David Copperfield is a pseudo-autobiography and that quickly endears him and the people he loves to us but he could be classified as a bit of an unreliable narrator as he is looking past on past events, tinted with how things end up with the people he interacts with, even if he tries to place himself back there. Most of the characters avoid being one-dimensional which is impressive considering we are often looking back on a child’s recollections, but some of them are more annoying than they should be, which makes them dfficult to read, and he does colour some of them too positively or negatively throughout due to his final interactions with them. Another thing that could be annoying is that he is an incredibly gullible child- to the point of it almost being unbelievable, even if it is very funny too! For example in an inn, the waiter convinces Davy to give him most of his food for various reasons, which Davy sees no issue with and looks back on fondly, even though he quickly gets hungry. But such issues avoid ruining his character because they are picked up on and become hindrances to him later.
The story avoids being repetitive because his luck is constantly changing so he is thrown into different situations, but when he becomes an adult it did start to feel like we were going over the same things as he went back and forth between the same few places, which, nitpick: are too far apart for him to walk back and forth between as often as he does when he is not horseriding. It can also occasionally be difficult to follow what is going on, particularly in a key scene where there was a shipwreck where I really needed to clearly know the events. It’s a strangely small world since they at points make references that it is easy to disappear, and he runs into someone he knows, the same people repeatedly, a bit too often. However during the first 250 pages, I thought this would be one of my favourite books and the protagonist is incredibly endearing so I did truly enjoy this novel.
Rating: B+
SPOILER ALERT
David’s father dies before he is born, but his aunt on this side comes to look after what she is sure will be a niece. When he is a boy she tucks tail and leaves, probably for the best. He, his mother and his nanny Peggotty have quite an idyllic early life- until his mother falls in love with a completely manipulative, awful man. Despite being incredibly sceptical, Peggotty allows the couple time together by taking Davy to stay with her family who live in a boat, which really charms him- or maybe it’s juts Emily that charms him! Either way, by the time they return, Murdstone and Davy’s mother have married!
Murstone is obssessed with ‘firmness’ and although there are moments where Davy’s mother tries to help him, she changes a lot to please her husband. In these moments when Murdstone does catch her being kind to her son or servant he is harsh with her too. To impose his will, he brings his sister into the home and whereas he tried to seem kind to Davy at first, she is immediately disdainful. His mother teaches him but the siblings watch over and insert much crueler questions. He even struggles with the easy ones because they make him so uncomfortable. Mr Murdstone beats him and Davy responds by biting his stepfather- so he is sent away to boarding school.
As even more of a punishment, they sent him there in holidays when the boys aren’t there and mandated that the phrase ‘Take care of him, he bites” is always on Davy’s back. He fears when the boys will return even more but most of them don’t bully him too heavily and the most popular one takes him on. It’s pretty clear this boy Steerforth is a bullier of teachers and manipulator of boys but Davy is thankful to him, even when Steerforth gets Davy’s favourite teacher fired.
When he goes home he learns he has a new baby brother, and to his credit isn’t jealous. Before the Murdstones return, everything feels normal even with the baby, but the Murdstones won’t even accept him trying to stay out of their way- saying this is disrespectful despite them not wanting to see him, and ban him from seeing Peggotty. Almost as soon as he gets to school, he has to head back home because he learns his mother and the baby have both died. Mr Murdstone seems genuinely mournful and his sister allows Davy to go see Peggotty’s (who she has given notice and is now seeking employment further away) family to reduce her brother’s worry.
Davy finally reunites with Emily, both of them pretending not to recognise each other before sweetly admitting they do. The pair accompany Peggotty and Barkis, the man who has driven Davy back and forth from school, who get married on the trip. Unfortunately David then has to go home. Murdstone’s friend Mr Quinion is visiting and wants David to work at his London company. Murdstone gladly agrees and pays for his lodgings, but David’s 10 year old life is nonetheless full of work but empty-stomached. He grows close to the Micawber family whom he is lodging with and helps them out when the father is thrown into debtor’s prison. When they leave the city he does so too, running away to his Aunt Betsey Trotwood in Dover. She wins the battle of words with the Murdstones and adopts him, growing fairly attached to him despite her utter distaste for boys! She lives with a man who has been panned by others as crazy but she thinks he is not, perhaps he is autistic Anyway, Mr Trott is a very sweet man and sad when Miss Trotwood arranges for David to go to school in Canterbury, so they decide he can visit the boy every other Wednesday.
For the first time in several chapters, he is in a long term comfortable position, he has lost much of his learning from all he has been through recently but gains it back and becomes close with the other boys. Something very odd is that their sixty-odd year old teacher is married to a twenty year old girl who simply seems to feel pity for him. The boy, Uriah Heep, who works for the family apparently looks at them creepily, he is rather annoying as he goes on about how humble his family are even when David offers to help, and he and his mother squeeze every one of David’s secrets out of him! Randomly, the Micawbers reunite with David and become friends with the Heeps, but then they tell David they could not get their loan in a terrified letter. He falls in love with a woman much older than him, this is becoming a worrying theme, but when she marries someone else he gains some gumption, becoming a great fighter and head boy. Upon returning home his aunt encourages him to contemplate a future career, sending him off to think about this.
On the way to see the Peggottys, he runs into Steerforth in a hotel. His old friend takes him to see his mother, whose treatment of him reveals why he is so spoilt. Steerforth wants to go see the Peggottys because he is intrigued in studying a people he feels are ‘unevolved’. David is still quite in love with Emily and I thought he’d be a bit more devastated that she is now engaged to Ham, but he convinces himself a little too easily that he doesn’t love her anymore. Steerforth tells the dwarf friend he mocks- as I expect he does to all his friends- about Emily as though she is a spy he is sending off.
Upon returning to his aunt, she suggests David be a proctor, an idea which he likes although he enjoys having a bachelor-pad even more so. Steerforth takes his to his advantage and lets David get very drunk at a party there, embarrassing himself as he happens to run into Agnes. But she doesn’t take this against him, blaming Steerforth and planting the seed in David’s mind that his friend may not always have the best motive. She fills him in on what is going on at home- Uriah has gained power over her father and become not just a partner in the company but the dominant one. The slimey Uriah tells David he intends to eventually marry Agnes, as if he is confiding in him but really with a threatening air.
His actually nice friend Traddles shows up- who would have guessed!- living with the Micawbers! Once again, Micawber ruins himself and this time David is mostly worried for Traddles. When Steerforth returns, he doesn’t remember Traddles, showing how he only cares about those he can control. He has come from Yarmouth and reveals that Barkis is sick, not that he seems to care much. He goes back and arrives just before Barkis passes away. David assumes this is what has delayed Ham and Em’ly’s marriage, but through all their interactions she doesn’t seem keen on him, until she runs away with Steerforth! Finally, David realises that Steerforth is a manipulator, although he thinks he loves him even more, uncontrollably. Mr Peggotty departs to search for his niece while David goes back to London, to find his aunt now destitute.
David’s boss Mr Spenlow invites him to his house; David promptly falling in love with his daughter Dora but Miss Murdstone has been hired as her protector- and intends to stop them interacting if she can. On her birthday, her best friend Miss Mills stop them both being foolish and trying to make the other jealous, getting the pair together. They speedily get engaged, but when he discovers his changed financial situation he knows he must get another job- both to help his aunt and Dora. He also feels indebted to tell Dora about his changed situation but she’s pretty childish, like his aunt suggested, because she first freaks out and then tells him to stop being so ‘silly’, to stop working because money will of course turn up! Either way, Miss Murdstone realises they are engaged and tells Mr Spenlow, who is horrified and when David refuses to leave her, decides to persuade his daughter to leave him. However- Mr Spenlow is found dead the next day!
I was somewhat thinking this might clear the way for the couple for a little while, until they realised they weren’t made for each other. But Dora is really devastated and takes her friend Miss Mills to live with her father’s sisters, whom she has never met. Miss Mills writes David diary entries to fill him in on what’s going on and I began to suspect he would fall for her, but she moves to India and, after getting to know him, the Misses Spenlows agree he can marry Dora- a bit of a mistake because they are quite poorly suited to each other and she takes it way too personally whenever he raises any issue in their life. She might have a poor immune system from being little exposed to life, so she gets sick early in their marriage and then passes away.
The doctor from his schooldays has moved here and wants a secretary to write up his dictionary, which David is happy to do whenever he is free. He wants his young wife Annie to live her best life, but she doesn’t want to go out with her cousin Jack, who seems quite into her. It’s not just the readers who suspect something is going on between Annie and Jack, but none of them voice their concerns except the evil Uriah. This leads Annie to share her side of the story, that Jack has made her uncomfortable when they were younger and since then she has rejected his advances and avoided being alone with him. Mr Dick is feeling useless, so they also give him some work with the doctor. However, David goes back to Canterbury where Micawber is now working for Uriah. As it has done to poor Mr Wickfield, Uriah’s influence quickly sours Micawber’s personality.
A girl named Martha who knew Emily, finds her and brings David to where she is being abused by Miss Dardle for ruining her own home with the Steerforths, but David doesn’t want to step in unless he must because he feels this must be left to Mr Peggotty. The uncle decides to go with his niece- and Miss Gummidge when the woman insists- to Australia, and they are joined by the Micawbers at Miss Trotwood’s suggestion after Micawber helps the group take down Uriah and his mother. (Uriah and Steerforth’s servant are both shown to be in prison, but released for civilised behaviour). Before they leave, David wants to let Ham know, but there is a terrible storm causing a shipwreck. Ham is away on a job but returns out of nowhere- so suddenly written that I was quite confused as to his role until I checked someone else’s summary of the chapter! He want to help but dies in the process, and David also finds Steerforth dead in the wreck. The fate of both characters reveals why he’s viewed them both in such a rosy light. He feels indebted to tell Mrs Steerforth and Miss Dardle, but this only causes arguments between the pair.
David goes abroad to get some distance from these events and that makes his feelings for Agnes shfit strangely to romantic, even though Dickens has spent 600 pages establishing their sibling-esque relationship. But I’m willing to accept this marriage because they’re both lovely characters and I want them to be happy. I supppposssssseeeeee they were more like long-term housemates than siblings anyway.
Quotes
“Fashions are like human beings. They come in, nobody knows when, why or how; and they go out, nobody knows when, why or how.”
“My head never can pick and choose its people. They come and they go, and they don’t come and they don’t go, just as they like.”
“What a blank space I seemed, which everybody overlooked, and yet I was in everybody’s way.”
“The streets that we have only seen as children always do, I believe, when we go back to them.”
“Things cannot be expected to turn up of themselves. We must, in a measure, assist to turn them up.”
“The way I look at it, we are all drawing on to the bottom of the hill, whatever age we are, on account of time never standing still for a single moment.”
Into New Realms 