Great Expectations 337Through its autobiographical form, the novel
depicts a world initially perceived by the child
through the filter of his adult memories. The rep-
resentation of David’s earliest experiences illustrates
the expressive nature connected with spontaneous
remembering. Dickens presents an exploration of
the operation of memory as it relates to the psy-
chology of a growing boy who discovers how his
values and life-defining choices have been shaped
by his past. The beginning years of his life are
recalled through direct sensory perception such as
touch, smell, and taste. David recalls the texture of
his nurse Peggotty’s skin; the rank odors associated
with the school run by sadistic teachers that he is
forced to endure; and, during the nightmare of his
boyhood, the food choices he makes to survive his
poverty as a child laborer in the London factory
owned by Murdstone, his stepfather. Throughout
his childhood tribulations, it is the idealized image
of his young mother that sustains David, especially
during his arduous journey from London to Dover
to seek shelter with his Aunt Betsey. Once he settles
into this new, secure life, he tries to discard all
remembrances of his miserable youth.
The later chapters of the novel present David’s
recollection of his life as a story that focuses on
characters he knows. Although the form of memory
in this portion of the work is predominantly pre-
sented through these representational tales, the
straightforward portrayal of autobiographical events
is punctuated by crucial episodes in which the nar-
rator revisits places or encounters characters who
force him to reassess his present by reflecting on his
past. His remembrances about the losses in his life,
such as the deaths of his mother and companions,
are closely linked to his desire to discover the source
of what he describes as an old, strange discontent
within himself. The persistence of painful recollec-
tions of his early life becomes an essential condi-
tion of David’s inner development as he seeks to
understand the dilemmas of his adulthood. When
he recalls his unsatisfactory marriage to his first
spouse, Dora, her premature death, and his friend
Steerforth’s elopement with Emily and ruination
of the Peggotty family, David also ponders his guilt
in these tragedies of his past and how they affect
an understanding of his present life. Thus memory
becomes a moral faculty contributing to David’s
self-understanding and self-determination, and it
advances the development of his maturation.
Memory acts as a crucial agent in the structure
of the novel in other ways. While the direct retelling
of the events of David’s life advances the story in a
linear fashion, there is a circular pattern of thematic
development signaled in his return to places that
evoke recollections of the most strongly felt currents
in his life. He returns to Blunderstone, his boyhood
home, to recall the joy and the oppression he expe-
rienced there and how these deeply felt emotions
still reside in his adult psyche. During visits to Yar-
mouth, David contemplates his memories of it both
as a source of childhood happiness and as the tragic
site of the deaths of his friends Steerforth and Ham
Peggotty. The guilt, regret, and sorrow dividing these
two recollections push David to measure changes in
himself and in his present circumstances. Finally,
his visits to Canterbury, the home of his future
(second) wife, Agnes Wickfield, remind him of the
constant inspiration and guidance she has provided
throughout his life. Recent tragic events that befall
his friends, especially Uriah Heep’s villainy toward
the Wickfields, spark David to change his image of
Agnes as a sister figure; instead he perceives her as
his true and predestined soulmate.
At the end of the novel, David is able to confront
his memories and integrate them into his pres-
ent life. He achieves a balance whereby he neither
indulges in their oppressive and debilitating effects,
as Agnes’s father does, nor distances and hardens
himself against their humanizing evocations, as his
Aunt Betsey does. David Copperf ield demonstrates
David’s ability, as novelist and autobiographer, to
transform painful memories into art and to achieve
a method of recovery from the self-doubt engen-
dered by an anguished childhood. His creative use
of lessons derived from his past becomes the basis of
self-respect and integrated identity.
Diana ChlebekDICKENS, CHARLES Great
Expectations (1860–1861)
The narrator of Charles Dickens’s Great Expecta-
tions is the orphan Pip, who lives with his sister,