David Copperfield by Charles Dickens Plot Summary

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens tells the tale of a young boy's growth and progress. It is written from the perspective of an adult who has reached maturity and recalls his struggles and those of people around him, discussing how they all influenced his outlook on life and his views.

At David Copperfield's house, Blunderstone Rookery, the novel opens with a description of his birth and early years. Six months after the passing of his father, he was born, and one of the nurses predicted that he would have a bad life because of the circumstances.

He has a pleasant childhood thanks to his mother, Clara, and caregiver, Peggotty. He recalls his mother as carefree, and the three had laid-back attitudes. He regularly remarks that he's never been happier than he is right now.

After his mother meets the mysterious but attractive Mr. Murdstone, everything changes. Immediately hating him, Peggotty frequently quarrels with Clara about him, but the latter ignores her counsel.

Peggotty and David spend a week in Yarmouth, where Peggotty is from. During this time, David gets to know Mr. Barkis, the carrier driver, Mr. Peggotty, Mr. Peggotty's brother Ham, and Little Em'ly for the first time. However, David and Peggotty discover that his mother and Mr. Murdstone have wed, and their prior existence has vanished forever.

Clara is subject to intense supervision from Mr. Murdstone, who uses his sister, Miss Murdstone, to impose the importance of firmness on her.

David is sent to Salem House, a boarding school for boys, after biting Mr. Murdstone while being thrashed by him. There he meets Traddles, an overweight but humorous and kind-hearted lad, and Steerforth, a gorgeous, cultured guy he admires. He gets one more enjoyable day with his mother and learns a lot at school before learning the sad news that she has died.

He leaves Salem House after the funeral and goes back to his house. Peggotty marries Mr. Barkis after being dismissed by Mr. Murdstone. While she still writes and occasionally sees David, she cannot provide for him in the same way as previously.

Despite the respect he gains, David is repeatedly ignored before being ultimately transferred to London to work in one of Mr. Murdstone's warehouses, a job he dislikes. He can get to know the Micawbers, a kind but financially precarious family. To escape their debts, they are finally forced to relocate. After they go, David resolves to follow them to find his aunt Miss Betsey, who abandoned his mother and him at birth since he was not a girl. He arrives at his aunt's house in Dover after a challenging voyage, and after a confrontation with the Murdstones, she agrees to allow him and her other houseguest, Mr. Dick, to stay.

David starts doing well in school and rapidly moves to the top of his class in Canterbury. He lives with family friends Mr. Wickfield and his daughter, Agnes. Agnes is approximately David's age and will continue to be a key influence on David's life. Additionally, he meets Dr. Strong, his school's headmaster, Annie Strong, Dr. Strong's wife, and Uriah Heep, a servant of Mr. Wickfield, whom David dislikes immediately.

Miss Betsey and David determine that once he graduates, he should take some time to consider his options. He decides to see Peggotty, and on the way there, he encounters Steerforth, who invites him to his house.

There, David runs into Mrs. Steerforth, his mother, and Miss Dartle, Steerforth's cousin (whom Steerforth had scarred on the lip when they were younger).

When David and Steerforth visit Yarmouth, they stay there for a while. They arrive just in time to hear the news of Little Em'ly and Ham's engagement, which Steerforth is not pleased about.

After speaking with his aunt, David decides to pursue a profession as a proctor. He moves to Doctors' Commons in London and begins employment at Spenlow and Jorkins. He even has Mrs. Crupp as his landlady in his flat.

He runs across Mr. Micawber and Tommy Traddles from Salem House, who is pursuing a legal career while trying to save money for the wedding to his fianc�e.

However, due to financial difficulties, Mr. Micawber is soon obliged to leave again. When David first meets Dora, the childlike and gorgeous daughter of Mr. Spenlow, they immediately fall in love.

When he learns that Mr. Barkis is close to passing away, David heads back to Yarmouth, where he stays to handle Peggotty's business for a while. Little Em'ly and Steerforth escape now, and Mr. Peggotty sets off on a search to find them and return them to her family. Meanwhile, Miss Betsey appears at David's door after losing her riches due to Uriah Heep's cunning.

He entered into a partnership with Mr. Wickfield via deceit. Despite his financial situation, David is committed to working hard to make his marriage to Dora successful.

Mr. Spenlow quickly learns about the relationship and prohibits it, but later that day, he perishes in a carriage accident, leaving Dora upset and hesitant to meet David. Even though Dora is terrible at housework and behaves like a child in many other ways, the two eventually get married and have happy lives. David suffers a significant loss due to her untimely passing, and Agnes' help mostly keeps him going.

When Uriah raises the possibility that Annie could have an affair with her cousin Jack Maldon, Dr. Strong and Annie have some challenging moments. However, once Mr. Dick helps the two come to terms, their previous level of attachment returns.

As a result of this occurrence, people are even less fond of Uriah, and eventually, Mr. Micawber and Traddles, who were working for him, expose him as a fraud and bring him to justice.

Little Em'ly has escaped from Steerforth, Mr. Peggotty, and David learns through Littimer, Steerforth's servant. When they ask Martha, one of her friends, for assistance in finding Little Em'ly, Martha ultimately succeeds and directs Mr. Peggotty to her.

He decides to go to Australia so that Little Em'ly and the Micawber family might begin a new life there. Just outside of Yarmouth, Steerforth passes in a storm, and Ham passes away while attempting to save him.

David relocates to get away from what he has experienced. He realizes that he does love Agnes throughout this period. Soon after his return to London, the two are hitched and begin living happily with Miss Betsey, Peggotty, and Mr. Dick, in addition to their three children.

David Copperfield Themes

Social Class

Class and social standing are recurring themes in the novel. In reality, the novel reflects social class and wealth predicated on it.

Favoritism and unmerited regard are routinely displayed for those in higher social classes. For instance, Steerforth receives superior treatment at Salem House than David and the other kids. Furthermore, Steerforth should be honoring David, Mr. Peggotty, and Ham for their moral character instead of their great admiration for him from lower-class individuals like Mr. Peggotty and Mr. Ham. As soon as he becomes engaged to Little Em'ly, he frequently insults those less important to him, such as Mr. Mell and Ham.

The pursuit of social prestige is also evident in David and Dora's romance and marriage. After learning of Miss Betsey's financial crisis, David's first feeling is guilt at being poor, while Dora cries at the idea of David being impoverished and having to do her chores.

David works hard to get money to support himself and provide Dora with a comfortable life. Little Em'ly also complains about her low social standing and longs to be a "lady," so she first runs off with Steerforth.

True Happiness

Finding actual happiness frequently takes the front stage in this novel. The narrator mentions David's young, pure delight before his mother wed Mr. Murdstone. The reader must decide if David has succeeded in finding real happiness because this is the central theme of the narrative.

Each character finds or tries to find their route to happiness. Some people, like David and the Peggottys, may discover true happiness via their families and marriages. While Uriah and the Micawbers believe that money would make them tremendously happy, they are content to be together. Like Dora, some people find joy in little, inconsequential pleasures. Dickens appears to question if any of these people would ever be happy, given that each way to get pleasure has benefits and drawbacks.

True Happiness

Even though these ideas are more complicated than they first appear, not the least because they are presented via rather sophisticated characters, Dickens makes it simple to distinguish between good and evil throughout the work.

The idea of good against evil is regularly evident, especially in a battle for David's soul between Agnes Wickfield and Steerforth. David's "good angel," as he calls her, is represented by Agnes.

She is his voice of reason, so she can help him relax and give him the direction he needs. On the other hand, Steerforth is his "bad angel," in Agnes' words. He feeds David's yearning for upper-class, superficial wealth, which causes him to get very intoxicated and humiliate himself in front of others.

Uriah is a prevalent example of evil. He finally loses to Agnes, Miss Betsey, Mr. Micawber, and Traddles?all figures of good. Evil does, however, occasionally succeed, as it did with Clara, David's mother, and the Murdstones. The evil couple overcomes her and kills her as a result.

True Happiness

"Undisciplined Heart"

David's "undisciplined heart" makes him prone to let emotion rule. He quickly and strongly feels drawn to women. This is particularly true with Dora, with whom he falls in love right away before they even get a chance to talk. She dislikes doing tasks around the house and is reluctant to learn how to care for a home, but he still decides to marry her.

Minor examples of David's heartlessness include:

His feelings for Miss Shepherd.
A brief fling with a stranger.
His unrealistic longing for a different woman who is much older than he is.

Child Welfare and Treatment

Dickens is fascinated with kids, and this book carefully explores how kids are handled. The narrator comments on how amazing it is that kids can recall so many specifics so well at the beginning of the book and says he is happy to have such a youthful memory himself.

In addition, some of the finest characters in the book are the simpler, more innocent ones. For instance, Tommy Traddles is very straightforward and kind, and he later becomes a successful lawyer who is engaged to a lovely, kind woman.

Even though Dora Spenlow lacks the skills to do home duties, David is won over by her dedication to him since it is so sweet and commendable. And lastly, Mr. Dick, who is relatively simple-minded, is maybe the most endearing character in the book.

Thus, in the moral universe of the story, the simplicity and innocence of a childlike kind are appreciated. Dickens probably intends to demonstrate an evil to arouse readers' emotions against child maltreatment when he creates situations that feature it.

Empowerment of Women

The novel examines female power, favoring strong, influential women like Peggotty and Miss Betsey. Contrarily, women who lack influence or are content to exist in their marriages, like Clara Copperfield, do not do well. While it was difficult for women at the time, Miss Betsey, a beloved character throughout the novel, battles her husband and succeeds in getting a divorce (although he still bothers her for money for a while after).

However, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber is a fantastic illustration of a married marriage where each spouse has practically equal influence, and they are a thrilled couple, despite being broke.

Dickens thus supports female authority in the sense of fundamental equality in institutions like marriage.

Empowerment of Women

One of the first topics raised in the novel is the father figure's function because David was born six months after his father passed away. Dickens argues that having a father figure in one's life is crucial for happiness and the growth of moral character. However, not all dads or father figures conform to the standard or even serve any purpose.

David seems to have looked up to Peggotty as a father figure growing up since he depicts her as huge and "hard." As a result, he has a strict authority figure to balance out the warmth and love of his mother.

Both Little Em'ly and Ham have Mr. Peggotty, and Ham especially becomes decent. Steerforth, who turns out to have never had a father figure, even acknowledges that he regrets it and wishes he could have had one so he could have been a better person, seduces little Em'ly. Even though Uriah's father is one of the book's most villainous characters, he is not addressed.

Character List from David Copperfield

David Copperfield

The main character of the book and a portrayal of Charles Dickens in general. David was born at Blunderstone Rookery, Suffolk, where he subsequently grew up. The fact that he was born six months after his father died undoubtedly impacted him as he grew up. He asserts to have a childlike memory with great detail.

David Copperfield

When David was a small kid, his mother was a devoted and trusted housekeeper. David described her as having "no shape at all, eyes so dark that they seemed to darken their whole neighborhood in her face, cheeks, and arms so hard and red..." She's a big lady, and one of her distinguishing characteristics is that every time she embraces someone, buttons fall off of her dress, the number of buttons lost correlating to the force of her hug.

She is Daniel Peggotty's sister and the aunt of Ham and Emily Peggotty. She and her brother are called "Peggotty and Mr. Peggotty."

Mrs. Agnes Wickfield

Friend of Miss Betsey's family and the daughter of Mr. Wickfield. She is close with David and offers him guidance on various topics. She is renowned for her peaceful temperament. She weds David in the end.

Steerforth

A Salem House classmate of David's. James Steerforth is an arrogant, conceited young man obsessed with his wealth. David admires him much for his maturity and self-assuredne

Uriah Heep

Mr. Wickfield's slimy, cunning servant connives to form a partnership with his master. He defrauds and steals from several people, including the Micawbers and Miss Betsey, but he is ultimately caught and is compelled to return the things he took. For cheating the Bank of England, he ends up in prison.

Little Em'ly

Daniel Peggotty's niece, Peggotty. When David initially comes to Yarmouth, Emily is his love interest. Mr. Peggotty and Peggotty's brother-in-law and her father, Tom, perished at sea. Because of this, Emily has always had a phobia of the water, even as a little child.

Dora Spenlow

Daughter of David's boss, Mr. Spenlow. She is his first wife, and David frequently refers to her as his "child-wife." While young and childlike, she lacks domestic skills and is quite attractive. She is also sometimes joined by a dog by the name of Jip.

Ham

Peggotty's nephew and her brother Daniel. Ham, were present when David was born, but they did not truly interact until David made his first trip to Yarmouth. He stands six feet tall and is comprehensive and robust. He is youthful in temperament and has a boyish look. The brother of Mr. Peggotty and Peggotty who perished at sea, Joe Peggotty, is, in fact, his father.

Clara Copperfield

David's mother, who became a widow six months before giving birth after losing her husband. She is frequently compared as being highly attractive and looking like a "wax doll." She was somewhat naive and lacked the understanding required to be a great housewife because she married David's father when she was young. Even yet, until she marries Mr. Murdstone, she loves her son very lot and provides him with a happy, healthy environment to grow up in.

Mr. Murdstone

The guy Clara marries when David is in Yarmouth visiting Peggotty's relatives. Mr. Murdstone, also known as Edward Murdstone, is a tall, commanding guy with dark good looks.

He has thick, extremely black hair and dark eyes. He is the Copperfields' stepfather and an extremely arrogant spouse.

Murdstone, Jane

The sister of Mr. Murdstone arrives to support the family soon after her brother weds Clara. Jane, also known as Miss Murdstone, is nearly as dark, commanding, and firm as her brother.

She is frequently connected to metallic items and visuals, main pictures of jail cells.

John Barkis

The carrier driver takes David and Peggotty to Yarmouth at the novel's start and takes David there to be sent to boarding school.

After sampling one of the cakes Peggotty cooked for David's trip to London, Mr. Barkis develops a liking for her. David receives his instruction to write Peggotty the message, "Barkis is willin'," which begins their interaction.

Miss Betsey

The strange sister of David's late father. Given the considerable age gap between David's parents, Miss Betsey, or Miss Trotwood, was against the marriage.

She also had a disastrous marriage to a younger man, and following their peaceful divorce, she and one servant moved to a bit of home close to the sea, where she enjoyed an independent life. When David is born, she rushes out of David's house because she is disappointed that the baby is a boy.

Mrs. and Mr. Micawber

The couple David lives with when he is initially assigned to work at Mr. Murdstone's warehouse. They and their family became excellent friends of David's. They are good-spirited despite their ongoing financial struggles. In his writing, Mr. Micawber is very expressive and articulate.

Traddles

Tommy Traddles, a Salem House high school classmate of David's. He has a pleasant disposition. After they graduate high school and move close to one another in London, he grows closer to David.

Doctor Strong and Annie

David meets this married couple while staying with Mr. Wickfield. The head teacher at David's school, Dr. Strong, is much older than Annie. When Uriah accuses Annie of having an affair with her younger cousin, they get into problems, but Mr. Dick helps them get back together, and they continue to be a very loving couple.