David Copperf ield 335foundation of his childhood by describing his anxi-
eties about his dead father and his uncanny child’s
observations about his mother’s frail and unstable
nature.
When David’s mother marries Mr. Murdstone,
who becomes a cruel stepfather, the boy’s joyous
early years turn into nightmares. The narrator’s
description of Murdstone’s use of religious dogma
as a pretext for abusing David emotionally and
physically as part of the process of educating him
reverberates with Dickens’s protest about soci-
ety’s hypocrisy in its treatment of children. The
destruction of David’s childhood continues when
Murdstone sends him to a wretched school run by
a sadistic master, Creakle, who teaches his students
only bullying and fear of authority.
At this point in the novel, when David’s mother
dies and the boy is sent by Murdstone to work at his
London factory, Dickens introduces autobiographi-
cal elements of his own life through the detailed
description of David’s despair over his descent into
working-class life and his lost opportunity to become
an educated and accomplished man. David’s intense
reaction to this darkest period of his childhood is
portrayed with an accuracy that reflects Dickens’s
deep insight about the special nature of children and
their emotional needs. This episode also highlights
a prominent social theme of Dickens’s novels that
became the basis of a lifelong crusade—his vehe-
ment critique of Victorian society’s exploitation
of juveniles as cheap labor. David’s helplessness
and isolation are exacerbated in this miserable
situation when he loses the support of his surrogate
family, the Micawbers, who have provided him
with companionship and love in addition to room
and board during his factory labors in London. The
narrator’s portrayal of the father, Wilkins Macawber,
who drags his family with him into debtors’ prison,
is based on another autobiographical aspect from
Dickens’s life. Like the author’s own father, John
Dickens, Micawber is an example of the immature
and weak adult whose weaknesses and inadequate
parenting prove to be so disruptive to family life and
to the social order.
David’s responses to the vicissitudes in this
abysmal point of his childhood foretells the kind of
determined and resourceful adult he will become.
When he resolves to make the arduous journey by
foot from London to Dover to seek out his Aunt
Betsey for her support and shelter, he makes great
strides in the growth of his character. Once his aunt
adopts him, changes his name, and provides him
with good schooling and moral guidance, David’s
childhood closes behind him. The rest of the novel
focuses on his successful progress toward adulthood.
Several of the children with whom David’s life
is intertwined provide examples of characters who
are destroyed by their broken childhoods, mainly
because they lack proper parental guidance. Thus,
little Emily, an orphan adopted by the Peggotty
family, grows up to be an impulsive, weak-willed
woman who is easily seduced by James Steerforth,
David’s schoolboy hero. Steerforth, who is father-
less and has been indulged by an autocratic mother,
becomes an egotistical and heedless adult who
destroys both himself and the well-being of the
Peggotty family through his uncontrolled passions.
Dora Spenlow, David’s first wife, is also an orphan
who has been raised and spoiled by two aunts. She
enters marriage with David in a state of immature
emotional development, ill-prepared to cope with
the responsibilities of adulthood.
Ultimately, it is David’s astute observations
about the tribulations of his childhood and its
depiction as a perilous journey to self-knowledge
that make David Copperf ield such a masterpiece.
Among Dickens’s works, this novel contemplates
at the deepest levels the place of the child in adult
society, especially as it was conceived by Victorian
culture.
Diana ChlebekeducatiOn in David Copperf ield
Charles Dickens approaches the theme of education
in David Copperf ield on several levels. He deals with
the virtues and vices of methods of formal instruc-
tion that David undergoes in his early years. He also
treats the theme more broadly through his portrayal
of David’s maturity into a responsible adult who has
learned from his life experiences.
The early chapters focus on David’s childhood,
especially on autobiographical events that mirror
Dickens’s own experiences with schools and teach-
ers. The author effectively criticizes the inhumane