This is my second reading of David Copperfield. The first time was when I was ten when my mother read it with me. I have the suspicion that she wanted me to see the value of a good mother and the lack of protection if a mother dies. I think I enjoyed this second reading much better.

What stands out in this book for me is the omen. David Copperfield was born on a Friday when the clock struck midnight, which was thought to be an unlucky omen by the people in the neighborhood. In fact, David’s early life proves the truth of this omen.

Although David Copperfield narrates his story as an adult looking back, his views of his life is that of a younger person reliving the hurts of his childhood. Although his father has died by the time he was born, his beginning years are not so glum. His very early childhood is pretty happy with his beautiful, young mother and Peggotty, his nurse.

A short while later, David’s mother marries Mr. Murdstone who is a violent man and mistreats David, as does Miss Murdstone, his stepfather’s sister. When David bites Mr, Murstone hand during a beating, David is sent away to school, at the Salem House.

When David’s mother dies, Murdstones bring him back home to make him work in Mr. Murdstone’s wine-bottling business. As a young teenage boy, then, David moves in Mr. Mr. Micawber, who later escapes from his creditors. Not having a place to live, David searches for his father’s sister, Miss Betsey Trotwood, who takes him in. Miss Betsey Trotwood is stern but eventually takes to David and later on she adopts him.

Sent to another school by his aunt, David boards with Mr, Wickfield and his daughter Agnes, while attending school. Agnes and David become good friends; however, life is still difficult for David with Uriah Heep as another antagonist and one of Wickfield’s boarders who works for Wickfield as his law clerk and encourages Wickfield’s drinking. He hates Davis as he is after Agnes.

After graduating, David visits Peggotty who is now married. From here on, David enters an adulthood, in which his life becomes less of a burden if not easier. This is when he meets Dora whom he later marries after several plot twists.

Still after several more turns of the plot, involving many other characters David has met on his way to adulthood, his wife Dora becomes ill and dies. After her death, David goes abroad and when he returns, he and Agnes who has loved him all along get married and David’s writing career meets with great success.

In this novel, a lot of dramatic action takes place. In addition to the cruelty David encounters, are David’s school days, people dying, a shipwreck, and Uriah Heep’s fraud becoming exposed by Micawber.

What I sensed in David’s point of view and tone is the feeling of self-pity, especially for his childhood. Yet, David learns a lot from his experiences, even though he ponders over his own shortcomings and mourns the cruelties life has inflicted upon him. There is also the feeling of nostalgia when David recalls his first home, its the shadowy hallways, his mother, the kindness of Peggotty, the Church, and his father’s grave in the churchyard.

The backbone of this story has to do with David’s complex character, developing over the course of his growing up. He is trusting and kind and when in love with Dora, he is a romantic. As he grows up, he appreciates the value in Agnes’s calmness and he realizes he truly loves her. As a character flaw, which I think springs from the cruelties he has faced in his earlier life, he can be intentionally hard on others, but these instances are rare in the novel.

The society that Dickens describes in this novel measures a person’s worth by his wealth. Dickens points out, however, that wealth and nobility can be more of a corrupting factor for a person’s character.

Marriage also is on trial here. David’s mother’s marriage, Peggotty’s marriages, and David’s own two marriages show the different facets of it.

This novel may be the most autobiographical one by Dickens as it is said that he used some of the incidents from his own childhood. It is long and large as it encompasses many incidents, feelings, a perfect protagonist, and several antagonists, each annoying in his own way. I am glad I read it again since I appreciated it much more in my old age.

Agnes's character.

I like it very much and one can read it almost at any age, once one gets used to the vernacular of its its time. I also like it because it is a success story, despite the hardships the main character had to endure.

Interested in buying this? Support Writing.Com by making your purchase of David Copperfield   from Amazon.Com!

Created Aug 30, 2020 at 12:59pm • Submit your own review...