Abstract：Of Human Bondage is famous for semi-autobiography works and its magnum opus of William Somerset Maugham. It published in 1915 and raised concerns from people. They all enjoyed this book and it also became more and more popular. This paper mainly studies the hero Philip's life and his story with four women. From Philip and their relationship and mode of how they get along with each other, to explore the role of women in the social and historical evolution, and analyze women humble and the root cause of the tragedy in women life. In this book, the author mainly narrates females who fall in love with the hero, Philip. Under his description, each woman has disadvantages with greed, vanity, indifference. From their love affairs, it can be seen his view on marriage and it implies indirectly the causes of females’ tragedy. Also, we can compare their tragedies with his experiences. Lacking maternal love and failure of marriage led his discrimination to women. At the same time, he was eager to get love from females. Therefore, when he creates characters, he expressed his idealization by works. Through the analysis of this paper, hope to be able to appeal attention to and respect for woman's identity, especially in the modern intense democratic consciousness in such social environment, hoping that gender discrimination no longer exists, so as to achieve real equality, women have more autonomy for their life.

Key words: Female; Tragedy; Equality; Bondage; Right

CONTENTS

摘要

Abstract

1. Introduction-1

1.1 An Introduction to Of Human Bondage-1

1.2 An Introduction to William Somerset Maugham-1

1.3 Social and Historical Background-3

1.4 Thesis of Our Paper-4

2. Relationship between the author and the story-5

3. On the Tragedy of Female Character in of human bondage-6

3.1 Four Female Characters’ Tragedies-6

3.1.1 Aunt Carey’s Tragedy-6

3.1.2 Wilkinson’s Tragedy-7

3.1.3 Norah’s Tragedy-8

3.1.4 Mildred’s Tragedy-9

3.1.5 Sally’s Tragedy-10

3.2 The Causes of Their Tragedies-11

3.2.1 The Reason for Norah, Sally and Aunt Carey-11

3.2.2 Reasons for Mildred and Wilkinson-12

4. Conclusion-12

4.1 Further Discussion on Thesis-12

4.2 My Feelings about This Novel-14

References-16

Acknowledgments-17