Characteristics of the heroes from the story of the time of human passions. The burden of human passions

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"The Burden of Human Passions" Of Human Bondage) is one of the most famous novels English writer William Somerset Maugham, written in 1915. Main character books - Philip Carey, a lame orphan whose fate can be traced from an unhappy childhood to student years. The hero of the novel, Philip Carey, faced many trials. Having been orphaned early, he was deprived of parental care and affection, his dream of becoming an artist remained a dream, and his love for a limited, vicious woman brought only suffering. But Philip courageously went through all the trials prepared for him and managed to find his place in life.

According to Maugham, The Burden of Men is "a novel, not an autobiography: although there are many autobiographical details in it, much more is fictional." And yet it should be noted that, like his hero, Maugham lost his parents at an early age, was raised by a priest uncle, grew up in the town of Whitstable (in the novel Blackstable), studied at the royal school in Canterbury (in the novel Turkenbury), studied literature and philosophy in Heidelberg and medicine in London. Unlike Philip, Maugham was not lame, but he did stutter.

My impressions:

I liked the novel. In general, I love English writers. Interesting read, captivating plot.

The love story of the main character, Philip Carey, really struck me. In my opinion, this is not even love, but some kind of painful addiction.

“Philip perfectly sees all her shortcomings: she is ugly, vulgar, her manners are full of disgusting affectation, her rude speech speaks of poverty of thought. However, Philip wants to get her at any cost, even to the point of marriage, although he realizes that this will be ruinous for him” (source:). This moment is not clear to me at all.

The history of their relationship is a series of constant humiliations for Filipai, and it seems that there will be no end to them.

But no, the end has come. When in her fall this woman was already at the very bottom, earning a living as a prostitute, he saved her again. He pulled me out of this hole together with a small child, took him for support with his already meager financial situation. But he saved her out of pity, philanthropy, in memory of past feelings, without the desire for her love and renewal of relations. But this was not enough for the short woman; she wanted everything that had happened before and that could no longer be.

The one who was lying at his feet like a rug suddenly no longer begs for love, but experiences physical disgust...

This affected Mildred so much that she chose to continue her fall rather than live near him. God be with her, I don’t feel sorry for her, I feel sorry for her small child, whom she dragged with her to hell. The girl died, and Philip became so attached to her.

At the end of the novel, Philip marries the girl Sally, the daughter of his friend, without love, experiencing sympathy and friendly feelings for her. Sally - good girl, and against the background of past “love” it seems that the main character will find peace of mind.

This is not the first work by Maugham that I have read, in which the idea unobtrusively sounds that love is not good at all, does not bring happiness, but rather the opposite...

More strong impression affected me the story of Fanny Price , supporting characters. Philip met Fanny in Paris, in art studio“Amitrino”, they studied painting together. She is very ugly and unkempt, they can’t stand her for her rudeness and huge conceit with a complete lack of drawing ability. Fanny previously worked as a maid. She quit her job and began to study painting, she believed that this was her calling, that she had talent.

Fanny was very sloppy and wore the same dirty and old dress all the time, but it never occurred to anyone that Fanny had nothing to live on and was starving in literally words. One day, Philip, as a thank you for his guardianship, invited Fanny to have lunch at a cafe. Her first reaction is that I have what I have. As a result, she agreed, but in the cafe she did not behave very nicely - she greedily rushed into food and also ate greedily and sloppily. Philip decided that this was a lack of manners and proper education.

Then it turned out that Fanny’s funds were only enough to pay for several months of training, and she herself lived on one bottle of milk a day for more than three months. Brother in financial assistance refused her; Fanny did not ask Philip, with whom she was in love. And, in the end, Fanny hanged herself from hunger and hopelessness. She deliberately chose to die. She did not want to earn a living from another craft. This story really shocked me. Such confidence in your calling and abilities!!! Such a sad end to life. Was one worth the other...

Quotes:

A person makes a decision, but when the time comes to act, he bows helplessly under the burden of his instincts, passions and God knows what else. He is like a machine driven by two forces - environment and character; his mind is only a contemplator, registering facts, but powerless to intervene; his role is reminiscent of those gods of Epicurus who observe human affairs from their empyrean heights, but do not have the power to change one iota of what is happening.

You don’t need wealth, but give a person enough so that he can maintain his dignity, create without hindrance, be generous, magnanimous and independent.

And art is luxury. The main thing for people is the instincts of self-preservation and procreation. And only when these instincts are satisfied does a person allow himself to have fun with the help of writers, artists and poets.

In life, what goes around comes around, but its whole tragedy lies in the inexorability with which the effect follows from the cause.

Parental love is the only unselfish feeling in the world.

Need makes a person petty, greedy, envious, cripples the soul and makes him see the world in an ugly and vulgar light. When you have to count every penny, money takes on a monstrous meaning: you need to be wealthy in order to treat money the way it deserves to be treated.

A person can do as he pleases if he agrees to be responsible for it.

Is it really always the case that when you manage to insist on your own, you regret it later?

I have no idea where love comes from, but no matter where it comes from, it’s all about it, and if it doesn’t exist, you can’t evoke it either with affection, or generosity, or anything else.

Philip was still so young that he did not understand how much less obligation those to whom the service is rendered feel than those who do it.

There are only two things in the world that justify human existence - love and art.

He had a firm conviction that every job started must be completed. Like all weak-willed people, he insistently demanded that others not change their decisions.

Giving up everything for the sake of personal happiness may mean defeat, but this defeat is better than any victory.

People never commit suicide because of love, as one would expect if one listens to the writers; people commit suicide because they have nothing to live on.

Oh God, it's always the same! If you want a man to treat you well, behave like a piece of trash with him; and if you treat him like a human being, he will drain the soul out of you.

The worst thing in the world is when people who are not given talent stubbornly want to do art.

A cross-cutting theme running through all creativity Somerset Maugham, - the burden of human passions. The burden of human passions - this is the title of one of his most significant and at the same time least characteristic novels (1915). It is not typical because much of this massive, free-form novel of education does not correspond to the usual reader’s idea of Maugham - a master of constructing a tense dramatic or ironic-comedy plot, a skeptic who, with professional interest, but without much emotion, observes strange zigzags of human behavior at different latitudes of the globe...

Philip Carey, main actor novel, was the same age as Maugham, whose youth also fell on late XIX century - sunset era Victorian England and the British Empire. According to life circumstances, in my own way psychological structure, in terms of the direction of spiritual and intellectual searches, Philip Carey is close to young Willie Maugham, an orphan raised in the family of his uncle, a provincial priest, a student closed school in Canterbury, a London medical student at St. Thomas, who completed obstetric practice in the slums of the city. Even the theme of a painful physical disability is autobiographical: for Carey it is lameness, for Maugham it is a stutter, which greatly complicated his life in childhood and adolescence. Of all Maugham's literary masks, Philip Carey is least of all a mask. Turning to his still recent past, the forty-year-old Maugham sought to resurrect events and states of mind, the memory of which still tormented him. In order to “get rid of” the past, it was necessary to recreate it in every detail, but in a transformed form. Overcome it by subordinating it to your writing will.

The writer will never return to this region of his inner life, although the Kentish town of Whitestable - in the books it will become Blackstable - will return more than once to the geographical region of his childhood, adolescence and youth. After Philip Carey lyrical hero Maugham is replaced by his masks - variants of the image that he will create to the public, but at the same time for himself until the end of his long life.

The burden of human passions remains Maugham's constant theme in his short stories, wherever their clear and rich plots unfold - among the exotic South Seas or in the Chippendale-like interiors of London salons. However, the novel, with its large narrative space, provided opportunities for a broader and more versatile disclosure of this cardinal theme for the writer. In the next after The burden of human passions works of this genre Moon and penny (1919) we're talking about about only one passion - For art, but a passion so all-consuming and cruel, disinterested and inhuman (after all, the artist Strickland does not care whether at least one sees alive soul his canvases), that the most fatal love slavery. Perhaps, nowhere else did Maugham write with such a temperament, as if charged with the creative rage of his hero, his frantic painting. Strickland, shown as an openly immoral and humanly repulsive creature, latently impresses the narrator in that he managed to shake off the colorless respectable existence of a stockbroker, respectable bourgeois and family man and gain something incredible for a man of his circle - personal freedom. The desire for personal freedom, for independence from the structure and conventions of social caste is a motif that runs through all of Maugham’s prose and drama.

Place in literature

Reflection on creativity Somerset Maugham always raises a question that, judging by the literature about the writer, has always caused very sharp disagreements: the question of the place of the writer himself in the system of bourgeois values. Maugham was called - let's name the two most extreme points vision - a satirist-accuser and commercial writer, skillfully tickling the nerves of that very bourgeois readership, whose morals and customs he depicts so caustically and evilly.

Before trying to answer this question, we should once again listen to Maugham himself, whose objective attitude towards his own person we have already had occasion to verify.

I've always been a storyteller. That is why I found myself somewhat on the outskirts among the writers of my generation. Although I am no less concerned and disturbed than others by the disorder that reigns in our world, and social injustice, and political turmoil, I have never considered the novel the best remedy expressing views on such issues, I have no inclination towards preaching and prophecy. I have an all-consuming interest in human nature, and I've always felt that the best way to share my observations is by telling stories. (From an autobiographical sketch published in New York in 1959).

It seems to us that Maugham, as usual, is telling the truth about himself, although not the deepest one. We can go a little further and note that such elements of bourgeois self-awareness as egocentric individualism and the conviction in the dominant role of money in the life of man and society are not alien to the writer and that he himself is too strong is sitting in its social system, so that without stretching one can find in him a conscious intention to undermine the foundations of bourgeois society.

Does it follow from all this that Maugham is an accommodating, commercial writer, catering to the tastes of the bourgeoisie, glorifying its virtues? Not at all. He always had a desire for independence - human and literary. The desire to write the truth about people, even the most unpleasant ones. And the merciless light of this truth often made its way into the deepest recesses of a prosperous, respectable bourgeois life. Of course, Maugham maintained contact with his readership - plural It will be more appropriate here, because Maugham was read not only in many countries, but also in various social circles. He always wrote extremely clearly and understandably, that is, democratically, which greatly harmed him in the eyes of the intellectual elite, but attracted and favored a wide readership. However, there was no opportunism here either - such is the artistic individuality of the writer. In the era post-Joycean literary experiments, both truly innovative and clearly secondary, when writing simply and clearly was considered simply unfashionable, Maugham continued to work in traditional forms a consistently developing narrative with a clear plot, in which, according to him, there is beginning, middle and end. His language is simple, colloquial, and despite the fact that the narrator’s speech will flash with elegant ironic aphorisms and witty observations, Maugham does not shy away from dialogues common expressions, clichés, truisms. Psychological drawing he is sharp and knows no halftones; as an artist, he is strongest in the sphere of the comic - not infectiously cheerful, but light, relaxed and very sarcastic spelling. Where Maugham fails he is trivial and melodramatic, and in his vast literary heritage a lot of fictional slag. But all of this, we repeat, were truly failures, and not the result of compromises, disrespect for one’s own literary work. Maugham was absolutely devoted to literature, worked tirelessly and systematically, and always remained himself. He did not follow the lead of criticism, listened little to advice, could cut short the sensational career of a playwright (in the 1908 season, four of Maugham’s plays were performed on London stages simultaneously) in order to sit down to a huge novel in a new spirit for himself... He maintained the same consistency in his very being writing work. Sensitively monitoring changing public demands and moods, responding to them, wandering the seas and continents in search of plots and characters, Maugham remains true to his calling: to portray people as they are- how he sees them. Social status, fortune, official and secular prestige - everything fades into the background when the oddities of human nature, its inconsistency, irrationality come into play, when it comes to the heavy, sometimes destructive and catastrophic influence of passions - be it sensual attraction, vanity, lust for power, selfishness or a thirst for creativity, or a thirst for independence. Maugham is not inclined to evaluate in any way quality these power instincts; if one can find in his works a trace of some kind of moral preaching, then, perhaps, it will be a preaching of hedonistic amoralism - in defiance of the rigorists and bigots. However - and this is important - any option is completely alien to him. cult of power, the slightest admiration of cruelty. Kipling's white man's burden plays no role in Maugham's colonial stories, and he himself a white man often looks very unpresentable.

This condensed description of Maugham’s artistic worldview will, however, be incomplete and incorrect if we do not once again emphasize its important feature: a skeptical and sometimes even cynical view of human vices and delusions in no way drowns out the writer’s ability to see attractive qualities in a person. , worthy of respect, and sometimes admiring properties: sincere kindness, selflessness, courage, high spiritual thoughts. These properties seem to him to be very rare - but all the more precious, and he finds the corresponding sounds in his writing register when he turns to heroes endowed with such gifts.

Beginning of the 20th century Nine-year-old Philip Carey is left an orphan and sent to be raised by his priest uncle in Blackstable. The priest has no feelings for his nephew tender feelings, but in his house Philip finds many books that help him forget about loneliness.

At the school where the boy was sent, his classmates mock him (Philip is lame from birth), causing him to become painfully timid and shy - it seems to him that suffering is the lot of his whole life. Philip prays to God to make him healthy, and for the fact that a miracle does not happen, he blames only himself - he thinks that he lacks faith.

He hates school and doesn't want to go to Oxford. Contrary to his uncle’s wishes, he strives to study in Germany, and he manages to insist on his own.

In Berlin, Philip falls under the influence of one of his fellow students, the Englishman Hayward, who seems to him extraordinary and talented, not noticing that his deliberate unusualness is just a pose, behind which there is nothing. But the debates between Hayward and his interlocutors about literature and religion leave a huge mark on Philip’s soul: he suddenly realizes that he no longer believes in God, is not afraid of hell, and that a person is responsible for his actions only to himself.

After completing a course in Berlin, Philip returns to Blackstable and meets Miss Wilkinson, the daughter of Mr. Carey's former assistant. She is about thirty, she is cutesy and flirtatious, at first Philip does not like her, but nevertheless soon becomes his mistress. Philip is very proud; in his letter to Hayward he writes a beautiful romantic story. But when the real Miss Wilkinson leaves, she feels great relief and sadness that reality is so different from her dreams.

His uncle, having come to terms with Philip's reluctance to enter Oxford, sends him to London to study as a chartered accountant. Philip feels bad in London: he has no friends, and his work brings unbearable melancholy. And when a letter arrives from Hayward with an offer to go to Paris and take up painting, it seems to Philip that this desire has long been brewing in his soul. After studying for only a year, he, despite his uncle’s objections, left for Paris.

In Paris, Philip entered the Amitrino art studio; Fanny Price helps him get used to his new place - she is very ugly and unkempt, they can’t stand her for her rudeness and huge conceit with a complete lack of drawing ability, but Philip is still grateful to her.

The life of a Parisian bohemian changes Philip's worldview: he no longer considers ethical tasks to be fundamental to art, although he still sees the meaning of life in Christian virtue. The poet Cronshaw, who does not agree with this position, suggests that Philip look at the pattern of a Persian carpet to understand the true purpose of human existence.

When Fanny, having learned that Philip and his friends were leaving Paris in the summer, made an ugly scene, Philip realized that she was in love with him. And upon his return, he did not see Fanny in the studio and, absorbed in his studies, forgot about her. A few months later, a letter arrives from Fanny asking him to come see her: she has not eaten anything for three days. When Philip arrives, he discovers that Fanny has committed suicide. This shocked Philip. He is tormented by a feeling of guilt, but most of all by the meaninglessness of Fanny’s asceticism. He begins to doubt his painting abilities and turns to one of his teachers with these doubts. And indeed, he advises him to start life again, because he can only become a mediocre artist.

The news of his aunt's death forces Philip to go to Blackstable, and he will never return to Paris. Having parted with painting, he wants to study medicine and enters the institute at St. Luke in London. In their philosophical reflections Philip comes to the conclusion that conscience is main enemy personality in the struggle for freedom, and creates a new life rule for himself: one must follow one’s natural inclinations, but with due regard for the policeman around the corner.

One day in a cafe he started talking to a waitress named Mildred; she refused to continue the conversation, hurting his pride. Soon Philip realizes that he is in love, although he perfectly sees all her shortcomings: she is ugly, vulgar, her manners are full of disgusting affectation, her rude speech speaks of poverty of thought. Nevertheless, Philip wants to get her at any cost, including marriage, although he realizes that this will be his death. But Mildred declares that she is marrying someone else, and Philip, realizing that main reason His torment is wounded vanity, despising himself no less than Mildred. But we need to move on with our lives: pass exams, meet friends...

Meeting a young, pretty woman named Nora Nesbit - she is very sweet, witty, and knows how to take life's troubles lightly - restores his self-confidence and heals his emotional wounds. Philip finds another friend after falling ill with the flu: his neighbor, doctor Griffiths, carefully looks after him.

But Mildred returns - having learned that she is pregnant, her betrothed confessed that he was married. Philip leaves Nora and begins to help Mildred - his love is so strong. Mildred gives up the newborn girl to be raised, not having any feelings for her daughter, but she falls in love with Griffiths and enters into a relationship with him. The offended Philip nevertheless secretly hopes that Mildred will return to him again. Now he often remembers Hope: she loved him, and he acted vilely to her. He wants to return to her, but finds out that she is engaged. Soon word reaches him that Griffiths has broken up with Mildred: he quickly grew tired of her.

Philip continues to study and work as an assistant in an outpatient clinic. Communicating with many of the most different people, seeing their laughter and tears, grief and joy, happiness and despair, he understands that life is more complicated abstract concepts about good and evil. Cronshaw arrives in London, finally getting ready to publish his poems. He is very sick: he suffered from pneumonia, but, not wanting to listen to the doctors, he continues to drink, because only after drinking does he become himself. Seeing the plight of his old friend, Philip takes him to his place; he soon dies. And again Philip is depressed by the thought of the meaninglessness of his life, and the life rule invented under similar circumstances now seems stupid to him.

Philip becomes close to one of his patients, Thorpe Athelney, and becomes very attached to him and his family: his hospitable wife, healthy, cheerful children. Philip likes to visit their house, warm himself by their cozy hearth. Athelny introduces him to the paintings of El Greco. Philip is shocked: it was revealed to him that self-denial is no less passionate and decisive than submission to passions.

Having met Mildred again, who now makes a living as a prostitute, Philip, out of pity, no longer having the same feelings for her, invites her to live with him as a servant. But she doesn’t know how to run a house and doesn’t want to look for work. In search of money, Philip begins to play on the stock exchange, and his first experience is so successful that he can afford to operate on his sore leg and go with Mildred to the sea.

In Brighton they live in separate rooms. Mildred is angry about this: she wants to convince everyone that Philip is her husband, and upon returning to London she tries to seduce him. But she doesn’t succeed - now Philip feels physical disgust for her, and she leaves in a rage, causing a pogrom in his house and taking away the child, to whom Philip had become attached.

All of Philip's savings were spent on moving out of an apartment that brings back painful memories for him and is also too big for him alone. In order to somehow improve the situation, he again tries to play on the stock exchange and goes bankrupt. His uncle refuses to help him, and Philip is forced to leave his studies, move out of his apartment, spend the night on the street and starve. Upon learning of Philip's plight, Athelney gets him a job in the store.

The news of Hayward's death makes Philip think again about the meaning of human life. He recalls the words of the now deceased Cronshaw about the Persian carpet. Now he interprets them as follows: although a person weaves the pattern of his life aimlessly, but, weaving various threads and creating a pattern at his own discretion, he must be satisfied with this. The uniqueness of the drawing is its meaning. Then it happens last meeting with Mildred. She writes that she is sick, that her child has died; In addition, when Philip comes to her, he finds out that she has returned to her previous activities. After a painful scene, he leaves forever - this darkness of his life finally dissipates.

Having received an inheritance after the death of his uncle, Philip returns to college and, after graduating, works as an assistant for Dr. South, so successfully that he invites Philip to become his partner. But Philip wants to go traveling “to find the promised land and to know himself.”

Meanwhile eldest daughter Philip really likes Athelney, Sally, and one day while picking hops, he gives in to his feelings... Sally reveals that she is pregnant, and Philip decides to sacrifice himself and marry her. Then it turns out that Sally was mistaken, but for some reason Philip does not feel relieved. Suddenly he understands that marriage is not self-sacrifice, that giving up fictitious ideals for the sake of family happiness even if it is a defeat, it is better than all victories... Philip asks Sally to become his wife. She agrees, and Philip Carey finally finds the promised land to which his soul has longed for so long.

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“The Burden of Human Passions” summary

Plot

The first chapters are devoted to Philip's life in Blackstable with his uncle and aunt and his studies at the royal school in Terkenbury, where Philip endures a lot of bullying because of his lame leg. Relatives expect that after graduating from school, Philip will enter Oxford and take holy orders, but the young man feels that he has no real calling for this. Instead, he goes to Heidelberg (Germany), where he studies Latin, German and French.

During his stay in Germany, Philip meets the Englishman Hayward. Philip immediately takes a liking to his new acquaintance; he cannot help but be admired by Hayward's extensive knowledge of literature and art. However, Hayward's ardent idealism does not suit Philip: “He always passionately loved life and experience told him that idealism is most often a cowardly flight from life. The idealist withdraws into himself because he is afraid of the pressure of the human crowd; he does not have enough strength to fight, and therefore he considers it an activity for the mob; he is vain, and since his neighbors do not agree with his assessment of himself, he consoles himself with the fact that he pays them contempt.” Another of Philip’s friends, Weeks, characterizes people like Hayward this way: “They always admire what is usually admired - whatever it is - and one of these days they are going to write a great work. Just think - one hundred and forty-seven great works rest in the soul of one hundred and forty-seven great men, but the tragedy is that not one of these one hundred and forty-seven great works will ever be written. And nothing in the world changes because of this.”

In Heidelberg, Philip ceases to believe in God, experiences an extraordinary elation and realizes that he has thereby thrown off the heavy burden of responsibility that gave significance to his every action. Philip feels mature, fearless, free and decides to start a new life.

After this, Philip makes an attempt to become a chartered accountant in London, but it turns out that this profession is not for him. Then the young man decides to go to Paris and take up painting. New acquaintances studying with him at the Amitrino art studio introduce him to the poet Cronshaw, who leads a bohemian lifestyle. Cronshaw is Hayward's antithesis, a cynic and a materialist. He ridicules Philip for abandoning the Christian faith without abandoning Christian morality along with it. “People strive for only one thing in life - pleasure,” he says. - A person performs this or that act because it makes him feel good, and if it makes other people feel good, the person is considered virtuous; if he is pleased to give alms, he is considered merciful; if he enjoys helping others, he is a philanthropist; if he enjoys giving his strength to society, he is a useful member of it; but you give twopence to a beggar for your own personal satisfaction, just as I drink whiskey and soda for my personal satisfaction.” Desperate Philip asks what, then, according to Cronshaw, is the meaning of life, and the poet advises him to look at Persian carpets and refuses further explanation.

Philip is not ready to accept Cronshaw’s philosophy, however, he agrees with the poet that abstract morality does not exist, and refuses it: “Down with legalized ideas about virtue and vice, about good and evil - he will establish for himself life rules" Philip gives himself advice: “Follow your natural inclinations, but with due regard for the policeman around the corner.” (To those who have not read the book, this may seem wild, but it should be borne in mind that Philip’s natural inclinations are quite consistent with generally accepted norms).

Soon Philip realizes that he will not make a great artist, and enters the medical school at St. Luke's Hospital in London. He meets the waitress Mildred and falls in love with her, despite the fact that he sees all her shortcomings: she is ugly, vulgar and stupid. Passion forces Philip to undergo incredible humiliations, waste money and become delighted with the slightest sign of attention from Mildred. Soon, as one would expect, she leaves for another person, but after a while she returns to Philip: it turns out that her husband is married. Philip immediately breaks off contact with the kind, noble and resilient girl Nora Nesbitt, whom he met shortly after breaking up with Mildred, and repeats all his mistakes a second time. In the end, Mildred unexpectedly falls in love with his college friend Griffiths and leaves the unfortunate Philip.

Philip is at a loss: the philosophy that he invented for himself has shown its complete failure. Philip becomes convinced that the intellect cannot seriously help people at a critical moment in life; his mind is only a contemplator, recording facts, but powerless to intervene. When the time comes to act, a person bows helplessly under the burden of his instincts, passions and God knows what else. This gradually leads Philip to fatalism: “When you take off your head, you don’t cry over your hair, because all your strength was aimed at removing this head.”

Some time later, Philip meets Mildred for the third time. He no longer feels for her old passion, but still feels some kind of harmful attraction to this woman and spends a lot of money on her. To top it all off, he goes broke on the stock exchange, loses all his savings, quits medical school and gets a job in a dry goods store. But it was then that Philip solves Cronshaw’s riddle and finds the strength to abandon the last illusion, throw off the last burden. He admits that “life has no meaning and human existence is purposeless. […] Knowing that nothing makes sense and nothing matters, a person can still find satisfaction in choosing the various threads that he weaves into the endless fabric of life: after all, it is a river that has no source and flows endlessly without flowing into no seas. There is one pattern - the simplest and most beautiful: a person is born, matures, gets married, gives birth to children, works for a piece of bread and dies; but there are other, more intricate and amazing patterns, where there is no place for happiness or the desire for success - perhaps some kind of alarming beauty is hidden in them.”

The awareness of the purposelessness of life does not lead Philip to despair, as one might think, but on the contrary makes him happy: “Failure does not change anything, and success is zero. Man is only the smallest grain of sand in a huge human whirlpool that has swept over the earth’s surface for a short moment; but he becomes omnipotent as soon as he unravels the secret that chaos is nothing.”

Philip's uncle dies and leaves his nephew an inheritance. This money allows Philip to return to medical school. While studying, he cherishes the dream of going on a trip, visiting Spain (at one time he was greatly impressed by the paintings of El Greco) and the countries of the East. However new girlfriend Philippa, nineteen-year-old Sally, the daughter of his former patient Thorpe Athelney, announces that she is expecting a child. Philip, as a noble man, decides to marry her, despite the fact that this will not allow his dreams of travel to come true. It soon turns out that Sally was mistaken, but Philip does not feel relieved - on the contrary, he is disappointed. Philip understands that you need to live for today, not tomorrow; the simplest pattern of human life is the most perfect. That's why he proposes to Sally after all. He doesn’t love this girl, but he feels great sympathy for her, he feels good with her, and besides, no matter how funny it sounds, he has respect for her, and passionate love, as the story with Mildred showed, often brings nothing but grief.

In the end, Philip even comes to terms with his lame leg, because “without it he could not have felt beauty so keenly, passionately loved art and literature, excitedly followed the complex drama of life. The mockery and contempt to which he was subjected forced him to go deeper into himself and grew flowers - now they will never lose their aroma.” Eternal dissatisfaction is replaced by peace of mind.

Autobiographical

Maugham's attitude to the novel

Maugham himself believed that the novel was overloaded with excessive details, that many scenes were added to the novel simply to increase volume or due to fashion - the novel was published in 1915 - ideas about novels at that time differed from modern ones. Therefore, in the 60s, Maugham significantly shortened the novel “... a lot of time passed before writers realized: a one-line description often gives more than full page". In the Russian translation, this version of the novel was called “Burden of Passions” - so that it would be possible to distinguish it from the original version.

Film adaptations

1934 film starring Leslie Howard as Philip and Bette Davis as Mildred
1946 film starring Paul Henryd as Philip and Eleanor Parker as Mildred
1964 film starring Laurence Harvey as Philip and Kim Novak as Mildred

Notes