Of Human Bondage (Maugham)

Discussion Questions
1. 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?
 
2. 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?
 
3. 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)?
 
4. 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?
 
5. 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?
 
6. After Philip leaves Heidelberg, why does the narrator tell us that Philip "never knew that he had been happy there" (p. 130)?
 
7. Why does Philip subject himself with masochistic obstinacy to Mildred’s cruelty?
 
8. Do Philip’s life choices reflect Cronshaw’s theory about pleasure being the only motive for human action?
 
9. Why is Philip happy when he casts aside his desire for happiness?
 
10. 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?
 
11. Why does Maugham end the novel with Philip and Sally’s engagement?
 
12. Does Philip ever rid himself of idealism?
 
13. At the end of the novel, are we meant to think that Philip has found the freedom he has been looking for?
(Questions issued by Penguin Classics.)

top of page (summary)