"Benevolent" Colonialism
Maugham goes pretty easy on the whole idea of British colonialism in general in comparison to such contemporaries as Conrad and Kipling. Rather than come right out and argue the point, he effectively makes his point through the image of Mr. Warburton’s approach to the natives. He is a manger respected by the British because of his efficiency. It is the colonial assistant who is a rotten taskmasker rather than the Oxford “snob.” For Warburton, what colonialism is about is efficient management of the colonies, not the spread of empire on the grease of the blood of natives. This imagery serves to create a particularly less corrosive portrait of the British expansionism than was the literary convention of the time, but it is also remarkably for being inconsistent with Maugham’s general disapproval of his own generation’s upper class which had softened into leisurely twits for the most part from his perspective.
Dressed for Dinner
Mr. Warburton has fully accepted the colonial life in a way that Mr. Cooper never could never understand, much less do himself. Warburton may be the Oxford-education snob Cooper believes, but he has learned how to make peace with the chasm between the life he thought he’d have and the one he’s been dealt. That concession includes just one eccentricity, but it is provides for one of the most memorable uses of imagery in the story. Every single night, Warburton dresses for dinner as if he were back among his elite friends in England for whom not dressing for dinner every night would be eccentric.
Mr. Warburton's Dinner Conversation
Lord Hollington of Castle Reagh. “He's the best valet I've ever had.” Breaking the bank at Monte Carlo. Playing baccarat with the Prince Wales. When Mr. Warburton is indulging in his dinner conversation about his past high life that drives Mr. Cooper so crazy, it provides insight but no solution to the big mystery of the story: what, exactly, is Mr. Warburton doing in this job? Maugham sketches in some broad strokes about Warburton falling from grace, losing money and not really being able to go back and be accepted in polite British society, but the details are unclear. The imagery provided by this recollection fails to explain much, but does give Warburton’s fall a much sharper focus. It may have been even further than one suspects or Cooper can imagine.
Quiet...a Little Too Quiet
Maugham delineates a moment of foreboding by first foreshadowing that moment by setting up the location as a place of peace and serenity. His garden arbor overlooking the garden is portrayed as an almost Edenic setting. In the moments before Cooper is finally dispatched, Warburton return to the arbor and it is still a place of peace and serenity. Now, it is too peaceful and too serene. In fact, the silence is ominous while the imagery remains Edenic. Only this time, the imagery includes the arrival of a serpent in the change of tone taken by the river.
