The Moon & Sixpence

However, with Strickland, in the view of the narrator, something beyond conventional morality, something beyond "pure selfishness," is involved. Strickland is undeniably guilty of immoral behavior according to the simple and straightforward conventional standards of Mrs. McAndrew. He abandons his wife and children to pursue personal interests. He blatantly takes advantage of his patron and his wife and apparently feels nothing for the wreckage he leaves behind him.

The question, then, is whether a higher, or at least different, moral

. . .
tremendous affinity for such a man as Strickland and would agree with the narrator. Nietzsche would contemptuously dismiss Mrs. McAndrew as hopelessly conventional in her morality. The vision pursued by Strickland and approved more or less by the narrator is one with which Nietzsche could identify. To Nietzsche, morality is essentially conventional morality, which is based, in his view, on the efforts of the small-minded to keep the large-minded down. The individual in Nietzsche's universe is not moral or immoral, but amoral. He makes his own morality, just as Strickland clearly does, unfettered by conventional morality, by what others think or feel, or by pangs of conscience at the effects his actions have on others. Strickland declares that all he wants is to paint what he sees. Compare this passionate and self-centered declaration to Nietzsche in the Preface to The Genealogy of Morals: Our treasure is . . . where stand the hives of our knowledge. it is to those hives that we are always striving; as born creatures of flight, and as the honey-gatherers of the spirit, we care really in our hearts only for one thing---to bring something "home to the hive!" . . . As far as the rest of life . . . our heart is not there (Nietzsche 6
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Friedrich Nietzsche, McAndrew's Kierkegaard's, Power Nietzsche, Kierkegaard Strickland, God God, Applying Strickland's, Strickland Maugham's, Life Nietzsche, Genealogy Morals, Kierkegaard Nietzsche, conventional morality, wife children, morality strickland, morality based, love one's, duty god, abandons wife children, love neighbor, duty duty, home hive, york penguin, love one's neighbor,
Approximate Word count = 1343
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)