The man of property

英语小说周玥颖

The outline of the story： The Man of Property is the first novel of the Forsyte trilogies which tell the ups and downs of the Forsyte family from 1886 to 1926. This novel centers itself on the Soames-Irene-Bosinney triangle. Soames Forsyte， a typical Forsyte， represents the essence of the principle that the accumulation of wealth is the sole aim of life, for he considers everything in terms of one’s property. Irene， his young and beautiful wife, on the contrary, loves art and cherishes noble ideals of life. But Soames never pay any attention to her thoughts and feeling； he takes her merely as part of his own property. Thus， Irene is not happy about her marriage. In order to please his wife， Soames asks Bosinney， a young architect， to build a country house for them. Like Irene， Bosinney is also interested in art and not in practical things in life. During the designing and building of the house， the two come to enjoy a great deal of each other’s company and finally fall in love with each other. Rumors arise and Soames wants his revenge. He sues Bosinney at the court for spending more money than stipulated. The conflict of the triangle ends tragically with Bosinney’s death in a car accident and Irene’s leaving Soames for good.

　　 The theme of this novel： It is that of the predominant possessive instinct of the Forsytes and its effects upon the personal relationships of the family with the underlying assumption that human relationships of the contemporary English society are merely an extension of property relationships.

　　The harsh satire on this inhuman sense of property is brought out very effectively in the early chapters of the novel. But in the later part of the novel,  the harsh tone gradually changes into a more tolerant one, and finally it becomes a distinctly sentimental one, thus weakening the effect of the novel.