The Way of All Flesh is the story of Ernest Pontifex, son of an upwardly mobile but hypocritical and domineering family living in the Victorian Period. Ernest struggles with his father's influence over him and with forming his own identity independent of his family's. The story is narrated by his godfather, Overton, a charitable man who disavows the hypocrisy of the Victorian Era. The novel is a sharp rebuke to Victorian morality and ethics.
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