​​

In his book 'Summing Up', in which he reflected on his life in his later years, W.S. Maugham wrote: ‘I wanted to know whether I was a free agent or whether the feelings that shaped me according to my own will were illusions. I wanted to know if life has meaning, or if I should strive to impart meaning to it.’

Although Maugham seems to have reached a rather pessimistic determinism, we still sense a faint desire to be autonomous in his own words and in the words and deeds of the characters in the stories he depicted. 

The narrative of the short story ‘Rain’ is full of ‘forces that are certainly there, but which cannot be perceived’. The existence of these ‘forces’ that oppress and entangle the characters who try to be autonomous beings, stand in front of us, living in contemporary society, 100 years after the story was written, just the same.

 The rain depicted in the story ‘Rain’ may be a symbol of these ‘forces that cannot be perceived’. We cannot perceive the rain as the rain itself, but only indirectly, such as when we feel depressed because of the dampness, when our socks get wet and we feel uncomfortable, when we cannot sleep because of the sound of the roof banging... But the rain does indeed soak us up, soak our bodies and sink into our minds. These imperceptible ‘forces’ acting on us and the fragility of the human mind that is shaken by them are what Maughm wanted to depict.

​

​