The Bondage of Philip Carey in W. Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage

How does one obtain freedom from bondage? First of all, bondage is a restraint on someone’s life, emotions, or ideals that leaves them despondent and depressed. However, once the shackles have been unlocked, a person that deals with the chains of an abusive spouse or of a deceased loved one, for example, can now walk out of the cold, dark dungeon into the light, ready to start the first day of the rest of his life. One literary character achieves this freedom. In Of Human Bondage, W. Somerset Maugham portrays, through the main character of Philip Carey, spiritual and sexual bonds that are ultimately broken.

Carey’s only spiritual bondage comes from perhaps the biggest and most widely known religion of all time: Christianity. After his mother’s death, Philip is put into the care of his uncle, a strict-orthodox Christian vicar. Not knowing much about Christianity, Philip is harshly taught by his uncle a somewhat hypocritical view of Christianity, in that even though Christians are taught to love one another, the Vicar negatively gossips about most of the people in the town. Philip’s first test of his faith occurs when he thinks up the notion to pray for the healing of his club foot. He makes a logical commandment within himself that, “If God had not cured him, it was because he did not really believe” (Maugham 55). When he wakes up on the day he believes it to be healed, he finds that it is not. He then comes to the realization that, “I suppose no one ever has faith enough” (Maugham 55). It is here that Carey first experiences his spiritual bond being broken: he believes, he prays; but he is not healed.

Due to not only God’s failure to heal his foot but also his uncle’s actions towards him, Philip decides, in his early ...

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... where he is right now, enjoying the freedom to make his own life choices without any type of subjugation to tell him otherwise.

Works Cited

Amis, Kingsley. "Mr. Maugham's Notions." W. Somerset Maugham 7 July 1961: 1908.

Archer, Stanley. "W. Somerset Maugham." 2010. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ifh&AN=103331CSLF14270140000288&site=Irc-live. 9 April 2014.

Bloom, Harold. "W. Somerset Maugham." Bloom, Harold. The Chelsea House Library of Literary Criticism. New York City: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987. 1887.

Maugham, W. Somerset. Of Human Bondage. Great Britain: Penguin Books, 1992.

Neilson, Keith. "Of Human Bondage." Magill, Frank N. Masterplots. Pasadena: Salem Press, Inc., 1996. 4617-4618.

Rood, Karen L. "W. Somerset Maugham." Rood, Karen L. Concise Dictionary of British Literary Biography. Detroit: Gale Research, Inc., 1991. 277,279.