analysis | Words of Margaux

Pages 90 to 135: In those few pages, Philip transitions from being completely immersed in the religious experience to becoming utterly repelled by it. When Phillip moves to Germany for a year and meets new friends who are not as religious as he had been, he starts to form new ideals. Those ideals led him to believe that one should not believe in a religion to begin with.

The author explains how his protagonist felt unbridled after shedding the necessity of belief, and how stupid he felt looking back at all the days and nights he went out of his way to satisfy his god. The author also explains how, after Philip stopped believing in religion, he still abode by the manner which Christianity taught him. It was as if he went out of his way to prove to himself that not all atheists had unethical behavior.

I would like to end this short post the same way I ended this section of the book, by quoting a certain passage that I especially enjoyed and found eternal wisdom in. It is written below in italic.

He did not know how wide a country, arid and precipitous, must be crossed before the traveler through life comes to an acceptance of reality. It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched, for they are full of the truthless ideals which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real they are bruised and wounded. It looks as if they were victims of a conspiracy; for the books they read, ideals by the necessity of selection, and the conversation of their elders, who look back upon the past through a rosy haze of forgetfulness, prepare them for an unreal life. They 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. 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.

As promised, I will not only post a review of the book Of Human Bondage, but will also post as elaborate analyses as I could without risking spoiling the story. Below is the synopsis of the book, as written in the back cover of my copy, followed by the analysis of the first 50 pages.

Synopsis: One of the great novels of the twentieth century. Of Human Bondage tells a fascinating tale of sexual obsession. The story follows Phillip Carey in his search for freedom from the strict, oppressive Christian upbringing he suffered as an orphan in an English vicarage. Phillip sets out on a journey that leads him to Heidelberg and to Paris. But it is back in London that Phillip’s enthrallment with Mildred – the slatternly, pale waitress who makes him slave to her desire – awakens him to the world of obsessive love, deep passion, and true self-discovery. The unforgettable love story is as timeless as it is involving, an intimate tale of human relationships that Theodore Dreiser called “a work of genius.”

First 50 pages: From the first pages of the book, I feel that I have already formed a bond with Phillip, the protagonist. The boy of mere nine years loses his mother after having lost his father, and is taken under the custody of his uncle. The uncle is a Vicar; he and his wife lead a strict religious regiment in their household.

It’s evident from the beginning that the barren woman has more sentiment for Phillip than the strict uncle. However, it’s also noticeable that the woman is strict with herself — she doesn’t allow herself to sit in the comfortable chair her husband sits in, fearing she would become too lazy to get back to work. The writer describes the gender roles in that family vividly, and allows the reader to sense the conformity the couple lives in.

When Philippe is sent to school, his troubles worsen. He is placed in the catholic school with mean older boy who make fun of his birth defect — a club foot. The description of the protagonist’s torment almost reduced me to tears. Anybody would relate to an innocent boy being bullied and tormented the way Philippe is.

As an introduction to the novel, the writer achieves two important things in his first fifty pages:

1) He introduced us to Phillip, and directly makes us sympathize with him, (Phillip is an orphan, who has a birth defect; he is living in a strict household and is sent away to a strict school where he is bullied).

2) He weaves the tangled web of events which would lead Phillip to eventually rebel against the religious and archaic regiment of his uncle’s upbringing and society’s traditions.

I can’t wait to share with you the layers I peeled of the characters’ personalities. This is a book I can’t seem to be able to put down.

Humor and Motivation for Writers and Other Dreamers