Of Human Bondage

Of Human Bondage, published in 1915, is one of W. Somerset Maugham’s most celebrated novels. Often described as autobiographical, it is a coming‑of‑age story about a young orphan burdened by a physical deformity and a deep sense of insecurity.

Philip Carey is born with a clubfoot and loses both parents at an early age. Raised by his uncle and aunt, he grows up painfully aware of his deformity. At the divinity school he becomes the target of mockery, and the experience causes him to lose his religious faith. He studies in Germany for a time, then works as an apprentice accountant, but abandons the job after a year and moves to Paris to study art. Eventually he realizes he lacks real artistic talent and returns to London, deciding to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a doctor.

One day he meets Mildred, a café waitress, and falls hopelessly in love with her. Mildred is calculating and self‑interested; she uses Philip whenever it suits her. His love for her is unrequited and ultimately self‑destructive.

People with physical disabilities often struggle with feelings of inferiority, humiliation, and emotional vulnerability—experiences known only to themselves. Such wounds inevitably shape their personalities. Philip is no exception: he is painfully sensitive to curious glances and imagined judgments. Yet he, too, is imperfect; at times he behaves with almost comical selfishness.

Five women play important roles in Philip’s life. In Germany he falls for Miss Wilkinson and boldly kisses her, but once she returns his affection, he quickly discards her because she is not young—she is thirty‑seven. In Paris, Fanny Price, a fellow art student, is kind to him and loves him deeply, but she is plain, dowdy, and untalented. 

Philip cannot love her, and she eventually commits suicide in poverty. Back in London, he nearly loses himself in his obsessive love for Mildred. After she abandons him, he is comforted by Norah, a novelist whose gentle, maternal affection helps him recover. But when Mildred reappears, he cruelly leaves Norah behind. Later, when he loses all his money in a failed investment and can no longer continue his medical studies, he even finds himself hoping for his uncle’s death so he might inherit enough to survive. After his uncle dies and Philip finally qualifies as a doctor, he discovers a quiet, genuine love for Sally, a young woman of warmth and kindness.

The novel’s central theme is expressed by Cronshaw, an aging poet Philip befriends in Paris. Life, he says, has no inherent meaning or purpose. Each person creates only a pattern—like the intricate design of a Persian carpet. What real significance is there in wealth, honor, artistic achievement, or the memories we leave behind?

The title Of Human Bondage comes from Part Four of Spinoza’s Ethics:

 “The impotence of man to govern or restrain the affects I call bondage, for a man who is under their control is not his own master… he is often forced to follow the worse, although he sees the better before him.”

Philip is bound by his inferiority complex, by his clubfoot, and by his destructive love for Mildred. Only when he frees himself from these forms of bondage can he begin a new life.