Larry Darrell

Introduction

Have you ever has an experience that makes you question what life is for?  What would you do or give up to find out the answer?  Most people wonder about the value or meaning of life, God and other questions of life.  However only some venture out to find these answer.  The protagonist of the novel, The Razor’s Edge one of such people.  Laurence Darrell, whom everyone calls Larry, gives up his previous secure life to start out on a spiritual journey to search for personal answers to the eternal questions of life.

Larry’s life

Larry is orphaned at an early age.  He was brought up by Dr. Nelson, who is a old college friend of his father’s. He did perfectly normal in academic and athletics and was a perfectly normal boy during his childhood, until he went to World War I as an aviator.

During the war, he meets a lively, fun person called Patsy, and they become good friend.  Once, when they were sent to do spy work on the German territory. Unfortunately, they were discovered by the German, and Patsy scarify his life to save Larry.  He feels shame and puzzled because the death of such a person is just not within his imagination.

Larry’s experience during the war, especially his good friend’s death, has a profound effect on him and it causes a great change in him. After he came back from the war, he is restless and does not know what he wants to do with his life. He’s looking for something but he doesn’t know what that something is. He wants to feels that he cannot just merge back into society; he cannot just go back to his studies or get a job.

Right after he came back from the war, people thought he was in shock and needed rest, thus allowed Larry to do nothing. But after about a year of loafing, everybody urges him to go to work, especially when Henry Maturin offers a job and it’s obvious he will earn a good amount of money from the job. When his fianc�e, Isabelle, speaks to him about this problem, Larry reveals that he wants to spend two years in Paris and after two years, he will come back and marry Isabel.

However, once he went to Paris and started on his spiritual journey to find the answers to the questions of life, it was a long time until he returns to America. Throughout the ten years of his journey, he visited many places, met many people and ultimately learned and found what he was searching for.

After spending about two years in Paris, randomly reading and learning about everything he can, he went to work in a coalmine in Lens. There he met Kosti, who got him interested in mysticism and they became traveling companions for a while.

When he is on his own again, he encounters Father Emsheim and then went to live for a while in a monastery in Alsace. There he learns more about Catholicism and the way of living for monks. He realizes that this kind of living and believe is not for him and he decides to continue his search elsewhere. By now, he has a more definite idea of what he wanted to find out of his personal quest.

It seems quite by chance, he arrives at India and ends up spending five years there. It is in India, where he finally succeeds in finding answers to his questions and reaches an end to his journey.

Motivation of Larry

Larry’s motivation for his actions can seem rather simple, except when one realize how many people try to do what he does, to find out what he wants to know to no avail. After his horrific experiences during the war, his previous simple life of just accepting what society is turned upside down. He is now starting to think about life and its meaning. It seems to him that no matter how alive one is or what one did in his or her life, one will die in the end. As Larry himself said, "You think of a fellow who an hour before was full of life and fun, and he’s lying dead; it’s all so cruel and so meaningless" (P. 52). He also does not understand why evil and suffering exists in this world. He cannot find any consolation in his religion, which is Protestant. Even though he realizes at the beginning that it would be difficult for him to find answers to the questions of life, he still persists. So, motivated by his soul and a spiritual energy, he spends many years of his life trying to find them because he knows he will never be at peace if he cannot find those answers.

After Larry’s quest reaches an end, he chose to give away all his money and go back to America. He is motivated by is spiritual need to live there "with calmness, forbearance, compassion, selflessness and continence" (P. 280). Since he is now complete free from social attachment and is prepared by is previous study and meditation, he choose to live a life full of goodness.

Connections to Mythology

Larry’s life is similar to many people of the great myths in the past. One person his life parallels is that of Siddhartha Gautama’s. They both can have everything most people want at the beginning of their lives but they give those things up to pursue answers to questions that have plague them. They take a physical and spiritual journey and experience many things during their search. And at the end, they both ultimately reach conclusions that satisfy them.

Siddhartha was a prince whose father wanted him to be happy. So he only got to see the good side of life. He has a luxurious life where everyone he sees is young and beautiful. However in one of the trips out of the palace that is organized by his father so as to any let Siddhartha see pleasant things, he accidentally sees an old man. He does not know anything about old age and thus, he is very shocked. After this incident, he steals out of his palace against his father’s wishes, so he can observe life as it truly is. It was then he see death, disease and decay for the first time. Knowing about all this, he cannot just return back into his unrealistic, sheltered life in the palace. So he runs away from his previous lifestyle and goes on a quest to discover the answers to the questions of life and the purpose of life. When at last he reaches enlightenment, he becomes Buddha.

Siddhartha’s life is similar to Larry’s because Larry could also have a nice comfortable married life with a good job or he could have let Elliot introduce him to higher society while in Paris. However, because of his experience in the war and seeing how the dead looked when they are dead, he is filled with the need to search for a god he could believe in and the meaning of life. After about ten years of searching, he finally found answers that satisfied him and he might have even received illumination.

Siddhartha Gautama

Lessons Learned from Larry

Larry shows that one does not have to follow social rules to have happiness in one’s life. Even though it might be difficult to not follow designated paths, but in the end, if you will be miserable just existing and not really know what you are living for, it might be better to choose your own way.

Spiritual fulfillment is just as, if not more important than fulfillment on materialistic matters. You might not seem very important to others and you might not be of social consequence, but as long as you live your live the best you can, that’s enough. Maybe just a few people will be inspired by you and what you have done and this will change their life a little for the better. And this goodness might spread over the years into something worthwhile to society.

From Larry’s quest, readers can also learn a bit about Hinduism and some different views on other religion.

Motivation of the Author

Aside from teaching the readers the lessons above, Larry is said to be another side of the author, William Maugham. Thus, Maughan’s motivation for creating Larry might be to express himself and let others know more about him. He might have wanted to an exploration between the two sides of himself and this is why he said the conversation between Larry and the himself is the reason he wrote the book. As Maugham said on P. 242, "I should add, however, that except for this conversation I should perhaps not have thought it worth while to write this book."

Conclusion

Despite the reason of Larry's existence, he is a very extraordinary person filled with passion to find the meaning of life.  Unlike the others, he pays no attention to the fashionable society and does whatever he likes. At the end of the story, he plans to live a normal life just like the others.  He wants to work in a garage until he earns enough money to buy a taxi, which is good enough to earn his living.  He still enjoy freedom and he will be likely go anywhere he wants by his taxi.

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