunction in isolated stations, threatening the chain of command essential to territorial control.[57][58] Maugham balances these depictions by acknowledging imperial accomplishments, such as the imposition of legal and economic frameworks that persist despite protagonists' shortcomings; for instance, routine governance continues amid scandals in stories like "The Force of Circumstance," where a district officer's longstanding affair with a native woman exposes ethical hypocrisy but does not halt bureaucratic functions. This suggests that decay arises not from deterministic colonial structures but from ubiquitous human vulnerabilities—greed, fear, lust—exacerbated yet not originated by overseas service.[3][59] Critics note Maugham's rejection of narratives blaming empire for moral erosion, instead attributing failings to character flaws observable across contexts, as evidenced by parallels drawn between Malayan settlers and European counterparts in his broader oeuvre. This perspective aligns with empirical observations from Maugham's 1920s travels, where he documented expatriates' self-inflicted downfalls amid otherwise stable rule.[12]Irony and Moral Ambiguity
In The Casuarina Tree, W. Somerset Maugham deploys irony as a narrative device to expose the contradictions between characters' self-perceptions and their actions, particularly among British expatriates whose civilized veneers fracture amid colonial isolation. Situational irony arises through unexpected twists that dismantle pretensions of superiority or moral rectitude, illustrating how external pressures reveal innate weaknesses rather than imposing external moral frameworks. This approach underscores life's unpredictability without didactic resolution, as outcomes emerge organically from individual flaws and environmental strains.[32] Maugham's philosophical realism manifests in the absence of unambiguous heroes or villains; protagonists navigate moral ambiguity, embodying the gray complexities of human behavior where virtues and vices coexist without clear condemnation.[61] Characters' fates derive from their dispositions and circumstances, not from archetypal justice, reflecting Maugham's commitment to empirical observation of causality over idealized ethics.[62] This eschews propagandistic tendencies prevalent in contemporaneous imperial literature, favoring unvarnished truths that challenge readers to confront ambiguity without ideological reassurance.[46]Critical Reception
Contemporary Responses
Upon its publication in September 1926 by William Heinemann in London and George H. Doran in New York, The Casuarina Tree received reviews that commended W. Somerset Maugham's command of narrative technique and his unflinching realism in depicting British colonial administrators and planters in the Federated Malay States.[1] A New York Times assessment on October 17, 1926, highlighted the collection's "originality and force," affirming its capacity to engage readers through vivid storytelling drawn from Maugham's firsthand observations during his 1921 travels in the region, though it observed that the volume offered no substantial departure from his established methods.[1] Critics appreciated the stories' gritty dramatic elements and psychological acuity, particularly in tales like "The Letter," which exposed moral frailties amid tropical isolation without romantic idealization of empire.[63] L.P. Hartley's review in the Saturday Review on September 18, 1926, praised the collection's craftsmanship in rendering human weaknesses with detached precision, likening Maugham's approach to a clinical dissection of expatriate pretensions.[63] Such commendations aligned with Maugham's reputation for economical prose and ironic detachment, qualities that distinguished the work from propagandistic colonial boosterism prevalent in interwar literature. The volume appealed to an audience of empire enthusiasts and general readers craving candid insider accounts over sanitized narratives, evidenced by the rapid adaptation of "The Letter" into a stage play that premiered in London on February 24, 1927, and enjoyed 337 performances at the Playhouse Theatre, underscoring commercial viability among theatergoers attuned to imperial themes.[64] This reception reflected broader 1920s interest in unvarnished portrayals of colonial service, as British administrators in Malaya reportedly recognized prototypes in the stories, though some local expatriate circles expressed dismay at the unflattering realism.[51] Contemporary consensus positioned Maugham as an adept chronicler of surface behaviors and situational ironies, rather than a delving moral philosopher; reviewers like those in the New York Evening Post on October 2, 1926, noted his skill in evoking atmospheric authenticity but critiqued the absence of transcendent insights into character motivations beyond observable frailties.[3] This view encapsulated early assessments of the collection as proficient entertainment grounded in empirical observation, prioritizing narrative drive over ideological depth.[1]Post-Colonial and Modern Critiques
Post-colonial critiques of The Casuarina Tree, emerging prominently from the 1980s onward in the wake of Edward Said's Orientalism (1978), have frequently characterized Maugham's Malayan stories as reinforcing imperial power through stereotypical depictions of Asian subjects. Scholars argue that portrayals of Malays as "timid, revengeful, and suspicious," inherently requiring British oversight for governance and order, exemplify a dialectic of knowledge and dominance that consolidates colonial authority via textual representation.[52] [65] Similar analyses extend to Chinese and Indian characters, often shown as extravagant, violent, or culturally primitive, with the Malayan landscape itself rendered as savage and menacing to underscore European civilizational superiority.[65] These interpretations, however, tend to underemphasize Maugham's ironic subversion of imperial myths, as his narratives consistently expose the pettiness, moral atrophy, and psychological frailties of British expatriates—contrasting their decay against a more vibrant Eastern backdrop to undermine notions of racial hierarchy.[12] For instance, stories like "The Outstation" highlight rigid colonial identities crumbling under isolation, reflecting end-of-empire exhaustion rather than unalloyed triumphalism.[66] Maugham's restraint in delving deeply into native psyches stemmed from his self-acknowledged cultural distance, informed by extensive 1920s travels, prioritizing empirical observation of human universals like loneliness and desire over exotic fabrication.[12] Modern reassessments call for contextualizing these stereotypes within the era's realist conventions and Maugham's anti-idealist lens, which applies causal scrutiny to behavior across races without excusing European failings.[66] While some critiques from postcolonial scholarship—often rooted in academic frameworks prioritizing power imbalances—dismiss his works as superficially commercial, others praise the enduring psychological acuity in probing expatriate alienation and hybrid tensions, urging renewed engagement beyond binary oppositions of oppressor and oppressed.[12] [66] This balanced view recognizes the stories' basis in verifiable colonial dynamics, such as interracial strains documented in Malayan administrative records from the 1920s, rather than projecting anachronistic moralism.[66]Legacy and Cultural Impact
Influence on Literature of Empire
The Casuarina Tree (1926), W. Somerset Maugham's collection of short stories set in British Malaya, contributed to a more candid portrayal of colonial administration by emphasizing the personal frailties and isolation of expatriate officials rather than imperial grandeur. Stories such as "The Outstation" depict assistant district officers succumbing to resentment and class prejudice in remote postings, highlighting psychological strains verifiable from colonial records of the 1920s Malay States, where high turnover among junior administrators reached 20-30% annually due to burnout and interpersonal conflicts.[3] This approach countered earlier romanticizations in Kipling's works by focusing on mundane human costs—boredom, infidelity, and moral lapses—without ideological polemic, influencing subsequent interwar fiction to prioritize observable expatriate behaviors over abstract systemic critiques.[12] The collection's impact extended to writers like George Orwell, who credited Maugham as his primary modern influence for unadorned storytelling that exposed empire's toll on individuals. Orwell's Burmese Days (1934), drawing from his own service in colonial Burma from 1922-1927, echoes The Casuarina Tree's portrayal of corruptible petty bureaucrats and cultural alienation, as seen in characters driven by personal vanities rather than heroic duty; Orwell praised Maugham's ability to narrate "straightforwardly and without frills," a technique evident in Maugham's Malayan vignettes of officials eroded by tropical ennui.[67][68] This realism documented expatriate psychology—marked by emotional atrophy and ethical drift in isolated outstations—substantiated by Maugham's firsthand observations during his 1921-1923 Eastern travels, where he interviewed planters and administrators facing similar stressors.[8] In literary studies of interwar colonial narratives, The Casuarina Tree endures as a reference for its emphasis on individual agency amid imperial settings, attributing expatriate failures to character defects like cowardice or snobbery rather than inherent colonial structures. Scholarly analyses cite it alongside E.M. Forster's A Passage to India (1924) for capturing verifiable mental states of British personnel in Asia, where diaries from the era record parallel themes of detachment and self-deception; this perspective aligns with causal accounts of personal responsibility, avoiding both apologetic glorification and reductive blame of empire-wide forces.[69][12] Such framing informed later realists, promoting narratives grounded in empirical human behavior over politicized abstractions.[34]Adaptations and Enduring Relevance
While no major film or television adaptations of The Casuarina Tree as a complete collection exist, individual stories within it have received screen treatment, most prominently "The Letter," which inspired a 1929 silent film directed by Herbert Brenon starring Jeanne Eagels and a 1940 remake directed by William Wyler featuring Bette Davis in the lead role.[70] A 1982 television adaptation starring Lee Remick followed, transposing the narrative to a Malaysian plantation setting.[71] These adaptations focus on dramatic tension and moral conflict but omit the collection's broader ironic detachment, potentially diluting Maugham's subtle psychological observations derived from his firsthand encounters in the Malay States. Occasional audio readings of the full stories appear in online formats, such as dramatized narrations uploaded in 2025, facilitating accessible engagement without altering the prose.[72] The absence of large-scale media versions has preserved the work's reliance on textual nuance, avoiding simplifications common in visual retellings. The collection's enduring relevance stems from its empirical depiction of human vulnerabilities in remote outposts, patterns that parallel contemporary expatriate experiences in global corporate assignments, diplomatic enclaves, or resource extraction sites, where cultural dislocation amplifies personal frailties much as in colonial Malaya.[14] Maugham's postscript emphasizes the casuarina tree's role in anchoring fragile communities against encroaching disorder, a metaphor underscoring the psychological precarity of isolated groups that resonates with modern analyses of expatriate resilience amid transient postings.[14] Recent scholarship, including 2024 theses examining Maugham's short story techniques, reaffirms the stories' value in revealing causal dynamics of isolation—rooted in his direct observations rather than idealized accounts—offering a counterpoint to narratives that downplay such frailties in historical or contemporary contexts.[73] Anthologized in broader Maugham compilations, the work sustains literary interest for its unromanticized insights into enduring human tendencies under strain.[74]References
- https://www.[academia.edu](/page/Academia.edu)/89535064/Images_and_the_Colonial_Experience_in_W_Somerset_Maughams_The_Casuarina_Tree_1926_