The Poet Who Knows It
Neilson is portrayed rather strangely. He is an unquestionably complex character who seems to have been dropped unceremoniously into the middle of a soap opera. The lofty level of his language confirms is doctoral level education, but betrays his social circumstances as he provides running commentary on how Red and Sally fell in love, such as this description of the precise place it started:
“And presently I found out why the spot had such an unearthly loveliness. Here love had tarried for a moment like a migrant bird that happens on a ship in mid-ocean and for a little while folds its tired wings.”
Psychoanalyzing the Swede
The ambiguous nature of the Neilson’s relationship to the setting and cast of the story is explained partially by his educational background. He himself fills in some of the missing gaps by providing an illuminating bit of self-insight:
“It was as though he spoke from emotion which his intellect found ridiculous. He had said himself that he was a sentimentalist, and when sentimentality is joined with skepticism there is often the devil to pay.”
Personification
A very specialized sort of metaphorical imagery known as personification is used liberally throughout the text, but Maugham narrows the constrictions of the technique down even further. While often—if not usually—personification applies to animals, here it applied for the purpose of lending human attributions to the natural splendor of the setting:
“But next morning, when the dawn crept over the tranquil sea…there was a feeling of quietness, a silence as though nature were at rest”
Darkness
There it is! The all-encompassing defining metaphor of the modern age. A singular piece of figurative imagery which is omnipresent in fiction (and not exactly a stranger to non-fiction) since the end of the 19th century.
“I was a young man then--Good Heavens, it's a quarter of a century ago--and I wanted to enjoy all the loveliness of the world in the short time allotted to me before I passed into the darkness.”
True Love
Neilson draws a distinction between true love and that which passes for love for the sake of convenience. For Red and Sally, it was true love from the very first moment. And what, exactly, is the difference here? Well, the convenience kind stems from common interests or mutual sympathy for one another. True love, however, is:
“the love that Adam felt for Eve when he awoke and found her in the garden gazing at him with dewy eyes. That is the love that draws the beasts to one another, and the Gods.”
