Of Human Bondage

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Of Human Bondage

by W. Somerset Maugham

THE LITERARY WORK

A novel set in England and Europe from 1885 to 1906; published in 1915.

SYNOPSIS

Philip Carey, orphaned at the age of nine, is sent to live with his aunt and uncle. The alienation he experiences at school and the restrictions placed on him by his guardians leave Philip feeling bitter and restless; at the age of eighteen he strikes out to discover the world—and himself,

Events in History at the Time of the Novel

The Novel in Focus

For More Information

William Somerset Maugham, born in 1874, was orphaned at the age of ten and placed under the guardianship of his uncle, the vicar of All Saints’ Church in Whitestable. Driven by a restless craving for freedom, Maugham experimented with a host of identities and occupations while growing into manhood. These formative experiences later served as the basis for Of Human Bondage.

Events in History at the Time of the Novel

Clubfoot

Also known as talipes, clubfoot is a congenital deformity in which the foot is twisted out of shape or position. Although readers of Maugham’s novel are never told the details of the main character’s clubfoot, there are in fact at least nine different forms of talipes. In Maugham’s time doctors still had only partial treatments at their disposal; only in later generations would it become possible to correct clubfoot in infancy by manipulation, braces, and casts, and in severe cases by surgery.

Bildungsroman

A German word, Bildungsroman means “novel of education” or “novel of apprenticeship.” The term was first used in reference to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s novel Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship (1796), which relates Wilhelm’s progress from a naive, excitable youth to responsible manhood. The term was later applied to any novel that traced the personal development of a single individual, usually a youth. Susanne Howe elaborates on such stories in the introduction to Maugham’s novel. Typically, the adolescent hero of the Bildungsroman “sets out on his way through the world … falls in with various guides and counselors, makes many false starts choosing his friends, his wife, and his life work, and finally adjusts himself … by finding a sphere of action in which he may work effectively” (Howe in Maurice Maugham, p. xii). The Bildungsroman was an extremely popular literary form during Maugham’s time. Other prominent examples of this kind of novel include Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield (1850), D. H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers (1913; also covered in Literature and Its Times), James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916; also covered in Literature and Its Times), and Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain (1924).

Educational reform in nineteenth-century England

Throughout the middle ages, elementary English education was under the complete control of the church (Cruickshank, p. 1). At the secondary level and at England’s two universities (Oxford and Cambridge), religion had long been regarded as the basis of all education, and the curriculum remained relatively fixed, with emphasis given to moral philosophy, mathematics, and classical studies. But in the nineteenth century, things began to change. The rise of the age of applied science and industrial expansion resulted in a call for the pursuit of so-called “useful” knowledge.

The push for educational change came from several quarters. Populist movements such as the Chartists, a group dedicated to improving the lot of working men, helped to establish publicly supported “technical” schools for working-class children. These schools emphasized practical subjects such as economics, mechanical drawing, and chemistry.

Another factor contributing to educational change was the growing power of the Noncom-formists—dissenters from the Church of England, a motley coalition of various radical groups. In a direct confrontation with clerical rule, these otherwise disparate groups banded together in 1828 to establish London University, the purpose of which was to take a neutral stance toward religious education, offering secular, or nonreligious, courses such as languages, physics, the mental and moral sciences, law, and history. The rise of secularism, which accompanied the Industrial Revolution, and which was punctuated by the publication of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859, only fed the fire of debate between the dissenters and the church. In Of Human Bondage, this conflict plays itself out at King’s School, where Philip is educated. Though it “prided itself on its antiquity” (Maugham, Of Human Bondage, p. 56), the school nevertheless had to confront the inevitability of change embodied in the character of the new headmaster, Mr. Perkins.

Agnosticism

Philip loses religious faith in the novel when he undergoes intellectual indoctrination in Heidelberg. His experience here reflects a widespread nineteenth-century movement called agnosticism, which gained currency not only among the late Victorians in England, but in Europe as a whole. Closely associated with the Industrial Revolution and the rise of the theory of evolution, agnosticism holds that the existence of God cannot be logically proved or disproved. (This is not to be confused with atheism, which asserts that there is no God.) The term agnostic, a Greek word meaning “unknowing” or “unknowable,” was first coined by the English biologist and educator T. H. Huxley (1825-1895). Heavily influenced by the writings of Charles Darwin, Huxley doubted all things not immediately open to logical analysis and scientific verification. Other prominent popularizers of agnosticism included the English philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) and German biologist and philosopher Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919). The Life of Jesus, a book that Philip Carey reads in Of Human Bondage, was published in 1863 by French scholar Ernest Renan, who believed that no one system of religious, scientific, or historical knowledge could claim absolute truth. Interestingly, like both Maugham and the fictional Philip Carey, Renan was a student preparing to enter the clergy when he lost his faith in orthodox religion.

The art scene in Paris

The 1880s and 1890s were vigorous decades for the European artist, and Paris, with its studios, museums, galleries, and patrons, was the undisputed center of all artistic activity, attracting students from as far away as Russia to the east and the United States to the west. In 1886 critic Albert Wolff wrote of Paris as “the Capital of Art” (Milner, p. 25). Yet despite, or perhaps because of, all this activity, fame and wealth were difficult to come by in Paris, and life for the unknown artist could be extremely hard.

There were many studios to accommodate the artists who descended upon Paris, the oldest and most venerable among them being the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, which first opened its doors in 1648. In 1863 the Beaux-Arts set up the atelier (studio-teaching) system, which formed the backbone of French art education. The atelier system, in which a celebrated artist taught at his own studio, centered primarily on drawing and painting from a real-life model. The everyday practicalities of the atelier were controlled by the massier, a kind of chief student elected by his or her fellows (in Maugham’s novel, the massier is Mrs. Otter). Many renowned artists received their education under the atelier system at the Beaux-Arts, including Georges Seurat and Henri Matisse, to name just two. Other schools, such as Academic Julian (attended by Andre Derain and Pierre Bonnard), and independent teaching studios like Fernand Cormon’s atelier libre, or “free studio” (whose students included Toulouse-Lautrec, Emile Bernard, and Vincent Van Gogh), also used the atelier system but were less exclusive than Beaux-Arts and, unlike the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, accepted beginners who were willing to pay. In Of Human Bondage, Amitrano’s School, which admits Philip, who is a complete novice, more closely resembles these latter institutions than the Beaux-Arts.

THE LOUVRE

First established as la Musée de la République In 1793, the Louvre is one of the largest and most spectacular collections of art in the world. Having one’s work displayed there has always been regarded as the ultimate recognition of an artist’s abilities, and for two centuries, painters and sculptors from all over the world have come to Paris to be challenged and inspired by its vast repository of work.

The Novel in Focus

The plot

The novel opens with the death of Philip Carey’s mother. The nine-year-old boy is forced to leave London for the country town of Blackstable to live with his uncle William Carey, an Anglican vicar, and his aunt Louisa Carey. Despite being ostracized by his peers on account of his club foot and introverted nature, Philip excels at school, and it is decided for him that he will go to Oxford University and enter the clergy. But Philip yearns to forge his own destiny, and after a protracted fight with his uncle and headmaster he finally gains his freedom.

Philip travels to Germany, where he is boarded and educated in the home of Professor and Frau Erlin. Here he is exposed to the company of young women for the first time and to people from a wide range of backgrounds and points of view. After a year of social and intellectual indoctrination, and many philosophical discussions with his two friends Hayward and Weeks, Philip rejects Christianity and becomes an agnostic.

Upon returning to England, Philip has his first love affair with Miss Wilkinson, a woman at least ten years his senior. At the end of the summer they part tearfully, and Philip heads to London to become an apprentice to an accountant named Herbert Carter. But working in the business world proves miserable for Philip, and in his boredom he turns to drawing. When he is sent to Paris on business, he is so inspired by the artistic activity there that he quits his job. Using his Aunt Louisa’s savings, Philip returns to Paris to study art. He encounters a wide range of artistic types, most importantly an English woman named Fanny Price, whom he first sees posing nude for his class at Amitrano’s School. Fanny is attracted to Philip, but he has only pity for her. She is a tragic figure—a dedicated artist completely devoid of talent. Later, when Fanny Price commits suicide, Philip calls into question the values of a temperament that would lead a person to kill herself merely on account of mediocrity. Later, Philip is forced to come to grips with his own mediocrity, when his teacher Foinet tells him that his talent is not worth the struggle of an artist’s life.

Upon hearing of his Aunt Louisa’s death, Philip returns to England, where he decides to pursue medicine at St. Luke’s Hospital. It is at this time that Philip meets a woman named Mildred Rogers. Although Mildred is indifferent toward Philip, and he can see that she is shallow and selfish and not particularly beautiful, he nevertheless falls madly in love with her. Everything meaningful in his life diminishes into nothingness in the face of his obsession with Mildred. He spends what little money he has to support her fantasy of a respectable lifestyle. He fails an examination and is nearly dismissed from medical school. Finally, Philip proposes marriage to Mildred, who rejects him because he doesn’t have enough money to satisfy her. When he later discovers that she intends to marry a rival suitor, Philip feels crushed. He is, on the positive side, finally released from his enslavement to Mildred—at least for the time being.

With Mildred gone, Philip begins a romance with the pleasant Norah Nesbit, and his life begins to stabilize. But when Mildred returns, dejected and pregnant with another man’s child, Philip takes her back. Although Mildred is as selfish and shallow as ever, he continues to support and care for her, and after she has her baby, it is clear that he loves it more than she. Eventually Mildred falls in love with Griffith, Philip’s friend from medical school. Although it causes him great suffering, Philip recognizes the great passion Mildred has for Griffith and in an act of martyrdom pays for a weekend trip so that the two of them can be together. Mildred, of course, does not return.

As an outpatient’s clerk at the hospital, Philip witnesses new dimensions of human suffering, and discovers that he is a capable and compassionate doctor. He makes friends with Athelny, from whom he learns that humor can do much to soften the blows of life. After earning some money in the stock market, Philip pays for an operation to correct his clubfoot, although the cure is incomplete.

Mildred now enters his life once again. By this time, she is a prostitute. Although Philip takes her in and provides for her and her child, the passion he once felt for her is gone. His indifference is too much for Mildred to bear; in a fit of rage she destroys his apartment and flees. Soon afterward, Philip loses all his money in a stock market speculation. Unable to enlist in the army on account of his foot, he becomes a vagabond, and is saved from starvation by his friend Athelny. He gets a job as a floorwalker, supervising salespeople and assisting customers at a department store, a position that thrusts him into crushing boredom and a life of penury. Soon he begins to pray for the death of his uncle the vicar so that he may receive his inheritance and return to medical school.

Finally, the vicar dies, and Philip inherits the money necessary to finish medical school. Upon receiving his diploma, he goes to work in a small seaport village for Dr. South. Although he proves to be an excellent physician and Dr. South offers him a partnership, Philip’s intention is to go to Spain and then explore the world by ship. His plans change, however, when he gets Athelny’s daughter Sally pregnant. He decides to marry her and accept Dr. South’s partnership offer. In a final twist, Sally discovers that she is not pregnant after all. Philip is therefore free to embark on his overseas adventures. But he decides to marry Sally anyway, and the two of them settle down to a quiet life on the shore.

The many faces of bondage

As the title implies, Of Human Bondage is dominated by the issue of entrapment, of the human soul forever fighting to free itself of preset personal and social limitations. Maugham himself believed that every individual is inherently trapped in his or her own character: “We are the product of our chromosomes. And there’s nothing whatever we can do about it. All we can do is try to supplement our own deficiencies” (W. Somerset Maugham in Maurice Maugham, p. 54). This notion holds true in the case of Philip’s character, which remains shy and deferential throughout. It is also given concrete form in the novel by Philip’s clubfoot, a handicap that neither religious faith nor modern medicine can wholly eradicate.

Philip and the people whom he meets in the novel are forever grappling with various forms of constraints. For example, Philip’s Uncle Carey and Headmaster Mr. Perkins want to force Philip into a career in the church. Hedwig, a young girl in Heidelberg, cannot marry the man she loves because he is above her social class. Fanny Price is so committed to the ideal of the self-sacrificing artist that she would rather hang herself than confront her own mediocrity. Perhaps the most tragic case of all is that of Mildred Rogers, whose desperate desire to play the role of a respectable woman leads her to a bitter and tragic end.

Taken together, these examples offer a striking portrait of the narrowness and rigidity of society in nineteenth-century Europe. They suggest that an individual’s identity had far more to do with arbitrary external circumstances than the true nature of the self. Philip’s progress, however, offers a ray of hope. Although he will always be shy, introverted, and physically handicapped, he nevertheless manages to defy the limitations surrounding him. He proceeds to experiment with many social roles without succumbing to them and relinquishing his identity, until at last he discovers his true desire and lives his life accordingly. Historically speaking, Philip’s journey can be viewed as a kind of prototype of classical liberalism. Classical liberalism, which flourished in the nineteenth century and which found expression most notably in the writings of the English philosopher John Stuart Mill, had as its deepest principle the liberty of the individual person. The individual, in this view, was not simply formed by race, class, church, nation, or state but was ultimately independent of all such things (Palmer, p. 603).

Composition and sources

Of Human Bondage is an autobiographical novel. Although many details have been altered, the story of Philip’s maturation into manhood is essentially Maugham’s own. Maugham’s mother died when he was eight, and his father’s death followed two years later. Though he was not an only child as his character Philip is, with his three older brothers away at boarding school Maugham grew up as if he were one.

Philip’s clubfoot is analogous to Maugham’s stammer—a handicap that caused him much grief in his youth. Many scholars point out that the writing Of Human Bondage was an act of self-liberation: “There is evidence that Maugham began [the novel] in 1911 after the American playwright Edward Sheldon suggested that it might help him overcome the sense of inferiority caused by his stammer” (Calder, p. x).

Like Philip, Maugham left school in England to study and discover the world in Germany. And like Philip, he worked for a brief period as an apprentice to a chartered accountant in London, lived among artists in Paris (although he did not paint), and returned to England and enrolled in medical school. Below are just some of the many places and people in the novel that have counterparts in real life.

Fictional Place	Real-life Source
Blackstable	Whitestable
King’s School, Tercanbury	King’s School, Canterbury
Oxford	Cambridge
St. Luke’s Hospital	St. Thomas Hospital
Chien Noir	Chat Blanc

Fictional Place	Real-life Source
Vicar William Carey	Vicar Henry Maugham
Tom Perkins	Thomas Field
Flanagan	Penryhn Stanlaws
Cronshaw	J. W. Maurice

The source for Mildred Rogers is more complex. There was no corresponding woman in Maugham’s life, but many critics speculate that Philip’s obsessive relationship with the Cockney waitress in the novel was based on one of Maugham’s homosexual affairs.

Reviews

Of Human Bondage is now almost unanimously regarded as a classic, though initially it met with a mixed response. The novel was an instant success with the reading public, but the early critical appraisals were not quite so effusive. A review in The Dial described the book as “far from being, in the publisher’s phrase, ‘compellingly great,’ but, allowing once for all its inartistic method, it is at least a noteworthy piece of creative composition” (Fanning, p. 321). Theodore Dreiser, however, took a different tack in the New Republic: “To me at least it is a gorgeous weave, as interesting and valuable at the beginning as at the end” (Dreiser in Fanning, p. 321).