# XXV: The Grand Style explained — On a Chinese Screen

> Chapter companion for On a Chinese Screen by W. Somerset Maugham.

## What happens

The narrator reflects on an elderly doctor, over eighty, who arrived in China fifty-seven years ago as a ship's doctor. Now serving as vice-consul in a small anchorage, he embodies an old-world gentlemanliness marked by classical education, antique courtesy, and a grand, adventurous spirit. The chapter contrasts his dignified style with modern manners, attributing his distinction to a bygone era's solid reading, Latin quotations, and a sense of style akin to Swift's prose.

## Themes in this chapter

### Colonial Ennui and Isolation

The doctor's life in a remote anchorage with only seven white men's houses and a handful of Chinese reflects the isolation and quiet routine of colonial outposts, where his vice-consul duties and medical practice provide just enough occupation to stave off idleness.

### Search for Meaning and Identity

The doctor's plans to retire and visit the West Indies, his reflections on England and Ireland, and his embodiment of a bygone 'grand style' suggest a search for meaning and identity in a changing world, clinging to the values and manners of his youth.

## Character check-ins

### The Doctor

An elderly Irish doctor, over eighty, who came to China fifty-seven years ago as a ship's doctor. He is tall, thin, with bright blue eyes and a deep voice, now serving as vice-consul in a small anchorage. He embodies old-world gentlemanliness, classical education, and a grand style.

## Key lines

> He was a very old man. It was fifty-seven years since he came to China as a ship's doctor and took the place in one of the Southern ports of a medical officer whose health had obliged him to go home.

The doctor is extremely old, having arrived in China fifty-seven years ago as a ship's doctor to replace a medical officer who returned home due to illness.

_Establishes the doctor's long tenure in China and his advanced age._

> I think the men of that time were, if not more adventurous than the men of ours, more adventurous in the grand manner: now a man will risk his life with a joke from Comic Cuts on his lips, then it was with a Latin quotation.

The narrator believes that men of the past were adventurous in a more dignified, classical way, facing danger with Latin quotations rather than modern jokes.

_Highlights the contrast between the old 'grand style' and modern casualness._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/on_a_chinese_screen_se/chapters/xxv-the-grand-style
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/on_a_chinese_screen_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/on_a_chinese_screen_se/chapters