Series 6, Issue 4. The Adult David Copperfield. by Tony Williams

Transcription

1 Series 6, Issue 4. The Adult David Copperfield by Tony Williams Part of Dickens s technique in this novel is to punctuate the movement forward of the narrative of David s life with chapters enabling the storyteller (and through him the reader) to reflect on what has been happening. Chapter 18 A Retrospect finds David reflecting on his childhood and schooling. Chapter 43 Another Retrospect sees David reach the age of twenty-one, from which he looks back to see the phantoms of those days go by me. He charts his career as a reporter, having tamed that savage stenographic mystery of shorthand, his move into authorship and his marriage to Dora. Chapter 64 A Last Retrospect provides an opportunity for explanation of the fates of characters including the happiness of his marriage to Agnes, the dear presence, without which I were nothing. David s development is both professional and personal. We see him develop qualities which we had noticed in him as a child: his capacity for observation, as we see in the opening sequence of childhood chapters, and his ability to tell a story as we see him engage the attention of the other boys at school. As he gains in experience, we witness the development of his imaginative capacity, sensitivity, acute powers of observation, detachment and distancing, the ability to evoke powerful memories and make them live again. In these ways David as hero reflects his creator very strongly. At the very beginning of the opening chapter he displays a strong quality of self-awareness and a high estimation of the power of writing: Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. By the time we reach chapter 42 Dickens has David identify the other strengths of his character: the qualities which have enabled him to succeed. They are qualities which underline the values of the mid-nineteenth century as well as the key qualities of his creator s professional creed: Dickens was also well aware of the qualities needed to become the hero of

2 his own life in achieving success as a writer. In chapter 42 he reminds us what they are: I will only add, to what I have already written of my perseverance at this time of my life, and of a patient and continuous energy which then began to be matured within me, and which I know to be the strong part of my character, if it have any strength at all, that there, on looking back, I find the source of my success. I have been very fortunate in worldly matters; many men have worked much harder, and not succeeded half so well; but I never could have done what I have done, without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one object at a time, no matter how quickly its successor should come upon its heels, which I then formed. Heaven knows 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. I do not hold one natural gift, I dare say, that I have not abused. 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. I have never believed it possible that any natural or improved ability can claim immunity from the companionship of the steady, plain, hard-working qualities, and hope to gain its end. There is no such thing as such fulfilment on this earth. Some happy talent, and some fortunate opportunity, may form the two sides of the ladder on which some men mount, but the rounds of that ladder must be made of stuff to stand wear and tear; and there is no substitute for thorough-going, ardent, and sincere earnestness. Never to put one hand to anything, on which I could throw my whole self; and never to affect depreciation of my work, whatever it was; I find, now, to have been my golden rules. When he embarks on chapter 43, the second retrospective chapter in the novel, he does it much more lyrically: Once again, let me pause upon a memorable period of my life. Let me stand aside, to see the phantoms of those days go by me, accompanying the shadow of myself, in dim procession.

3 Weeks, months, seasons, pass along. They seem little more than a summer day and a winter evening. Now, the Common where I walk with Dora is all in bloom, a field of bright gold; and now the unseen heather lies in mounds and bunches underneath a covering of snow. In a breath, the river that flows through our Sunday walks is sparkling in the summer sun, is ruffled by the winter wind, or thickened with drifting heaps of ice. Faster than ever river ran towards the sea, it flashes, darkens, and rolls away. In terms of the chronology of David s life, four years separate this second retrospective chapters from the earlier chapter 18 A Retrospect, but in terms of novelistic activity the separation seems much longer: twenty-four chapters and seven monthly part issues have intervened. A great deal has taken place and many characters with their associated plot lines have been introduced. David travels from Kent to London and establishes himself there, eventually becoming articled to Spenlow and Jorkins at Doctors Commons. He establishes himself in an apartment rented from the redoubtable Mrs Crupp. Steerforth reappears and David (and the reader) meets his mother and Rosa Dartle, as well as Miss Mowcher and Steerforth s silent and disturbing manservant Littimer. David takes Steerforth to visit the Peggotty family in Yarmouth where he charms everyone and establishes a fateful connection with Emily. David, after a drunken evening, visits the theatre and encounters Agnes Wickfield from whom he later learns of Uriah Heep s ascendancy over her father. It is a crucial meeting too because it brings together David s two principal influences: Agnes for good and although he refuses to see it clearly Steerforth for evil: David s good and bad angels. David s personal life develops further when he meets Dora, Mr Spenlow s daughter, and falls hopelessly in love, eventually to make his avowal which is accepted. Relationships are developing throughout these chapters and characters continue to reappear, when David is reunited with his childhood friend Traddles who coincidentally lodges with the Micawbers. Another visit to Yarmouth because of Barkis s illness enables David to be present when he dies and to be of some comfort to the now widowed Peggotty, and also to be present when Emily leaves her betrothed Ham to go away with Steerforth. Daniel Peggotty sets off to search for her. David s Aunt Betsey loses all her money through bad investments and a return visit to Canterbury reveals Heep as Wickfield s partner with Micawber as their clerk.

4 It is, then, a remarkably packed and vibrant section of the novel, with Dickens setting up several plot lines then to be worked out. By the end of this section, David has been forced to see the truth about Steerforth, is set on the path towards marriage and is contemplating preparation for a new career, initially as a reporter with an eye to authorship. He sums up his position at the age of twenty-one: I have come legally to man's estate. I have attained the dignity of twentyone. But this is a sort of dignity that may be thrust upon one. Let me think what I have achieved. I have tamed that savage stenographic mystery. I make a respectable income by it. I am in high repute for my accomplishment in all pertaining to the art, and am joined with eleven others in reporting the debates in Parliament for a Morning Newspaper. Night after night, I record predictions that never come to pass, professions that are never fulfilled, explanations that are only meant to mystify. I wallow in words. Britannia, that unfortunate female, is always before me, like a trussed fowl: skewered through and through with office-pens, and bound hand and foot with red tape. I am sufficiently behind the scenes to know the worth of political life. I am quite an Infidel about it, and shall never be converted. I have come out in another way. I have taken with fear and trembling to authorship. I wrote a little something, in secret, and sent it to a magazine, and it was published in the magazine. Since then, I have taken heart to write a good many trifling pieces. Now, I am regularly paid for them. Altogether, I am well off, when I tell my income on the fingers of my left hand, I pass the third finger and take in the fourth to the middle joint. Once again, Dickens balances the reality of David s life with his capacity to see it as a dream: Nevertheless, I am in a dream, a flustered, happy, hurried dream. I can't believe that it is going to be; and yet I can't believe but that everyone I pass in the street, must have some kind of perception, that I am to be married the day after tomorrow. He still remains unable to see the reality of his emotional relationships. As Aunt Betsey says to him, he is blind, blind. Agnes clearly occupies a

5 position of great importance, a strong presence at the wedding of David and Dora. In several places David is made to make reference to his undisciplined heart. The process of chastening gains pace in the next stages of the novel. David s marriage to Dora leads to chaotic domestic arrangements because Dora is unable to cope. She becomes increasing frail. We learn that Steerforth has left Emily and that she has run away. Contact is made with Martha Endell who is able to locate her and Mr Peggotty plans for them to leave for Australia. Micawber has been gathering evidence of Heep s cheating of Mr Wickfield and exposes him. Dora grows weaker and weaker and then dies in Agnes s arms having expressed her hope that she and David will marry. Emily sends a note to Ham via David who takes it toyarmouth on the night of a violent storm. Ham attempts to save a man s life in the storm and both men die: the other man is Steerforth. Daniel Peggotty, Emily, the Micawbers all emigrate to Australia where they are successful and happy. David eventually comes to realise how important he and Agnes are to one another and they marry. They have a blissfully happy marriage with children and David becomes the eminent author. The great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy held Dickens in great esteem and, within Dickens s writing, David Copperfield above any other novel. He wrote that, within that novel the most impressive writing was to be found in chapter 55, Tempest, and he would seek to preserve that, should all the rest of the world s fiction be destroyed. It is a chapter of astonishing power. At its end, when Ham s body has been found, Dickens draws his chapter to an end thus: As I sat beside the bed, when hope was abandoned and all was done, a fisherman, who had known me when Emily and I were children, and ever since, whispered my name at the door. Sir, said he, with tears starting to his weather-beaten face, which, with his trembling lips, was ashy pale, will you come over yonder? The old remembrance that had been recalled to me, was in his look. I asked him, terror-stricken, leaning on the arm he held out to support me: Has a body come ashore? He said, Yes. Do I know it? I asked then. He answered nothing.

6 But he led me to the shore. And on that part of it where she and I had looked for shells, two children on that part of it where some lighter fragments of the old boat, blown down last night, had been scattered by the wind among the ruins of the home he had wronged I saw him lying with his head upon his arm, as I had often seen him lie at school. Dickens retained this section almost unchanged for his public reading text. The New York Times for 11th December 1867 described Dickens s presentation as acting more impressive than this we have never witnessed. David s journey through a life with a mixture of happiness and sorrow eventually leads him to clarity of perception, personal contentment and professional achievement: he becomes the hero of his own life. And now, as I close my task, subduing my desire to linger yet, these faces fade away. But one face, shining on me like a Heavenly light by which I see all other objects, is above them and beyond them all. And that remains. I turn my head, and see it, in its beautiful serenity, beside me. My lamp burns low, and I have written far into the night; but the dear presence, without which I were nothing, bears me company. O Agnes, O my soul, so may thy face be by me when I close my life indeed; so may I, when realities are melting from me, like the shadows which I now dismiss, still find thee near me, pointing upward!