Contemporary Literary Criticism | Of Human Bondage Maugham, W. Somerset - M. K. Naik (essay date 1966)

M. K. Naik (essay date 1966)

SOURCE: "Of Human Bondage," in W. Somerset Maugham, University of Oklahoma Press, 1966, pp. 46-57.

[Naik is an Indian educator and critic. In the following excerpt, he argues that Of Human Bondage is a "novel of adolescence"—the purpose of which was for the author to find himself—and concludes that the book's greatest fault is a negativity that leaves the hero with a creed that lacks positive values.]

The strong native sensibility which dominates the works of Maugham's early phase reaches its high-water mark in Of Human Bondage, a novel which is largely autobiographical. Maugham wrote in The Summing Up that, having finished the novel, he "prepared to make a fresh start." This "fresh start" was to lead him far away from the dominant strain in Liza of Lambeth, Mrs. Craddock, and Of Human Bondage.

Maugham described the genesis of this novel in The Summing...

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