…the eyes of most persons converge when they look at you, but Oliver Haddo's, naturally or by a habit he had acquired for effect, remained parallel. It gave the impression that he looked straight through you and saw the wall beyond. It was uncanny. But another strange thing about him was the impossibility of telling whether he was serious. There was a mockery in that queer glance, a sardonic smile upon the mouth, which made you hesitate how to take his outrageous utterances. It was irritating to be uncertain whether, while you were laughing at him, he was not really enjoying an elaborate joke at your expense.
As is the case with most of Maugham’s novels, the main character is heavily inspired by a real-life historical antecedent. In this case, Oliver Haddo is a fictional counterpart to one of the stranger historical figures of the era, occultist Aleister Crowley. Crowley was infamously characterized as the most wicked man in the world for a variety of reasons all of which made him suitable for Maugham’s fictionalization purposes. If a reader wishes to confirm whether Maugham is being on target with his physical description of Haddo’s intense stare it is easy to do as photographs of Crowley are abundantly accessible across the web.
“Do you remember that day, in this studio, when he kicked Margaret's dog, and you thrashed him? Well, afterwards, when he thought no one saw him, I happened to catch sight of his face. I never saw in my life such malignant hatred. It was the face of a fiend of wickedness. And when he tried to excuse himself, there was a cruel gleam in his eyes which terrified me. I warned you; I told you that he had made up his mind to revenge himself, but you laughed at me.”
There is in the character of Oliver Haddo a little bit of Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty. This quote basically lays out the entire foundation of the book’s plot. Just as Maleficent goes really over the top in her wickedness simply as the result of not being invited to a party, so does Haddo’s intention to destroy several lives result from a singularly minor incident. Adding to the irony is that it is his own petty act of cruelty which brings the insult and the injury upon himself. Even more ironic: Haddo cuts an enormous figure, but is a very little man.
The door was closed between this room and the next. Arthur opened it, and they found themselves in a long, low attic, ceiled with great rafters, as brilliantly lit and as hot as the first. Here too were broad tables laden with retorts, instruments for heating, huge test-tubes, and all manner of vessels. The furnace that warmed it gave a steady heat. Arthur's gaze travelled slowly from table to table, and he wondered what Haddo's experiments had really been.
The story moves relentlessly toward its melodramatic climax which is the revelation of the dark magic to which Haddo has been up to all along. As befitting a modern-day gothic tale of terror, the magic in this case is really just science perverted by wicked intent. The central driving force of the narrative—Haddo’s extraordinary complex revenge plot against his perceived oppressors—is merely a tactic contributing to this dark magic, not the a strategic goal in and of itself. Needless to say, it is at this point that any resemblance to the actual inspiration for Haddo collapses upon itself. Crowley may have been a grand master at executing zealous belief in the improbable, but he certainly was no Dr. Moreau.
