Of Human Bondage Explores A Complex Inner Life

W. Somerset Maugham’s novel, Of Human Bondage, was published in 1915. On the surface, it’s a rather drab story about an impressionable young man’s coming of age during the waning years of the Victorian era. The main character, Philip Carey, is born with a club foot and is orphaned at nine, then is sent to live with his stodgy aunt and uncle. Philip goes to boarding school and ignores his uncle’s pleas to attend Oxford, opting instead to travel to Germany, and later to Paris where he aspires to be a painter. After Paris, Philip returns to England to study to become a doctor. The action limps along without fireworks; most of the drama happens in Philip’s mind as he follows his passions and instincts rather than a careful life plan. Maugham writes: “he [Philip] seemed to see that the inward life might be as manifold, as varied, as rich with experience, as the life of one who conquered realms and explored unknown lands.” After Philip returns to England, he becomes infatuated with Mildred, a waitress at a tea shop. Mildred treats Philip horribly, and yet he can’t stop pursuing her. Mildred flits in and out of Philip’s life at different times, but her indifference and cruelty remain constant. (This is the most accurate account of unrequited love I’ve ever encountered in fiction.) One of my favourite sections in the novel is when Philip is introduced to the work of the Greek painter, El Greco (1541 - 1614). Philip has sympathy with El Greco who expresses the yearnings of his soul, and sees in the painter a new way of interpreting the world. The eyes of his subjects “look only in their hearts, and they are dazzled by the glory of the unseen.” Philip’s musings about El Greco continue for five pages, but this narrative detour is sheer delight. With simple language, subtle dialogue and slow, deliberate pacing, Of Human Bondage is a powerful story that captures the complex inner life of a man searching for truth, beauty and adventure, with his ragged hopes, fears, longings, demons and shortcomings, laid bare.