Novel: Of Human Bondage

Overview
W. Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage (1915) is a sprawling bildungsroman tracing Philip Carey’s struggle to forge a life of meaning while shackled by physical infirmity, poverty, and overpowering desire. Semi-autobiographical in spirit, the novel follows Philip from orphaned boyhood to adult resolution, setting his quest for freedom against the stubborn bonds of passion, ambition, and circumstance.

Early Life and Education
Born with a clubfoot and sent to live with a stern vicar uncle and timid aunt, Philip endures the cruelty of boarding school and the solitude of an outsider. The religious certainties of his childhood give way to skepticism as he discovers books and ideas, and a youthful sojourn in Germany exposes him to art and flirtation, including a formative affair with an older woman. Seeking purpose, he tries different paths not out of conviction but out of an urgent need to belong somewhere.

Paris and the Failure of Art
Convinced that art might offer liberation, Philip studies painting in Paris among bohemians who debate beauty and meaning amid poverty. There he befriends the cynical poet Cronshaw, whose talk of finding a pattern in life becomes a guiding riddle and whose gift of a Persian carpet haunts Philip long after. Philip eventually accepts that he lacks the genius to succeed as a painter. The recognition is brutal but cleansing: he relinquishes an illusion and returns to London to study medicine, exchanging romantic dreams for disciplined labor.

Mildred and the Bondage of Desire
In London Philip is ensnared by Mildred Rogers, a cool, petty tea-shop waitress whose indifference feeds his masochistic devotion. Their on-and-off affair becomes the novel’s central crucible. Mildred leaves him for another man, returns pregnant and destitute, exploits his pity, and later betrays him with one of his friends. Philip’s humiliations are acute: he supports her and the child, endures her contempt, and watches her smash his belongings when he withholds money. These episodes reveal desire as a form of slavery, a compulsion that mocks reason and erodes dignity.

Poverty, Work, and Friendship
Philip’s small inheritance is wiped out in speculation, and he is driven from medical school into a draper’s shop, where the monotony and degradation of retail life weigh on him. Salvation comes through Thorpe Athelny, a voluble former journalist with a large, warm family who offers Philip companionship, meals, and a vision of domestic cheer. With a modest bequest and determination, Philip resumes medical studies, passes his exams, and begins hospital work. Mildred reappears sick and ruined; he helps as he can, but she dies in a charity ward, and the spell that bound him finally breaks.

Resolution and Meaning
Drawn to Sally, Athelny’s kind and sensible daughter, Philip contemplates an ordinary life. A mistaken belief that she is pregnant forces a choice: adventure as a ship’s doctor or marriage and a provincial practice. He reads Cronshaw’s carpet anew and sees the pattern not as grand design but as the quiet weave of daily duties, affection, and work. Even when the pregnancy proves a false alarm, he embraces the same decision. The freedom he sought in art, wealth, and sexual passion lies, he realizes, in accepting the bonds that give life shape.

Themes
Maugham explores the tyranny of desire, the illusions of artistic vocation, the grinding reality of class and money, and the tension between free will and necessity. Philip’s clubfoot symbolizes all that isolates him; the Athelnys show that kindness and ordinary love can emancipate. The novel’s hard-won wisdom is modest yet profound: contentment arises when one consents to the pattern one can live.