“Of Human Bondage” by W. Somerset Maugham (post 3): Philip, who both loves and despises Mildred, is self-contradictory

The most dramatic relationship in this 700-page semi-autobiographical novel is between Philip, the protagonist, and Mildred, whom he both loves (inexplicably) and despises (for good reasons).

True self-contradiction (not ordinary mixed feelings) is not seen in most people, whose personality is relatively consistent, but is characteristic of multiple personality, since alternate personalities have no difficulty contradicting each other.

In fact, Maugham said that he, himself (like most fiction writers), had multiple personality, as noted in a past post:

April 6, 2018

“The Summing Up” by W. Somerset Maugham: “The point of the writer is that he is not one man but many. It is because he is many that he can create many”

“Other men have been outraged on discovering, as they so often have, the discrepancy between the artist’s life and his work…

“But the point of the writer is that he is not one man but many. It is because he is many that he can create many, and the measure of his greatness is the number of selves that he comprises. When he fashions a character that does not carry conviction it is because there is in himself nothing of that person; he has had to fall back on observation, and so has only described, not begotten. The writer does not feel with; he feels in. It is not sympathy that he has, that too often results in sentimentality; he has what the psychologists call empathy. It is because Shakespeare had this to so great a degree that he was at once the most living and the least sentimental of authors. I think Goethe was the first writer to grow conscious of this multiple personality, and it troubled him all his life” (1, pp. 151-152).

Search "Goethe" for past posts.

Since “Of Human Bondage” is a novel, not an essay, it does not explicitly label Philip as having multiple personality, but the text does include comments that suggest multiple personality:

“But at the moment he had not been master of himself. It seemed that some devil had seized him forcing him to say bitter things against his will (2, p. 85).

“…but at the same time something else in him, like another person standing at his elbow…” (2, p. 89).

“It did not seem himself that was concerned; he felt that he had been seized by some strange force that moved him against his will, contrary to his interests (2, p. 328).

“Though he yearned for Mildred so madly he despised her” (2, p. 343).

“…he got a melancholy satisfaction in choosing a gift which would give her pleasure and at the same time indicate for himself the contempt he had for her (2, p. 353).

“…it seemed to him rather that he was swayed by some power alien to, and yet within, himself” (2, p. 441).

This novel is one more illustration of the fact that self-contradiction may be a clue to multiple personality. Search “self-contradictory” for past posts related to other writers.

In multiple personality, although only one personality may be overt at any given time, other personalities may be simultaneously conscious, and may pull strings from behind the scenes. The overt personality, unaware of the alternate personalities, per se, may experience the resulting behavior, thoughts, or feelings as alien, puzzling, and contradictory.

1. W. Somerset Maugham. The Summing Up [1938]. New York, Penguin Books, 1963.

2. W. Somerset Maugham. Of Human Bondage [1915]. London, Vintage Books/Random House, 2000.