Ch. Dickens’s David Copperfield as a novel of upbringing.

Dickens addressed the genre of the novel of upbringing throughout his writing career in The Adventures of Oliver Twist, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, and, most notably, in Great Expectations. However, David Copperfield is considered to be the most classical example and simultaneously the work that came as close to Dickens’ autobiography as no other text in his whole creative heritage. Certain characters were drawn up from the writer’s close people, such as Mister Micawber (Dickens’ father John Dickens), Dora Spenlow (Dickens’ first love); and certain themes are linked with the author’s personal experience: the image of the debtor’s prison, David’s labouring in the wine factory, his engagement with the career of a parliamentary reporter, scenes of married life. However, the novel can not be considered fully autobiographical, it is rather “a glance at the past”. The narrative complexity of the text arises from a double perspective, as David, who is now a mature writer, narrates a story of his childhood and teenage years, where he is the principal character as well. The narrator shows us the world through the child’s vision, however, he sets certain “markers” for the reader to understand what perhaps young Davy fails to grasp because of his age, inducing the reader to see the underlying morale often much sooner than David or other characters prove it by their actions. The very genre of the novel of upbringing is strongly tied with the question of didacticism. Nevertheless, Dickens’ power lies not in direct moralizing, which we encounter in the classical Enlightment novels like Tom Jones, but in the device of suggestion (сугестія). The righteous ardour which he describes his positive characters – Betsy Trotwood, Pegotty, Uncle Pegotty, Ham, Tommy Traddles and above all Agnes – serves to inculcate these true and luminous images into the reader’s memory so deeply that he can only gasp, together with Copperfield, at the “humble” meanness of Uriah or be disillusioned with the consequences of Steerforth’s class superiority.

During the practical class it is proposed to contrast the more conventional interpretation of the novel with its criticism exacted by Gilbert Keith Chesterton in Appreciations and Criticisms of the works of Charles Dickens to enhance the complexity of Dickens’ text by “reading Dickens against himself”.

The first ten chapters of David Copperfield are considered to be the classic of the novel of upbringing. His mother’s “renaissance” approach to little Davy’s education combines elements of learning with play (for example her teaching of the alphabet, where Davy is full of awe at different letter shapes). Quite contrasting is the method undertaken by Mr. Murdstone and his sister, which implies solving threatening sums too difficult for David’s age, vigorous study of Latin texts, History and Geography which ends up with physical punishment of a child who inevitably stumbles and makes mistakes, paralyzed by the Murdstones’ heavy glance. David is not supposed to play outside with other children lest he should “be idle”, and his only retreat is found in his father’s library, in the company of Smollett’s, Defoe’s and Fielding’s works.

1. “The real achievement of the earlier part of David Copperfield lies in a certain impression of the little Copperfield living in a land of giants.<…> But one cannot avoid the impression that as the boy grows larger these figures grow smaller, and are not perhaps so completely satisfactory”.

How does the author achieve the effect of perceiving the world with child’s eyes? Consider the quote and analyze the characterization techniques Dickens uses on the examples of Mr. and Ms. Murdstone, the Peggotty family, Davy’s mother. Are Dickens’ heroes and villains static or dynamic in “David Copperfield”?

Images of the Salem House, where David is sent after biting Mr. Murdstone, are the very satire on the educational system: boys are stupefied by the abuse of physical punishment, and seek escape in little night-parties listening to David’s accounts of the books he has read. At Salem House David encounters the first idol and mistake of his “undisciplined heart”, a boy from a rich upper-class family called James Steerforth, and one of the truest future friends – Tommy Traddles. Dickens shows how passionate little David does not distinguish beauty and virtue, and his idolized view of Steerforth is caused as much by his handsome looks and light manners as by his dubious “noble” deeds.

Do the class prejudices reveal themselves in the boy’s attitudes to each other and Mr.Mells? At this point in the novel does the author establish any relation between class, upbringing and morale?

David starts to mature when he takes his first independent decision to seek his aunt Betsey Trotwood and to escape the misery and hardships of the wine factory, where he is sent to labour by Mr. Murdstone after his mother’s death. This “rite of passage” is marked by the change of the colour scheme, as well as the chronotope: from gloomy dark-grey London slums to Dover’s open spaces and the green grass of Betsey Trotwood’s lawns on the hill overlooking the sea. David’s naïveté in people’s judgement is proved when he first meets Mr. Dick, and it is only later in the novel that he realizes that Mr. Dick’s, and especially his aunt’s, eccentric behaviour helps them disregard social prejudices and form an independent and insightful opinion of others.

Reflect upon the phenomenon of British eccentricity evoking the “hobby-horse” theory expressed in Tristram Shandy and perhaps even Hamlet’s “antique disposition”. How does it allow the characters react? In Betsey Trotwood’s case, can her oddities be a shield for her active position in life, which now would be considered feministic?

Under Betsey Trotwood’s guardianship David is being sent to be educated in Doctor Strong’s school of Canterbury. Doctor Strong is another picture in Dickens’ gallery of “dear eccentrics” and represents the universal type of a distinguished scholar who is too blind and absent-minded in his family affairs. The image of Doctor Strong’s school is Dickens’ educational utopia. In this establishment great attention is devoted not only to the students’ excellence in mastering the subjects, but to their advancement in sports and games as well. Discipline management and high academic score are ensured by the principle of all the students sharing the responsibility for the school’s and Doctor Strong’s postitive image, so that very individual strives to prove school’s good name by personal progress according to his own faculties and abilities. Mr. Wickfield’s daughter, whose house David is staying at, becomes his closest friend and “guardian angel”, and is to play a crucial part later on in his life. The example of the faults of upbringing one finds in this novel’s most revolting character, Uriah Heep, Mr. Wickfield’s apprentice in the law company. In the working house Uriah and his family are being taught to always “be humble” in life, and Uriah uses his humbleness as the strongest weapon against social injustice as he is treacherously making his way up the career ladder, secured by Agnes’ father’s weakness of character.

How does Dickens depict the decay of a personality under the influence of alcohol? Is Agnes unconsiciously any part of her father’s fall?

The advancement of the plot and David’s life take us through the years of his early career as a proctor, and then parliamentary reporter, his love at first sight and hasty marriage to Dora Spenlow. Dickens shows in passing David’s emergence as a writer, devoting more space to more private topics. David’s disillusionment and the end of his adolescent views comes with two major events in his life: little Emily’s flight with Steerforth and the tragic outcome of this subplot and Dora’s death for which David feels subconsciously guilty. Perhaps David senses the dangerous parallel between Steerforth’s lust towards little Emily’s purity and beauty and the passion of his own “undisciplined heart”. David’s attempts to change “his child wife’s” infantile mind and shape her immature character make Dora feel inferior, burdensome and thus obstructive to David’s happiness, so her illness and lack of desire to struggle with it seem almost suicidal and remind of the tragedy of David’s childhood life and Mr. Murdstone’s treatment of his mother. Contrary to Mr. Murdstone, though, David believes he truly loves Dora.

2. “We should have thought more of David Copperfield (and also of Charles Dickens) if he had not looked upon the marriage with Dora merely as a flirtation, an episode which he survived and ought to survive”.

3. “…there is perhaps no place in literature where we feel more vividly the sense of this monogamous instinct in man than in David Copperfield. A man is monogamous even if he is only monogamous for a month; love is eternal even if it is only eternal for a month. It always leaves behind it the sense of something broken and betrayed”.

4. “The whole pleasure of marriage is that it is a perpetual crisis. David Copperfield and Dora quarrelled over the cold mutton; and if they had gone on quarrelling to the end of their lives, they would have gone on loving each other to the end of their lives; it would have been a human marriage. But David Copperfield and Agnes would agree about the cold mutton. And that cold mutton would be very cold” [1].

Do you agree with Chesterton’s opinion that David’s marriage to Dora was the only real one? Do these quotes tell us more about the critic’s or the writer’s attitudes to marriage? Analyze how the whole episode of David’s marriage to Dora casts a shadow on the morality of the main character. How does Dickens view the role of woman in social and personal life: compare Dora, Agnes, Betsey Trotwood. Are there any episodes in the novel where we can say David is being sexsist? (Consider Rosa Dartle’s image [2] ).

The plot resolves in Mr. Micawber helping uncover Uriah’s counterfeit manipulations and free Mr. Wickfield’s family of his dangerous influence, upon which the Micawbers and Uncle Peggotty, Emily and Mrs. Gummidge embark to give a new beginning to their lives in Australia.

5. “Why did Dickens at the end of this book give way to that typically English optimism about emigration? He seems to think that he can cure the souls of a whole cartload, or rather boatload, of his characters by sending them all to the Colonies. Peggotty is a desolate and insulted parent whose house has been desecrated and his pride laid low; therefore let him go to Australia. Emily is a woman whose heart is broken and whose honour is blasted; but she will be quite happy if she goes to Australia. Mr. Micawber is a man whose soul cannot be made to understand the tyranny of time or the limits of human hope; but he will understand all these things if he goes to Australia. <…> It would be an exaggeration to say that Dickens in this matter is something of a forerunner of much modern imperialism”.

Was Dickens genuinely optimistic about emigration (You might have to consider Martin Chuzzlewit) or is it brought on by the sentimental desire to write a “happy ending” for the characters less fortunate that Copperfield? Does it produce a realistic impression?

David himself becomes a prolific and acclaimed writer. However, it is only when he realizes that the positive influence on his life was exacted mostly by Agnes’s virtues that the spiritual stabilization can take place, and the closing appeal to his second wife shows him a mature and self-realized personality.

Or does it?

6. “It is better to know Micawber than not to know the minor worries that arise out of knowing Micawber. It is better to have a bad debt and a good friend. In the same way it is better to marry a human and healthy personality which happens to attract you than to marry a mere housewife; for a mere housewife is a mere housekeeper”.

7. “That is the whole meaning of Dickens; that we should keep the absurd people for our friends. And here at the end of David Copperfield he seems in some dim way to deny it. He seems to want to get rid of the preposterous people simply because they will always continue to be preposterous. I have a horrible feeling that David Copperfield will send even his aunt to Australia if she worries him too much about donkeys” [1].

What moral lesson do you think Dickens would like his readers to learn upon the closing lines of this novel, considering it is a novel of upbringing? Do you agree with Chesterton that in the closure Dickens contradicts himself? Can this be attributed to the contradiction between Romantic and Realistic manner evident in this novel?

Chesterton voices fascination for Dickens’ “absurd” characters. What were you most fascinated by during the reading of the novel?

Questions for further analysis:

1. Throughout the novel we encounter narrator’s “spots of consciousness” – passages which are self-reflective and bear unique and often very personal meaning for narrator’s self-identification. Can you identify them in David Copperfield?

2. Dickens’ powerful visualization technique has been contemplated upon by Grahame Swift in his essay “Dickens and the City of Light”. What episodes or images in the novel bear almost cinematographic/photographic representation?

3. Are Dickens’ women portraits and attributed roles any different from Thackerays’ (Contrast, for example, Agnes Wickfield and Emilia Sedley, and Betsey Trotwood and Becky Sharp)? How does this refer to different aesthetic positions occupied by two writers?

4. One of the main aesthetic principles of realistic literature is to portray the typical in the singular. Chesterton believes Dickens’ art is on the contrary: “Dickens took the poor individually: all modern writing tends to take them collectively”. In your opinion, what is the key to the phenomenon of universal democracy of Dickens’ art?

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