Personal reflection on “Rain”, by W.
Somerset Maugham
After reading “Rain”, by Somerset Maugham, it can be agreed that this literary work is a
pure criticism to the Christian Religion by means of many biblical references. There are
also themes generally opposed to and denied by religion such as Patriarchy and
Prostitution presented through all the lines, which provide us with various important points
to discuss.
Firstly, when society thinks about the Christian religion, it does so by relating it to the good.
However, one of the main characters of the book, who is supposed to spread good values
and convert people on the island to Christianity, appears to be the antithesis of the ideal
missionary. Therefore, he whose main goal in life is to make people believe in God,
obtains the opposite result. He treats others with an air of superiority and he is always
thinking that the Lord would pardon him. Consequently, he leads a life of wrongdoing
because he feels he would be forgiven. Nowadays, this is something very usual as the
majority of the congregations have a moralistic view but then, in practice, they live in sin.
For instance, when the fisherman cheats on his wife, he is committing an immoral act and
Mr. Davidson drives him to financial ruin and obliges him to leave the island. He causes
harm to the sinner, which could be seen as a non-religious way of solving a problem.
Moreover, he comes from Solomon Island, which is a symbolism of King Solomon’s story.
The biblical portrait of Solomon is paradoxical. On the one hand, he is portrayed as a
supreme king, divinely-endowed with wisdom. On the other hand, he foolishly allows his
love for his foreign wives to lead him into idolatry. He is unable to control his sexual desire
for foreign women, being this the first similarity to Davidson, who is also portrayed as an
ironical character. His name can be split up in “David” and “son”, which means king
David’s son, the same as Solomon. In the true story of Solomon, he prioritizes the financial
matter and this is similar to what Davidson does with the fisherman. When their hour has
come, they regret what they have been doing all their lives, acknowledging lust and greed
have kept their hearts far from God. That is why Davidson finally commits suicide, feeling
extremely sorry for the things he has done. Let us consider his words: “I shall act and I
shall act promptly. If the tree is rotten it shall be cut down and cast into the flames.” (p. 13).
To be cast out into flames means that he would go to Hell for his deviant behavior. Also,
towards the end of his life, he commits a sin because of suicide. As expected, he ends in
Hell.
With respect to patriarchy, the story presents two couples in which the wives do not feel
comfortable in their roles as women. They are both submissive to their husbands and they
suffer from violence every day. Because of that, they do not understand or accept dancing.
Mrs. Davidson cannot bear the fact that a woman dances with a man who is not her
husband. She says: “… as far as I’m concerned I’ve never danced a step since I married”
(page 5). Mrs. Macphail is shy, but she also is in the habit of doing what her husband bids
her. Mrs. Davidson is happy to prohibit the native dancing in the colonies under their
responsibility as she conceived it as immoral. Although she associates dancing with
immorality and implies that it is sin to perform it, she distinguishes the dancing of white
society from that of natives. This can call to mind the applied racism by the so called
superior white man over the other.
At the time the story was written, prostitution may be argued to have been seen as a sin.
There are several illustrations of this idea throughout the book. Page 21 is full of details
and notes about sex workers. They are all from different nationalities, as well as their
clients, who are silent as if they are oppressed. The police stay there, too as happens
today, that many policemen are accomplices of crimes. On the last page of Rain, and due
to the fact that Mr. Davidson probably has a sexual affair with her. Miss Thompson shows
her despise male society by saying: “You men! You filthy, dirty pigs’ You’re all the same,
all of you. Pigs! Pigs!”. This pushes Mr. Davidson to commit suicide and, in a way, results
in the fall of the colonial authority. It is clear that the colonizer even makes pressure upon
his own women in colonies.
The fact that Miss Thompson regards all the male society as “filthy, dirty pigs” (page 51)
may evoke the idea of feminism. As is known, feminism is a movement defending that
every human being is equal or, in other words, that women should have equal rights to
men. Feminism has frequently been associated with the ways and extent to which
representation and language are important in forming identity and in constructing
subjectivity. In feminism, language is a vehicle to subvert patriarchal and imperial power.
In “Rain”, Miss Thompson comes from the Red Light district of Hawaii. She works as a
prostitute and it is clear that when Davidson discovers that, his desires go around his
mind. For instance, he frequently dreams with breasts. Mrs. Thompson represents
Feminism just in the way she speaks while Mr. Davidson embodies Patriarchy through his
acts.
In conclusion, when the background of the story and the references it makes is
understood, it can be deduced how religion affects the conception people have about sex
workers or woman in general. The author of the story portrays many failures of the
missionaries, suggesting why it is so difficult to believe in them. Besides, he gives many
examples of the bad treatment women received from men, no matter whether they are
prostitutes or just their wives.
