Literature And Life: Of Human Bondage And Beyond Essay, Research Paper

Literature and Life: Of Human Bondage and Beyond

In the novel Of Human Bondage , the reader comes across a truly

magnificent quote on page 627. This quote is: “He had lived always in the

future, and the present always, always had slipped through his fingers.” In and

of itself, this is a very powerful quote. However, it can be given even more

power and significance if a person can relate this quote to their own life and

experiences. I myself, after reading this quote, was instantly able to identify

with it.

This quote describes the middle school years and my early high school

years almost perfectly. Many nights I would find myself staying in, watching TV,

doing one thing or another around my house. I would almost never leave the

house and I had nothing that could even remotely be called a social life. My

reason for doing this to myself was that I spent most of my time thinking about

my future and wishing for it to come. I had almost no kind of happiness for

where I was or what I was doing in the present. I cut myself off from the

outside world. I was rather shy around other people (I still am, admittedly)

and I had very few friends.

It was not too long before I discovered the faults in my erroneous

living. I finally realized, and truly not a moment too soon, that if I did not

start living for the present, my future would soon become my neglected present.

I would have wasted my life doing meaningless things and I would have no

experience to share with anyone who may be interested in the uneventful life I

had led. After I came to this startling revelation, I grew even more apathetic

in my depression. I truly felt that there was nothing I could do to remedy this

situation and was at a total loss for solutions. Soon enough, though, I

concluded that there was no alternative to hard work to change the current state

of affairs in my life. It was then that I truly embarked on the most difficult

journey of my life thus far. This being the journey of self-alteration and

successfully changing my own behavioral patterns.

My changes that I’ve done to myself have been quite noticeable to those

people who’ve known me for a great number of years. The fear of losing my

present and, indirectly, losing my future has fueled this radical change. There

are many strings that still bind me to my former self, but for the most part I

believe I am truly a different person than I was but a few years ago. Several

factors have been most beneficial in my quest for a new me. I attribute both my

greater and greater involvement in the music I listen to and to my friends, who

I think have experienced a similar transformation, but perhaps for different

reasons.

In conclusion, when W. Somerset Maugham stated that everyone could find

themselves in Of Human Bondage he was quite accurate. I know this holds true

for me with the quote stated above and in many other occurrences through the

duration of the novel. Philip, the main character of the novel, almost loses

much of his present, and almost the rest of his future, by the end of the book.

However, he does realize the errors in his ways and changes his life. I’m truly

happy that I was able to accomplish this as well because having no future is a

terrible thing.