Of Human Bondage · Chapter
CXIV explained
Philip completes his obstetrics rotation, attending sixty-three cases.
What happens
Philip completes his obstetrics rotation, attending sixty-three cases. On his final night, he is called to a desperate birth in a squalid room. The patient, a pretty sixteen-year-old girl, dies from internal bleeding despite his and the S.O.C.'s efforts. Her young husband is left bewildered. Afterward, Philip walks to the bridge, reflecting on the cruelty of her fate and the beauty of the dawn.
Themes in this chapter
Suffering and Disillusionment
Philip witnesses the pointless death of a young mother and reflects on the grim life that awaited her, underscoring the cruelty of fate and the bleakness of poverty.
Class and Social Mobility
The stark contrast between the squalid room and the stately buildings across the river highlights the chasm between the poor and the secure.
The Search for Meaning
Philip struggles to find meaning in the girl's death, ultimately finding solace in the beauty of the dawn, which overwhelms him and makes everything else seem unimportant.
Characters to notice
- Philip Carey
Completes his district obstetrics work, exhausted by sixty-three cases; attends a tragic birth where the young mother dies.
- Chandler
The senior obstetric clerk called to the emergency; he confirms the woman is dying and handles the situation with brusque professionalism.
Key passages
“It was cruel that a stupid chance should have cut off her life when she was just entering upon it; but in the very moment of saying this to himself, Philip thought of the life which had been in store for her, the bearing of children, the dreary fight with poverty, the youth broken by toil and deprivation into a slatternly middle age”
Philip reflects that while it seems cruel for the young woman to die so early, the life she would have faced—endless childbearing, grinding poverty, and a slow decline into worn-out old age—might have been no better.
Philip's ambivalent reflection on the value of a life of suffering.
“The scene was so exquisite that Philip’s heart beat passionately. He was overwhelmed by the beauty of the world. Beside that nothing seemed to matter.”
The beauty of the dawn on the river fills Philip with such intense emotion that all the tragedy he has witnessed fades into insignificance.
Philip finds transcendence in natural beauty after a night of horror.