On Philip’s Self-exploration In Maugham’s Of Human Bondage

British novelist and playwright Maugham has created abundant works in his life,among which Of Human Bondage established his outstanding status as a great novelist.Since its publication in 1915,the book has received extensive attention from readers and critics both at home and abroad.The book depicts the story of the protagonist Philip Carey,through constant exploration of his self,makes it to cast off various shackles and finally obtains spiritual freedom.With the improvement of its evaluation,studies have been increasingly conducted on this novel.Hitherto,most of the critics expand their attention on realism,naturalism and ethics of the novel.This thesis,however,analyzes the protagonist from the perspective of psychoanalysis to attests that Phillip is not a bounded passive character,but a personal hero who achieves the stage of active freedom through a spontaneous self-exploring.This paper consists of three parts: introduction,main part and conclusion.The first part contains a brief introduction to Maugham and Of Human Bondage,a literature review at home and abroad,the elicitation of Lacan’s Mirror Stage theory,which is referred as the theoretical foundation,and the structure of this thesis.The main part involves three chapters.In the first chapter,Phillip’s absence of self,caused by the chaos of surroundings,is analyzed,concluding that such kind of absence leads to Phillip’s physical,psychological and emotional bounds.Chapter two elicits how Phillip denounces his past self under his awaking self that stimulated by the referential image of other people as well as his surroundings.It accordingly figures out that his announcement of the past self gives rise to his fight against the bondage.Chapter three elaborates how Phillip breaks conventionality to build his new self and conclude that through love and creative labor,Phillip finally makes it to achieve positive freedom.The last part of the thesis is the conclusion.