Of Human Bondage

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1915

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-21

Chapters 22-53

Chapters 54-78

Chapters 79-101

Chapters 102-122

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Symbols & Motifs

Philip’s Clubfoot

Philip is born with clubfoot, a congenital condition in which a foot is twisted inward. This disability impacts his ability to run or move quickly, and he has to wear special shoes and walk with a limp. Philip’s clubfoot symbolizes his persistent belief that he is different and alienated from other people and also symbolizes his conflicted relationship with masculinity.

Philip is physically different from many of the people around him, and he internalizes and projects this difference, believing that he is unlovable and incapable of sustaining and forming close bonds. Especially as a child, Philip is often treated differently and sometimes mocked. His disability symbolizes a vicious cycle in which Philip’s defensiveness and insecurity exacerbates the way in which he is treated: He assumes people will be cruel to him and often finds himself proven correct.

Philip’s disability symbolizes how he especially feels excluded from masculine norms at the time: When Philip is growing up, the expectation to participate in athletic activities, and be capable of serving in the military if necessary, are significant markers of masculinity, and he is excluded from these. Philip’s disability also limits his career choices: “[T]here were only four professions for a gentleman, the Army, the Navy, the Law, and the Church […] [for Philip], the first two were out of the question” (136). This limitation further serves to give him the sense that he is different from other young men of a comparable social class.

Fanny Price’s Brown Dress

Fanny Price, an art student whom Philip studies alongside of in Paris, always wears the same shabby and ugly brown dress. The dress symbolizes The Dangers of Financial Instability and Philip’s increasing fear of poverty.

When Philip first gets to know Fanny, he notices that “she w[ears] every day the same ugly brown dress, with the mud of the last wet day still caked on the hem” (213). Philip at first naively and judgmentally assumes Fanny simply doesn’t care about her appearance, which symbolizes his class privilege. It is only after Fanny’s death that Philip realizes that “there were no other clothes than the shabby brown dress” (232). The dress symbolizes how poverty limits one’s choices and reduces life to a monotonous grind; it also symbolizes how difficult it is to change one’s circumstances once one is trapped in poverty. The symbolism of Fanny wearing the same ugly dress every day contradicts any ideas Philip might have had of poverty being a romantic or bohemian experience. After seeing Fanny’s fate, Philip becomes much more fearful of encountering a similar fate and eventually gives up studying art because he does not want to face the same life.

The National Gallery

At the end of the novel, Philip and Sally meet at the National Gallery, an important art gallery located in Trafalgar Square in central London. This is the location where Sally tells Philip that she isn’t pregnant and Philip has his revelation that he wants to settle down and marry her nonetheless. The Gallery symbolizes how art has played a significant but varying role in Philip’s development throughout his life. When he is young, he is often inspired by art and works of literature to pursue dreams of greatness, imagining that he has to reject social norms such as marriage and raising a family. Eventually, Philip realizes that he is not as different and unconventional as he thought—he actually wants quite a traditional life.

The fact that Philip has this realization in a location dedicated to preserving and displaying some of the most important artworks in history symbolizes how Philip’s Appreciation of Art and Beauty becomes integrated into his identity. Rather than seeing art as something he has to make huge sacrifices to pursue, Philip realizes that loving art and beauty can coexist with more mundane activities like working a steady job and raising a family. Even if he pursues these activities, his love of art is not going to change, and his appreciation of beauty will continue to enhance his life.