An Analysis Of Of Human Bondage From The Perspective Of Naturalism

William Somerset Maugham?1874-1965?,a well-known writer and playwright of modern Britain.He is a miracle in the arena of British literature in the 20^th century.During 65 years of his literature career,Maugham has written about 20 novels,32 plays and more than 100 short stories.All his achievements in literature have reflected his rich and colorful life.He insists on that writers should create works based on their own experience.As the novelist who stands on the crossroad of the modern and conventional times,Maugham has inherited the realistic tradition from the English literature and is deeply influenced by naturalism.Of Human Bondage is regarded as one of Maugham's representative works,which embodies the author's humorous and sharp style.It shows a real picture of the society and people from different classes through the protagonist's eyes.Philip's sufferings reflect the real life of people in the 20^th century.His tragic fate is determined by his times.People are facing a mental crisis with the disintegration of traditional religion,morality and culture.The hypocritical optimistic atmosphere of Victorian Age has gone.The western civilization has led people to the hopeless despair.It presents a gloomy picture in which the real world is full of absurdity and people driven by fate wander around the endless dark abyss.It also contains a deep theme about life,which reveals the bondages of religion,education and poverty upon people's development.Based on naturalism,this paper makes a whole analysis on the theme of this half-autobiographic novel and the naturalistic features of the novel,which gives the readers a complete understanding of the author's thought and inspires them to think about life and freedom.This thesis consists of an introduction,the main body and a conclusion.Its main contents are as follows:The first part is introduction,which mainly makes a brief summary of Maugham's background and then analyzes the current situation of the study and research of Maugham's works.It also puts forward the topics to be discussed of this paper and the realistic significance of the paper.The second part is the main body,which is made up of three chapters:Chapter One mainly probes the basic theory of naturalism and the general introduction of Maugham and Of Human Bondage,which makes the readers fully understand the background in order to better to get to know the theme.It first focuses on the establishment of naturalism.And then it states that the novel is autobiographic by pointing out the differences between Maugham and Philip.In the end,it reveals the origin of Maugham's naturalistic tendency from three aspects:Development of Society,Literary Tradition and Personal Life Experience.Chapter Two analyzes naturalistic characteristics in Of Human Bondage.From the perspective of naturalism,men are connected with each other in the sense of living creatures whose sexual instinct can be seen as the unique bond between men and women.This paper has analyzed the naturalistic characters in three aspects:men are driven by instincts;men are determined by environment;the huge influence of the physical defect on Philip.At last,this chapter points out the deep theme and life philosophy by explaining the significances of Philip's free choices.Chapter Three reveals the theme of the novel“break the bondages,pursue freedom”based on the analysis of the naturalistic features in the novel.There are three bondages described in this paper which are the bondages of the religion,desire for sex and money.While Philip has abandoned religion and escaped from the bondages of sex and money,he struggles hard to find out the meaning of life.The last part is conclusion,which makes a summary to the preceding critique,and points out the main purpose of this thesis.This novel is about Philip's life from childhood to middle-age,reflecting his transition from a young boy who suffers from pain and confusion to a mature man who breaks out the bondages of human weakness to pursue the meaning of life and the spiritual liberation.Philip is a typical character who not only reflects his times,but a microcosm of modern people who face the same problems such as loss of faith,confusion of relationship and poverty and try to change themselves and the world in order to achieve their fulfillment.After reading this classic novel,one will have a second thought about life and examine himself by asking the values of self-existence and how to achieve a perfect realm of life.