David Copperfield

“This may be fancy, though I think the memory of most of us can go farther back into such times than many of us suppose; just as I believe the power of observation in numbers of very young children to be quite wonderful for its closeness and accuracy. Indeed, I think that most grown men who are remarkable in this respect, may with greater propriety be said not to have lost the faculty, than to have acquired it; the rather, as I generally observe such men to retain a certain freshness, and gentleness, and capacity of being pleased, which are also an inheritance they have preserved from their childhood.” 

David defends his notion that most people can access their memories more fully and deeply than they might initially imagine. He believes that in the course of recalling his childhood, he is capable of vividly re-experiencing his early impressions, ideas, and sensations of the world around him. The title of the chapter—“I Observe”—thus gestures to David’s childhood observations, and to the uncanny act of “observing” himself (as he looks back upon his own history). By defending this particular notion of memory, David further justifies the exploratory thesis of the novel (to re-inhabit memory, to re-experience life as a character within it). 

“The mother who lay in the grave, was the mother of my infancy; the little creature in her arms, was myself, as I had once been, hushed for ever on her bosom.” 

There are many metaphorical layers to these lines. David suggests that by leaving the Murdstones’ sinister influence, his mother has found redemption in death, furthering the novel’s thematic interest in redemption. He suggests that even when a person’s life does not afford an opportunity for behavioral change, loved ones can reflect back on their lives and write a redemptive ending, just as David will later do for Steerforth.

This passage also marks a turning point in David’s growth and maturity, using the image of his dead baby brother as a metaphor for his own narrative “death” and rebirth. He implies that his old “self” as he “once” was is now dead—“hushed for ever on her bosom”—and that his life from this point forward is a new beginning. 

“When my thoughts go back, now, to that slow agony of my youth, I wonder how much of the histories I invented for such people hangs like a mist of fancy over well-remembered facts! When I tread the old ground, I do not wonder that I seem to see and pity, going on before me, an innocent romantic boy, making his imaginative world out of such strange experiences and sordid things!” 

David contemplates the complexities of remembering: Each time a memory is recalled, it is effectively re-“invented” and permanently changed. This passage also foreshadows the “mist of fancy” David later experiences when remembering Steerforth, who betrayed David, but whom he cherishes as a friend. 

“This adventure frightened me so, that, afterwards, when I saw any of these people coming, I turned back until I could find a hiding-place, where I remained until they had gone out of sight; which happened so often, that I was very seriously delayed. But under this difficulty, as under all the other difficulties of my journey, I seemed to be sustained and led on by my fanciful picture of my mother in her youth, before I came into the world. It always kept me company. It was there, among the hops, when I lay down to sleep; it was with me on my waking in the morning; it went before me all day. I have associated it, ever since, with the sunny street of Canterbury, dozing as it were in the hot light; and with the sight of its old houses and gateways, and the stately, grey Cathedral, with the rooks sailing round the towers.” 

David explains how narrative reconsolidation has helped him process many of his childhood traumas. During his terrifying journey from London to Miss Betsey’s home, whenever he feels threatened by people who remind him of the street ruffians he encountered on that journey, he focuses instead on the “fanciful picture of [his] mother in her youth.” By associating the buildings and landscape of Canterbury with this “fanciful” image of his mother, David effectively changes his sensation of the landscape. 

“Thus I began my new life, in a new name, and with everything new about me. Now that the state of doubt was over, I felt, for many days, like one in a dream. I never thought that I had a curious couple of guardians, in my aunt and Mr. Dick. I never thought of anything about myself, distinctly. The two things clearest in my mind were, that a remoteness had come upon the old Blunderstone life—which seemed to lie in the haze of an immeasurable distance; and that a curtain had for ever fallen on my life at Murdstone and Grinby’s. No one has ever raised that curtain since. I have lifted it for a moment, even in this narrative, with a reluctant hand, and dropped it gladly. The remembrance of that life is fraught with so much pain to me, with so much mental suffering and want of hope, that I have never had the courage even to examine how long I was doomed to lead it. Whether it lasted for a year, or more, or less, I do not know. I only know that it was, and ceased to be; and that I have written and there I leave it.” 

Much like the last lines of Chapter 9, the end of Chapter 14 marks a new beginning for David. Rescued from his dreary “old” life of Mr. Murdstone’s beatings and child labor in the bottling factory, David voluntarily banishes these unpleasant memories to a “haze of immeasurable distance.” Dickens uses the term “haze” with a certain degree of narrative irony. While David might believe he has “dropped” a “curtain” over that part of his past, the reader knows that David has just finished writing about it (and therefore, must have recalled it with considerable detail). Furthermore, the term “haze” ironically recalls David’s earlier reference to the “mist of fancy” which hangs “over well-remembered facts,” suggesting that he has some control over what he chooses to remember.

“Every day of his life he had a long sitting at the Memorial, which never made the least progress, however hard he laboured, for King Charles the First always strayed into it, sooner or later, and then it was thrown aside, and another one begun. The patience and hope with which he bore these perpetual disappointments, the mild perception he had that there was something wrong about King Charles the First, the feeble efforts he made to keep him out, and the certainty with which he came in, and tumbled the Memorial out of all shape, made a deep impression on me. What Mr. Dick supposed would come of the Memorial, if it were completed; where he thought it was to go, or what he thought it was to do; he knew no more than anybody else, I believe. Nor was it at all necessary that he should trouble himself with such questions, for if anything were certain under the sun, it was certain that the Memorial never would be finished.”

In this passage, David describes Mr. Dick’s daily practice of writing his Memorial. Because the novel David Copperfield is itself a memorial of David’s (and Dickens’) experiences, David’s reflections on Memorial are a commentary on act of writing autobiography. Despite the fact that Mr. Dick’s Memorial will “never be finished,” David admires the “patience and hope with which [Mr. Dick] bore [his] perpetual disappointments.” He thus suggests that there may be some ethereal and educational value in the ritual of writing autobiography.

“My mind ran upon what they would think, if they knew of my familiar acquaintance with the King’s Bench Prison? Was there anything about me which would reveal my proceedings in connexion with the Micawber family—all those pawnings, and sellings, and suppers—in spite of myself? […] How would it affect them, who were so innocent of London life, and London streets, to discover how knowing I was (and was ashamed to be) in some of the meanest phases of both?”

When David enters his new, highly distinguished upper class school in Canterbury, he worries over the ways his class differences might subtly expose themselves. He wonders what his classmates would think of him if they knew who he used to be. This phrasing echoes an earlier moment when David worked among poor children at the bottling factory and mused, “I wonder what they thought of me!” (386). Thus, Dickens suggests that David never feels entirely at home with either class, experiencing anxiety akin to imposter syndrome. 

“But what I want you to be, Trot, […] is, a firm fellow. A fine firm fellow, with a will of your own. With resolution, […] With determination. With […] strength of character that is not to be influenced, except on good reason, by anybody, or by anything. That’s what I want you to be. That’s what your father and mother might both have been, Heaven knows, and been the better for it.” 

As David grows into a young adult man, his aunt and adoptive mother figure, Miss Betsey, articulates her desire to see him become “a fine firm fellow.” This moment strongly defines the novel’s interest in examining the lasting effects of both positive and negative parenting role models. Miss Betsey’s words are supportive and encouraging affirmations of David’s character and future growth. Earlier in the novel, however, Mr. Murdstone frequently used the idea of “firm” discipline to justify his abuses of David and his mother. Dickens shows how the same words and ideas have very different meanings depending on the character and intentions of the person using them.

The idea of becoming “what [his] father and mother might both have been” also echoes David’s concerns about being the hero of his own life. Here, Miss Betsey invites him to become that hero, “not to be influenced, except on good reason, by anybody, or by anything.”

“David, I wish to God I had had a judicious father these last twenty years! […] I wish with all my soul I had been better guided! […] I wish with all my soul I could guide myself better! […] It would be better to be this poor Peggotty, or his lout of a nephew […] than to be myself, twenty times richer and twenty times wiser, and be the torment to myself that I have been, in this Devil’s bark of a boat, within the last half-hour!” 

In this rare introspective moment, Steerforth—David’s wealthy, handsome, and charismatic friend—gives the reader a glimpse into his deeper conflicts, developing the novel’s theme of parental role models (or lack thereof). Though Steerforth appears to have everything he needs on the surface level—including wealth and wisdom—he recognizes that this means little without a moral model and guide, a “judicious father.” Steerforth’s class prejudice—his condescending statements about “poor Peggotty” and “his lout of a nephew”—allow David to see his true character for the first time.  

“I did […] what I hope was right. Feeling sure that it was necessary for papa’s peace that the sacrifice should be made, I entreated him to make it. I said it would lighten the load of his life—I hope it will!—and that it would give me increased opportunities of being his companion. […] I almost feel as if I had been papa’s enemy, instead of his loving child.” 

Agnes expresses her conflicted feelings about advising her father to promote his conniving secretary, Uriah Heep, after advising David to beware of “bad angels” like Steerforth (suggesting that Uriah Heep is the “bad angel” in her own life). This moment of trusting confidence between Agnes and David characterizes her as a “good angel,” a kind person seeking to “lighten the load” of those she cares for.

“All was over in a moment. I had fulfilled my destiny. I was a captive and a slave. I loved Dora Spenlow to distraction! She was more than human to me. She was a Fairy, a Sylph, I don’t know what she was—anything that no one ever saw, and everything that everybody ever wanted. I was swallowed up in an abyss of love in an instant. There was no pausing on the brink; no looking down, or looking back; I was gone, headlong, before I had sense to say a word to her.” 

David describes his overwhelming infatuation with the beautiful young Dora Spenlow as a kind of “captivity” and “enslavement.” These negative comparisons forecast the outcome of their relationship and David’s lack of lucidity. The description contrasts Agnes’s romantic connection with David—as David later realizes, if he’d been wiser and more clear-headed, he should have chosen Agnes as his romantic partner. In a moment of dramatic irony, both the reader and the adult narrator David can see that David is making a mistake by pursuing Dora. The young David, unfortunately, does not possess this wisdom or foresight, as he finds himself “swallowed up in an abyss of love […] gone, headlong.” 

“A dread falls on me here. A cloud is lowering on the distant town, towards which I retraced my solitary steps. I fear to approach it. I cannot bear to think of what did come, upon that memorable night; of what must come again, if I go on. It is no worse, because I write of it. It would be no better, if I stopped my most unwilling hand. It is done. Nothing can undo it; nothing can make it otherwise than as it was.” 

As David begins to narrate the story of Little Em’ly’s disappearance, he tellingly hesitates, knowing that by remembering these sad moments, he will be forced to re-experience them. He ultimately reflects that “It is no worse, because I write of it. It would be no better, if I stopped my most unwilling hand.” Thus, Dickens continues to develop the thematic intersections of memory, writing, and re-inhabiting one’s lived experiences. Unlike some of the novel’s earlier explorations of memory, which point to the power of narrative to change and reshape experience, this moment emphasizes a lack of control, an inability to change what “is done.” 

“What is natural in me, is natural in many other men, I infer, and so I am not afraid to write that I never had loved Steerforth better than when the ties that bound me to him were broken. In the keen distress of the discovery of his unworthiness, I thought more of all that was brilliant in him, I softened more towards all that was good in him, I did more justice to the qualities that might have made him a man of a noble nature and a great name, than ever I had done in the height of my devotion to him. Deeply as I felt my own unconscious part in his pollution of an honest home, I believed that if I had been brought face to face with him, I could not have uttered one reproach.” 

Despite Steerforth’s reprehensible corruption of Little Em’ly—and even, in some strange way, because of it—David thinks of Steerforth as a true friend, staying loyal to the image he cherished as a schoolboy. These romantic memories are ironic, as Steerforth was never truly the “noble” figure David saw. This moment also contains echoes of earlier reflections on memory and the fanciful “haze” of reconsolidation (such as David’s thoughts on pages 406-407). 

“I would have her branded on the face, dressed in rags, and cast out in the streets to starve. If I had the power to sit in judgement on her, I would see it done. See it done? I would do it! I detest her. If I ever could reproach her with her infamous condition, I would go anywhere to do so. If I could hunt her to her grave, I would. If there was any word of comfort that would be a solace to her in her dying hour, and only I possessed it, I wouldn’t part with it for Life itself.”

When Rosa Dartle harshly denounces Little Em’ly, she serves as a stand-in for the cruel judgments cast upon women who pursued romantic and sexual gratification outside of marriage by Victorian society. Rosa’s vicious tirade and generates sympathy for Little Em’ly. The painful intensity of Rosa’s rage also suggests that she has imagined herself in Little Em’ly’s position (or, at least, imagined herself as the recipient of Steerforth’s romantic attention). It is clear that Rosa is eager to blame anyone and anything for Steerforth’s bad behavior, expect Steerforth himself. Rosa and Steerforth’s mother defend and enable Steerforth, holding him on an eternal pedestal like David does. 

“Well! I loved her, and I went on loving her, most absorbingly, entirely, and completely. But going on, too, working pretty hard, and busily keeping red-hot all the irons I now had in the fire, I would sit sometimes of a night, opposite my aunt, thinking how I had frightened Dora that time, and how I could best make my way with a guitar-case through the forest of difficulty, until I used to fancy that my head was turning quite grey.” 

In this passage, David encapsulates the frustrations of his marriage with Dora. While he loves her, her lack of maturity and housekeeping ability deeply frustrates him, though he never considers whether it is fair to expect a childish and cosseted young woman to suddenly have the skills to singlehandedly manage a household. David must keep their finances afloat and hide his labor from Dora, who is “frightened” by conversations about adult responsibilities.

Dora’s poor housekeeping is a metaphor for the disorganization and dissonance within their home. Dora cannot create a hearth like an ideal Victorian wife, so David grows distant from her. By contrast, David’s descriptions of Agnes (his eventual second wife) are filled with allusions to home and comfort, bespeaking an ease of communication and understanding. 

“But how little you think of the rightful umbleness of a person in my station, Master Copperfield! Father and me was both brought up at a foundation school for boys; and mother, she was likewise brought up at a public, sort of charitable, establishment. They taught us all a deal of umbleness—not much else that I know of, from morning to night. We was to be umble to this person, and umble to that; and to pull off our caps here, and to make bows there; and always to know our place, and abase ourselves before our betters. And we had such a lot of betters! Father got the monitor-medal by being umble. So did I. Father got made a sexton by being umble. He had the character, among the gentlefolks, of being such a well-behaved man, that they were determined to bring him in. […] When I was quite a young boy, […] I got to know what umbleness did, and I took to it. I ate umble pie with an appetite. I stopped at the umble point of my learning […] When you offered to teach me Latin, I knew better. ’People like to be above you,’ says father, ‘keep yourself down.’ I am very umble to the present moment, Master Copperfield, but I’ve got a little power!” 

Uriah Heep explains his tactic of using feigned subservience to gain power over others. By training his betters to underestimate him, Uriah is able to take control when least expected. Ironically, after Uriah does gain power over Mr. Wickfield’s business, he makes the same mistake by underestimating the intelligence of Mr. Micawber. The “humble” Mr. Micawber is thereby able to take Uriah by surprise, leading David and Traddles in a confrontation when he least expects one. 

“Ah, Trot! […] blind, blind, blind!” 

Miss Betsey Trotwood disapproves of David’s marriage to the beautiful (but decidedly impractical) young Dora. David is initially confused by her vigorous disapproval of his relationship, which is contrary to her typically supportive attitude. He later discovers that Miss Betsey long ago entered into a “blind, blind, blind” marriage of her own, to a husband who terrorizes and financially exploits her. Miss Betsey also denounces David’s relationship with Dora because she knows that Agnes loves him (and would be a much more sympathetic, understanding, and emotionally mature partner). David later reflects, “I understood her better now—‘Blind, blind, blind!’” (1,950). 

“I write this, in no spirit of self-laudation. The man who reviews his own life, as I do mine, in going on here, from page to page, had need to have been a good man indeed, if he would be spared the sharp consciousness of many talents neglected, many opportunities wasted, many erratic and perverted feelings constantly at war within his breast, and defeating him. […] My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest.”

David begins Chapter 42 by echoing his Aunt Betsey’s earlier desire to see him become “a fine firm fellow” (649), continuing to develop the novel’s theme of growing—and maturing—through personal struggle. This timely pause—roughly 3/4 of the way through the novel, right on the cusp of the novel’s climax—also invites the reader to reconsider David’s question at the very beginning of the book: “Whether [he] shall turn out to be the hero of [his] own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else” (17). David’s reference to “erratic and perverted feelings constantly at war within his breast” foreshadows the novel’s soon-to-follow conflicts (including the deaths of Ham and Steerforth). 

“There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose.” 

Annie delivers this heartfelt speech to her husband, declaring her commitment to dispelling secrets, resolving misunderstandings, and meeting in “mind and purpose.” In this significant moment, Mr. Dick shows his usefulness by helping repair the marital misunderstandings of Annie and Dr. Strong, creating a space for them to speak to one another openly and honestly. Dickens develops one of the novel’s themes: the wisdom (and unique insight) of the outsider. David later applies what Annie said to his own marital distress with Dora.

“Oh, the river! I know it’s like me! […] I know that I belong to it. […] It haunts me day and night. It’s the only thing in all the world that I am fit for, or that’s fit for me.” 

Martha stares into the River Thames and presumably contemplates suicide by way of drowning, believing the river is all she is “fit for.” Her despair reflects the harsh judgments Victorians cast upon fallen women and develops the novel’s theme of aquatic imagery (foreshadowing the deaths by drowning of Ham and Steerforth). 

“I have deserved this […] but it’s dreadful! Dear, dear lady, think what I have suffered, and how I am fallen! Oh, Martha, come back! Oh, home, home!” 

After Rosa Dartle confronts Little Em’ly with a brutal tirade against her character, Little Em’ly cries for mercy and for “home” simultaneously. This outcry for “home” is later echoed in Little Em’ly’s story of her escape from Steerforth and Littimer, wherein she hallucinates that her family’s home is just over the horizon. The novel offers a bittersweet resolution for its fallen women: Little Em’ly finds “home” by leaving England for Australia, but even there the novel bars her from finding love or marrying. 

“I now approach an event in my life, so indelible, so awful, so bound by an infinite variety of ties to all that has preceded it, in these pages, that, from the beginning of my narrative, I have seen it growing larger and larger as I advanced, like a great tower in a plain, and throwing its fore-cast shadow even on the incidents of my childish days.” 

Again, David breaks into meta narrative to build tension around the novel’s climax: the drowning deaths of Steerforth and Ham. By temporarily pausing the narrative, David encourages the reader to evaluate the storm’s significance within the novel and to assess the event as a turning point in his overall growth as a man. David believes that fate has “fore-cast [this] shadow even on the incidents of my childish days” through aquatic imagery: from his birth with a caul (traditionally used to ward off drowning) to Martha’s fixation on “the river.” In a sense, only a tragedy of this magnitude can dispel the foreshadowed fear that looms over much of David’s childhood. Only by surviving this climax—and the writing of this climax—can David rise to maturity (and—by extension—finish his memoir). 

“The well-remembered ground was soon traversed, and I came into the quiet streets, where every stone was a boy’s book to me. I went on foot to the old house, and went away with a heart too full to enter. I returned; and looking, as I passed, through the low window of the turret-room where first Uriah Heep, and afterwards Mr. Micawber, had been wont to sit, saw that it was a little parlour now, and that there was no office. Otherwise the staid old house was, as to its cleanliness and order, still just as it had been when I first saw it. I requested the new maid who admitted me, to tell Miss Wickfield that a gentleman who waited on her from a friend abroad, was there; and I was shown up the grave old staircase (cautioned of the steps I knew so well), into the unchanged drawing-room. The books that Agnes and I had read together, were on their shelves; and the desk where I had laboured at my lessons, many a night, stood yet at the same old corner of the table. All the little changes that had crept in when the Heeps were there, were changed again. Everything was as it used to be, in the happy time.” 

This scene marks David’s literal and metaphorical homecoming as he returns from his abroad with the goal of marrying Agnes: the woman he has identified as his spiritual “home.” Upon returning to the home of the Wickfields, David discovers that Agnes has carefully preserved his childhood, creating the very spiritual “home” he desires to re-inhabit. This kind of intuitive, empathetic “housekeeping” is a stark contrast to the poor “housekeeping” of Dora, David’s beautiful but less-than-insightful first wife.

Agnes’s preservation of their old “home” is a metaphorical extension of David’s memoir. Just as the book David Copperfield contains David’s past experiences and sensations—and the writing of this book allows David to return to those memories—this home is a space where David can rediscover “books that [he and] Agnes […] read together.”