Abstract:Of Human Bondage is William Somerset Maugham’s semi-autobiographical story. The image of the protagonist Philip is based on the archetype of William Somerset Maugham. The whole novel takes Philip’ s love life with four women named Miss Wilkinson, Mildred Rogers, Norah Nesbit and Sally Athelny as the main line and we can know Maugham’ s view on women by studying this novel. So, this paper studies Maugham’ s contradictory view on women by studying four female images of OF Human Bondage, and then explores reasons from the social background, Maugham’ s personal experience, and women’ s own maternity. By studying this theme, we can know more about Maugham. What’s more, it can help modern women to get a deeper understanding of themselves, and arouse their thinking about being despised.

Key words: view on women; William Somerset Maugham; OF Human Bondage; reason

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1. Introduction-1

1.1 Introduction of Maugham and OF Human Bondage-1

1.2 Previous Studies on OF Human Bondage-2

2. Maugham’s view on Women from OF Human Bondage-4

2.1 Longing for Women’s Love-4

2.2 Despising Women-7

3. Reasons for Maugham’s View on Women-10

3.1 Social Background-10

3.2 Maugham’s Personal Experience-11

3.3 Women’s Own Maternity-13

4. Conclusion-14

Reference-16