LVII explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Love and Obsession

  Philip's love for Mildred is depicted as a painful, obsessive yearning—a hunger of the soul—rather than a joyful rapture.

• Class and Social Mobility

  Philip is acutely aware of Mildred's commonness and vulgarity, highlighting the class differences between them and his discomfort with her social manners.

• Suffering and Disillusionment

  Philip experiences bitter anguish and despair as he realizes his love for Mildred brings him unhappiness rather than fulfillment.

Characters to notice

• Philip Carey

  Philip waits anxiously for Mildred, takes her to dinner and the theatre, and realizes he is in love with her despite finding her vulgar and common.

• Mildred Rogers

  Mildred keeps Philip waiting, is ungracious and indifferent, but enjoys the champagne and musical comedy; her vulgarity and affectations are noted by Philip.

Key passages

• “He had thought of love as a rapture which seized one so that all the world seemed springlike, he had looked forward to an ecstatic happiness; but this was not happiness; it was a hunger of the soul, it was a painful yearning, it was a bitter anguish, he had never known before.”

  Philip had imagined love as an ecstatic joy that made everything feel fresh and new, but what he felt for Mildred was not happiness—it was a deep, painful craving and a torment he had never experienced.

  Philip contrasts his romantic ideal of love with the harsh reality of his obsessive and painful feelings for Mildred.

• “He was not happy with her, but he was unhappy away from her.”

  Being with Mildred did not bring him happiness, yet being apart from her made him miserable.

  This captures the paradoxical and compulsive nature of Philip's infatuation.