Of Human Bondage

by W. Somerset Maugham, Robert Calder (Introduction)

Overview

'It is very difficult for a writer of my generation, if he is honest, to pretend indifference to the work of Somerset Maugham,' wrote Gore Vidal. 'He was always so entirely there.' Originally published in 1915, Of Human Bondage is a potent expression of the power of sexual obsession and of modern man's yearning for freedom. This classic bildungsroman tells the story of Philip Carey, a sensitive boy born with a clubfoot who is orphaned and raised by a religious aunt and uncle. Philip yearns for adventure, and at eighteen leaves home, eventually pursuing a career as an artist in Paris. When he returns to London to study medicine, he meets the androgynous but alluring Mildred and begins a doomed love affair that will change the course of his life. There is no more powerful story of sexual infatuation, of human longing for connection and freedom. 'Here is a novel of the utmost importance,' wrote Theodore Dreiser on publication. 'It is a beacon of light by which the wanderer may be guided. . . . One feels as though one were sitting before a splendid Shiraz of priceless texture and intricate weave, admiring, feeling, responding sensually to its colors and tones.' With an Introduction by Gore Vidal Commentary by Theodore Dreiser and Graham Greene.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780140185225
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/01/1992
Series:	Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics Series
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	640
Sales rank:	209,475
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.68(h) x 1.37(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) was an English novelist, playwright, and short story writer. Born in Paris, he was orphaned as a boy and sent to live with an emotionally distant uncle. He struggled to fit in as a student at The King’s School in Canterbury and demanded his uncle send him to Heidelberg University, where he studied philosophy and literature. In Germany, he had his first affair with an older man and embarked on a career as a professional writer. After completing his degree, Maugham moved to London to begin medical school. There, he published Liza of Lambeth (1897), his debut novel. Emboldened by its popular and critical success, he dropped his pursuit of medicine to devote himself entirely to literature. Over his 65-year career, he experimented in form and genre with such works as Lady Frederick (1907), a play, The Magician (1908), an occult novel, and Of Human Bondage (1915). The latter, an autobiographical novel, earned Maugham a reputation as one of the twentieth century’s leading authors, and continues to be recognized as his masterpiece. Although married to Syrie Wellcome, Maugham considered himself both bisexual and homosexual at different points in his life. During and after the First World War, he worked for the British Secret Intelligence Service as a spy in Switzerland and Russia, writing of his experiences in Ashenden: Or the British Agent (1927), a novel that would inspire Ian Fleming’s James Bond series. At one point the highest-paid author in the world, Maugham led a remarkably eventful life without sacrificing his literary talent.

Read an Excerpt

I


THE DAY broke grey and dull. The clouds hung heavily, and there was a rawness in the air that suggested snow. A woman servant came into a room in which a child was sleeping and drew the curtains. She glanced mechanically at the house opposite, a stucco house with a portico, and went to the child's bed.

'Wake up, Philip,' she said.

She pulled down the bed-clothes, took him in her arms, and carried him downstairs. He was only half awake.

'Your mother wants you,' she said.

She opened the door of a room on the floor below and took the child over to a bed in which a woman was lying. It was his mother. She stretched out her arms, and the child nestled by her side. He did not ask why he had been awakened. The woman kissed his eyes, and with thin, small hands felt the warm body through his white flannel nightgown. She pressed him closer to herself. 'Are you sleepy, darling?' she said.

Her voice was so weak that it seemed to come already from a great distance. The child did not answer, but smiled comfortably. He was very happy in the large, warm bed, with those soft arms about him. He tried to make himself smaller still as he cuddled against his mother, and he kissed her sleepily. In a moment he closed his eyes and was fast asleep. The doctor came forward and stood by the bedside.

'Oh, don't take him away yet,' she moaned.

The doctor, without answering, looked at her gravely. Knowing she would not be allowed to keep the child much longer, the woman kissed him again; and she passed her hand down his body till she came to his feet; she held the right foot in her hand and felt the five small toes; and then slowly passed her hand over the left one. She gave a sob.

'What's the matter?' said the doctor. 'You're tired.'

She shook her head, unable to speak, and the tears rolled down her cheeks. The doctor bent down.

'Let me take him.'

She was too weak to resist his wish, and she gave the child up. The doctor handed him back to his nurse.

'You'd better put him back in his own bed.'

'Very well, sir.'

The little boy, still sleeping, was taken away. His mother sobbed now broken-heartedly. 'What will happen to him, poor child?'

The monthly nurse tried to quiet her, and presently, from exhaustion, the crying ceased. The doctor walked to a table on the other side of the room, upon which, under a towel, lay the body of a still-born child. He lifted the towel and looked. He was hidden from the bed by a screen, but the woman guessed what he was doing.

'Was it a girl or a boy?' she whispered to the nurse.

'Another boy.'

The woman did not answer. In a moment the child's nurse came back. She approached the bed.
'Master Philip never woke up,' she said.

There was a pause. Then the doctor felt his patient's pulse once more.

'I don't think there's anything I can do just now,' he said. 'I'll call again after breakfast.'

'I'll show you out, sir,' said the child's nurse.

They walked downstairs in silence. In the hall the doctor stopped.

'You've sent for Mrs. Carey's brother-in-law, haven't you?'

'Yes, sir.'

'D'you know at what time he'll be here?'

'No, sir, I'm expecting a telegram.'

'What about the little boy? I should think he'd be better out of the way.'

'Miss Watkin said she'd take him, sir.'

'Who's she?'

'She's his godmother, sir. D'you think Mrs. Carey will get over it, sir?'

The doctor shook his head.


II


IT WAS a week later. Philip was sitting on the floor in the drawing-room at Miss Watkin's house in Onslow Gardens. He was an only child and used to amusing himself. The room was filled with massive furniture, and on each of the sofas were three big cushions. There was a cushion too in each armchair. All these he had taken and, with the help of the gilt rout chairs, light and easy to move, had made an elaborate cave in which he could hide himself from the Red Indians who were lurking behind the curtains. He put his ear to the floor and listened to the herd of buffaloes that raced across the prairie. Presently, hearing the door open, he held his breath so that he might not be discovered; but a violent hand pulled away a chair and the cushions fell down.

'You naughty boy, Miss Watkin will be cross with you.'

'Hulloa, Emma!' he said.

The nurse bent down and kissed him, then began to shake out the cushions, and put them back in their places.

'Am I to come home?' he asked.

'Yes, I've come to fetch you.'

'You've got a new dress on.'

It was in 1885, and she wore a bustle. Her gown was of black velvet, with tight sleeves and sloping shoulders, and the skirt had three large flounces. She wore a black bonnet with velvet strings. She hesitated. The question she had expected did not come, and so she could not give the answer she had prepared.

'Aren't you going to ask how your mamma is?' she said at length.

'Oh, I forgot. How is mamma?'

Now she was ready.

'Your mamma is quite well and happy.'

'Oh, I am glad.'

'Your mamma's gone away. You won't ever see her any more.'

Philip did not know what she meant.

'Why not?'

'Your mamma's in heaven.'

She began to cry, and Philip, though he did not quite understand, cried too. Emma was a tall, big-boned woman, with fair hair and large features. She came from Devonshire and, notwithstanding her many years of service in London, had never lost the breadth of her accent. Her tears increased her emotion, and she pressed the little boy to her heart. She felt vaguely the pity of that child deprived of the only love in the world that is quite unselfish. It seemed dreadful that he must be handed over to strangers. But in a little while she pulled herself together.

'Your Uncle William is waiting in to see you,' she said. 'Go and say good-bye to Miss Watkin, and we'll go home.'

'I don't want to say good-bye,' he answered, instinctively anxious to hide his tears.

'Very well, run upstairs and get your hat.'

He fetched it, and when he came down Emma was waiting for him in the hall. He heard the sound of voices in the study behind the dining-room. He paused. He knew that Miss Watkin and her sister were talking to friends, and it seemed to him—he was nine years old—that if he went in they would be sorry for him.

'I think I'll go and say good-bye to Miss Watkin.'

'I think you'd better,' said Emma.

'Go in and tell them I'm coming,' he said.

He wished to make the most of his opportunity. Emma knocked at the door and walked in. He heard her speak.

'Master Philip wants to say good-bye to you, miss.'

There was a sudden hush of the conversation, and Philip limped in. Henrietta Watkin was a stout woman, with a red face and dyed hair. In those days to dye the hair excited comment, and Philip had heard much gossip at home when his godmother's changed colour. She lived with an elder sister, who had resigned herself contentedly to old age. Two ladies, whom Philip did not know, were calling, and they looked at him curiously.

'My poor child,' said Miss Watkin, opening her arms.

She began to cry. Philip understood now why she had not been in to luncheon and why she wore a black dress. She could not speak.

'I've got to go home,' said Philip, at last.

He disengaged himself from Miss Watkin's arms, and she kissed him again. Then he went to her sister and bade her good-bye too. One of the strange ladies asked if she might kiss him, and he gravely gave her permission. Though crying, he keenly enjoyed the sensation he was causing; he would have been glad to stay a little longer to be made so much of, but felt they expected him to go, so he said that Emma was waiting for him. He went out of the room. Emma had gone downstairs to speak with a friend in the basement, and he waited for her on the landing. He heard Henrietta Watkin's voice.

'His mother was my greatest friend. I can't bear to think that she's dead.'

'You oughtn't to have gone to the funeral, Henrietta,' said her sister. 'I knew it would upset you.'
Then one of the strangers spoke.

'Poor little boy, it's dreadful to think of him quite alone in the world. I see he limps.'

'Yes, he's got a club-foot. It was such a grief to his mother.'

Then Emma came back. They called a hansom, and she told the driver where to go.


III


WHEN THEY reached the house Mrs. Carey had died in—it was in a dreary, respectable street between Notting Hill Gate and High Street, Kensington—Emma led Philip into the drawing-room. His uncle was writing letters of thanks for the wreaths which had been sent. One of them, which had arrived too late for the funeral, lay in its cardboard box on the hall-table.

'Here's Master Philip,' said Emma.

Mr. Carey stood up slowly and shook hands with the little boy. Then on second thoughts he bent down and kissed his forehead. He was a man of somewhat less than average height, inclined to corpulence, with his hair, worn long, arranged over the scalp so as to conceal his baldness. He was clean-shaven. His features were regular, and it was possible to imagine that in his youth he had been good-looking. On his watch-chain he wore a gold cross.

'You're going to live with me now, Philip,' said Mr. Carey. 'Shall you like that?'

Two years before Philip had been sent down to stay at the vicarage after an attack of chicken-pox; but there remained with him a recollection of an attic and a large garden rather than of his uncle and aunt.

'Yes.'

'You must look upon me and your Aunt Louisa as your father and mother.'

The child's mouth trembled a little, he reddened, but did not answer.

'Your dear mother left you in my charge.'

Mr. Carey had no great ease in expressing himself. When the news came that his sister-in-law was dying, he set off at once for London, but on the way thought of nothing but the disturbance in his life that would be caused if her death forced him to undertake the care of her son. He was well over fifty, and his wife, to whom he had been married for thirty years, was childless; he did not look forward with any pleasure to the presence of a small boy who might be noisy and rough. He had never much liked his sister-in-law.

'I'm going to take you down to Blackstable tomorrow,' he said.

'With Emma?'

The child put his hand in hers, and she pressed it.

'I'm afraid Emma must go away,' said Mr. Carey.

'But I want Emma to come with me.'

Philip began to cry, and the nurse could not help crying too. Mr. Carey looked at them helplessly.
'I think you'd better leave me alone with Master Philip for a moment.'

'Very good, sir.'

Though Philip clung to her, she released herself gently. Mr. Carey took the boy on his knee and put his arm round him.

'You mustn't cry,' he said. 'You're too old to have a nurse now. We must see about sending you to school.'

'I want Emma to come with me,' the child repeated.

'It costs too much money, Philip. Your father didn't leave very much, and I don't know what's become of it. You must look at every penny you spend.'

Mr. Carey had called the day before on the family solicitor. Philip's father was a surgeon in good practice, and his hospital appointments suggested an established position; so that it was a surprise on his sudden death from blood-poisoning to find that he had left his widow little more than his life insurance and what could be got from the lease of their house in Bruton Street. This was six months ago; and Mrs. Carey, already in delicate health, finding herself with child, had lost her head and accepted for the lease the first offer that was made. She stored her furniture, and, at a rent which the parson thought outrageous, took a furnished house for a year, so that she might suffer from no inconvenience till her child was born. But she had never been used to the management of money, and was unable to adapt her expenditure to her altered circumstances. The little she had slipped through her fingers in one way and another, so that now, when all expenses were paid, not much more than two thousand pounds remained to support the boy till he was able to earn his own living. It was impossible to explain all this to Philip and he was sobbing still.

'You'd better go to Emma,' Mr. Carey said, feeling that she could console the child better than anyone.

Without a word Philip slipped off his uncle's knee, but Mr. Carey stopped him.

'We must go tomorrow, because on Saturday I've got to prepare my sermon, and you must tell Emma to get your things ready today. You can bring all your toys. And if you want anything to remember your father and mother by you can take one thing for each of them. Everything else is going to be sold.'

The boy slipped out of the room. Mr. Carey was unused to work, and he turned to his correspondence with resentment. On one side of the desk was a bundle of bills, and these filled him with irritation. One especially seemed preposterous. Immediately after Mrs. Carey's death Emma had ordered from the florist masses of white flowers for the room in which the dead woman lay. It was sheer waste of money. Emma took far too much upon herself. Even if there had been no financial necessity, he would have dismissed her.

But Philip went to her, and hid his face in her bosom, and wept as though his heart would break. And she, feeling that he was almost her own son—she had taken him when he was a month old—consoled him with soft words. She promised that she would come and see him sometimes, and that she would never forget him; and she told him about the country he was going to and about her own home in Devonshire—her father kept a turnpike on the high-road that led to Exeter, and there were pigs in the sty, and there was a cow, and the cow had just had a calf—till Philip forgot his tears and grew excited at the thought of his approaching journey. Presently she put him down, for there was much to be done, and he helped her to lay out his clothes on the bed. She sent him into the nursery to gather up his toys, and in a little while he was playing happily.

What People are Saying About This

Abraham Verghese

This is the book that first stirred my passion for medicine when I was just twelve.

Reading Group Guide

INTRODUCTION

Of Human Bondage is a bildungsroman made unique by W. Somerset Maugham's minute dissection of the limitations of individual freedom. The novel delineates the coming of age of Philip Carey, an orphan with a clubfoot. Raised by his aunt and uncle, a vicar, Philip grows up under the rules of their house and church. He is tormented at school but excels academically and even aspires to be an ordained minister. Just before graduation, he takes off for a year in Heidelberg, where he is plunged into a world of ideas and succumbs to religious skepticism. But he finds nothing to replace his religion or his identity as an English gentleman. Attempting to fill in the blanks and follow his true nature, Philip struggles by trial and error to establish a philosophy for himself. The novel relates the weight of each failure, each disappointment that Philip endures, in realistic detail. As a result, Maugham convincingly shows a sensitive young man's battle to eliminate the constraints imposed on him so that he may live freely, but at the conclusion of the novel, it is unclear whether Philip ever attains the freedom he desires—and whether Maugham's title, Of Human Bondage, suggests that humanity's natural state of being is one of freedom or rather one of perpetual restriction.

When Philip breaks from religion, he takes a bold first step toward transforming himself. Philip's inner nature, without any conscious effort on his part, asserts itself: "He was surprised at himself because he ceased to believe so easily, and, not knowing that he felt as he did on account of the subtle workings of his inmost nature, he ascribed the certainty he had reached to his own cleverness" (p. 118). Philip loses his faith as a result of the buildup of years of repression imposed on him while living in his uncle's vicarage and while attending King's School. In both places, Philip's pious caretakers often treat him with indifferent cruelty. The reality that Philip experiences does not match the professed ideals of his religion. For example, Philip believes that Weeks, an American he meets in Heidelberg, is a kind man who leads a life of Christian purity, but knows that the Church of England considers any "unbeliever" to be "a wicked and a vicious man" (p. 115). Philip comes to his own conclusion: "It was evidently possible to be virtuous and unbelieving" (p. 115). When Philip renounces his religion, the narrator pauses to comment on youth's shedding of illusion: "It looks as if they were victims of a conspiracy; for the books they read, ideal by the necessity of selection, and the conversation of their elders, who look back upon the past through a rosy haze of forgetfulness, prepare them for an unreal life" (p. 121). But just because Philip sheds one unrealistic ideal does not guarantee that he won't fall for the next one. For we are told that "the strange thing is that each one who has gone through that bitter disillusionment adds to it in his turn, unconsciously, by the power within him which is stronger than himself" (p. 121). Philip frees himself from a religious upbringing that he realizes contradicts his reality. But what does he replace it with?

Philip's preoccupation with freeing his spirit leads him to read philosophy in order to find "some guide by which he could rule his conduct" (p. 257), but he ultimately decides to become his own philosopher. Reflecting on the varied experiences and ideas he discovered during his failed attempts to become a chartered accountant and then a painter, Philip comes to the conclusion that sin is "a prejudice from which the free man should rid himself" (p. 259), and that a "free man can do no wrong" (p. 260). His failed attempts at finding an occupation are not without their benefits. Once he enters medical school to begin his third attempt at a vocation, Philip has pieced together a philosophy, albeit an incomplete one. He doesn't believe in right or wrong, yearns to discover the intention of the soul, and is still trying to define a mode of conduct and the meaning of life. At this point in the novel, it is important to wonder whether Philip's fragmentary philosophy affects how he lives: whether it helps him free his inner nature or merely restricts it in a different way.

Philip's obsession with Mildred, a selfish, vulgar woman with few redeeming qualities, may at first seem odd given his desire for complete freedom. But his affair with her can be seen as an unconscious attempt to escape an idea and an expectation he finds confining: the attainment of happiness. Mildred takes advantage of Philip's generosity, yet he purposefully subjects himself to continued torture from her, despite his recognition of her shortcomings and the fact that he is often repulsed by her. Considering Philip's incomplete philosophy, failed attempts at work, and bad beginning as a medical student, his love affair at this point in the book may reflect his failure to find a way of life that is meaningful to him. When he begins his affair with Norah after Mildred leaves him for another man, Philip realizes how happy Norah makes him. Yet Philip leaves Norah and goes back to his misery with Mildred: "He would rather have misery with one than happiness with the other" (p. 338).

The desire for happiness is, finally, the last ideal that Philip casts aside in his pursuit of freedom. When he realizes that "his life had seemed horrible when it was measured by its happiness" and that "it might be measured by something else" (p. 525), he disowns his desire to be happy and in turn is happy. But what is this something else by which life might be measured? Perhaps it is his belief that the pattern one chooses to follow in life determines the meaning of one's life. In the end, when he decides to marry Sally, Philip chooses "the simplest pattern, that in which a man was born, worked, married, had children, and died" (p. 606-607). And with this decision to pursue the mundane—a departure from the typical bildungsroman in which the sensitive protagonist turns out to be an artist or otherwise realize his potential—we are told, "It might be that to surrender to happiness was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories" (p. 607).

ABOUT W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

William Somerset Maugham was born in Paris to British parents on January 25, 1874. There are many parallels between his life and that of his protagonist in Of Human Bondage. Like Philip Carey, Maugham lost both his parents at an early age and was sent to live with his uncle (a vicar) and aunt in England. As a boy at King's School in Canterbury, Maugham suffered from bullying and the insensitivity of others. A severe stutter hampered him socially, and he retreated into his studies. Rather than finishing school and continuing on to Oxford, Maugham rebelled against his guardian's wishes and, like Philip, spent time as an unregistered student at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. Returning to England, Maugham entered St. Thomas's medical school to appease his aunt and uncle, but he had already decided he would be a writer. He earned a medical degree but never practiced. His first novel, Liza of Lambeth, was published in 1897, the same year he graduated.

Maugham's writing career spanned sixty-five years, during which time he was quite prolific. Although he began as a novelist, his first popular success was as a dramatist. Maugham quit writing plays, however, when contemporary preferences in the genre changed, deciding to concentrate on novels and short stories instead. Among Maugham's many works, Of Human Bondage (1915), The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Cakes and Ale; or, The Skeleton in the Cupboard (1930), and The Razor's Edge (1944) are considered his greatest. Maugham died in France in 1965.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

When Mr. Perkins, the headmaster of King's School, tries to persuade Philip to go to Oxford, we are told that Philip "felt himself slipping. He was powerless against the weakness that seemed to well up in him" (p. 81). Is Philip's refusal to be ordained or to at least go to Oxford a weakness or a strength?
 

While Hayward believes in "the Whole, the Good, and the Beautiful" (p. 112), Weeks, defining himself as a Unitarian, says he "believes in almost everything that anybody else believes" (p. 114). How do these two outlooks compare with each other and with Philip's interpretation, at the end of the novel, of the Persian carpet design as a metaphor for the meaning of life?
 

After realizing that he no longer believes in God, why does Philip say to himself, "If there is a God after all and He punishes me because I honestly don't believe in Him I can't help it" (p. 119)?
 

When Philip starts to see how reality differs from his ideals, the narrator says that the young "must discover for themselves that all they have read and all they have been told are lies, lies, lies; and each discovery is another nail driven into the body on the cross of life" (p. 121). Why does Maugham use a religious image associated with Christ's suffering to describe the suffering of disillusionment?
 

When discussing Philip's initial disillusionment, the narrator says, "The strange thing is that each one who has gone through that bitter disillusionment adds to it in his turn, unconsciously, by the power within him which is stronger than himself" (p. 121). What is this power?
 

After Philip leaves Heidelberg, why does the narrator tell us that Philip "never knew that he had been happy there" (p. 130)?
 

Why does Philip subject himself with masochistic obstinacy to Mildred's cruelty?
 

Do Philip's life choices reflect Cronshaw's theory about pleasure being the only motive for human action?
 

Why is Philip happy when he casts aside his desire for happiness?
 

Why does Philip think of "the words of the dying God" (p. 604) as he forgives humanity's defects, Griffiths's treachery, and Mildred's cruelty?
 

Why does Maugham end the novel with Philip and Sally's engagement?
 

Does Philip ever rid himself of idealism?
 

At the end of the novel, are we meant to think that Philip has found the freedom he has been looking for?

FOR FURTHER REFLECTI0N

How much control do we have over whether or not we are happy?
 

Is it possible to live without ideals?
 

Can self-control be "as passionate and as active as the surrender to passion" (p. 437)?

RELATED TITLES

Theodore Dreiser, An American Tragedy (1925)
Drawn to the empty promises made to him by a malignant society, Clyde Griffiths, the doomed protagonist of this central work of naturalism, is driven to commit murder to further his ambitions.

Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd (1874)
Headstrong Bathsheba Everdene vainly rebukes Gabriel Oak's love for her and involves herself instead with two suitors who bring her tragic misfortune.

Henry James, The American (1877)
When American millionaire Christopher Newman courts French aristocrat Claire de Cintré, he learns that he must win over her proud family, the de Bellegardes, as well.

D. H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers (1913)
Paul Morel, a talented artist, is unsuccessful in love twice, and he struggles to be free of his mother's dominating influence.

Editorial Reviews

A gorgeous read, as interesting and valuable at the beginning as at the end...compact with the experiences, the dreams, the hopes, the fears, the disillusionment, the ruptures, and the philosophizing of a strangely starved soul, it is a beacon light by which the wanderer may be guided. -- The New Republic

New Republic

A gorgeous read, as interesting and valuable at the beginning as at the end. Compact of the experiences, the dreams, the hopes, the fears, the disillusionments, the ruptures, and the philosophizing of a strangely starved soul, it is a beacon light by which the wanderer may be guided.
— The New Republic

Theodore Dreiser

A superb storyteller - one of the very best in our language—Daily Mail

The modern writer who has influenced me most—George Orwell

Maugham has given infinite pleasure and left us a splendour of writing which will remain for as long as the written English word is permitted to exist—Daily Telegraph

This semi-autobiographical novel, set at the end of the 19th century, gripped me from the start with its tale of the life of Philip Carey. Its depiction of how a man can become enslaved by an unsuitable love is unsparing—Christopher Simon Sykes, The Week

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