The Painted Veil

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“Walter Fane’s Obituary”

Students will compile text details about Walter Fane in order to compose an obituary for his character, then compare their view of Walter with classmates’ views.

Write an obituary for the deceased Walter Fane.

• Draw what biographical facts about Walter you can from the text. Feel free to invent realistic birth and death dates as well as places of birth and upbringing where information is missing.
• Mine the text for the most standout phrases about Walter’s character, both flattering and unflattering.
• Decide the point of view of the obituary. Will it reflect Kitty’s unflattering view of Walter or the mother superior’s elegiac perspective? Or perhaps a mixture of both?
• Plan and write the obituary.
• Compare your work with a classmate’s. Compare your views of Walter. How do you think that your classmate arrived at a different view of his character?

Teaching Suggestion: Discuss in class the ways in which an obituary’s tone can be either flattering or realistic (incorporating a person’s faults). When the students have finished the obituaries, they might discuss as a class Maugham’s view of human character. Does he suggest that character is fixed and easily definable or something that is more fluid, perhaps changing according to the beholder? How does his attitude impact his portrayal of other characters in The Painted Veil? These topics connect to the themes of Inequality in Love and The Tension Between Character and Personality.

“How To Write the Perfect Obituary” is a short article providing pointers on the elements that an obituary should include and how to craft a text that is both moving and original.