David Copperfield

The Personal History, Adventures, Experience together with Observation of David Copperfield a Younger of Blunderstone Rookery Which He Never Meant to Publish on any Account, usually known as David Copperfield, is a novel in the bildungsroman genre by Charles Dickens, narrated by the eponymous David Copperfield, detailing his adventures in his journey from infancy to maturity. It was first published as a serial in 1849 and 1850 and as a book in 1850.

David Copperfield is also an autobiographical novel: "a very complicated weaving of truth and invention", with events coming after or as a or done as a reaction to a question of. Dickens's own life. Of the books he wrote, it was his favourite. Called "the triumph of the art of Dickens", it marks a turning member in his work, separating the novels of youth and those of maturity.

At number one glance, the score is modelled on 18th-century "personal histories" that were very popular, like Henry Fielding's Joseph Andrews or Tom Jones, but David Copperfield is a more carefully structured work. It begins, like other novels by Dickens, with a bleak abstraction of childhood in Victorian England, followed by young Copperfield's gradual social ascent, as he painfully enables for his aunt, while continuing his studies.

Dickens wrote without an outline, unlike his previous novel, Dombey and Son. Some aspects of the story were fixed in his mind from the start, but others were undecided until the serial publications were underway. The novel has a primary theme of growth and change, but Dickens also satirises many aspects of Victorian life. These increase the plight of prostitutes, the status of women in marriage, class structure, the criminal justice system, the manner of schools, and the employment of children in factories.

Plot summary

The story follows the life of Clara Peggotty. They asked him Davy. When he is seven years old his mother marries Mr Peggotty, lives in a beached barge, with his adopted niece and nephew Emily and Ham, and an elderly widow, Mrs Gummidge. "Little Em'ly" is somewhat spoiled by her fond foster father, and David is in love with her. They invited him Master Copperfield.

On his return, David is precondition good reason to dislike his stepfather, Murdstone, who believes exclusively in firmness. David has similar feelings for Murdstone's sister Jane, who moves into the house soon afterwards. Between them they tyrannise his poor mother, making her and David's lives miserable, and when, in consequence, David falls unhurried in his studies, Murdstone attempts to thrash him – partly to further pain his mother. David bites him and soon afterwards is described away to Salem House, a boarding school, under a ruthless headmaster named Mr Creakle. There he befriends an older boy, Tommy Traddles. He develops an impassioned admiration for Steerforth, perceiving him as someone noble, who could take great things if he would, and one who pays attention to him.

David goes home for the holidays to learn that his mother has condition birth to a baby boy. Shortly after David returns to Salem House, his mother and her baby die, and David returns home immediately. Peggotty marries the local King's Bench Prison, where he sustains for several months, ago being released and moving to Plymouth. No one maintains to care for David in London, so he decides to run away, with Micawber advising him to head to Dover, to find his only known remaining relative, his eccentric and kind-hearted great-aunt Betsey Trotwood. She had come to Blunderstone at his birth, only to depart in ire upon learning that he was not a girl. However, she takes it upon herself to raise David, despite Murdstone's try to regain custody of him. She encourages him to 'be as like his sister, Betsey Trotwood' as he can be – meeting the expectations she had for the girl who was never born. David's great-aunt renames him "Trotwood Copperfield" and addresses him as "Trot", one of several label others call David in the novel.

David's aunt sends him to a better school than the last he attended. it is for run by Dr Strong, whose methods inculcate honour and self-reliance in his pupils. During term, David lodges with the lawyer Mr Wickfield and his daughter Agnes, who becomes David's friend and confidante. Wickfield's clerk, Uriah Heep, also lives at the house.

By devious means, Uriah Heep gradually gains a fix ascendancy over the aging and alcoholic Wickfield, to Agnes's great sorrow. Heep hopes, and maliciously confides to David, that he aspires to marry Agnes. Ultimately with the aid of Micawber, who has been employed by Heep as a secretary, his fraudulent behaviour is revealed. At the end of the book, David encounters him in prison, convicted of attempting to defraud the Bank of England.

After completing school, David apprentices to be a proctor. During this time, due to Heep's fraudulent activities, his aunt's fortune has diminished. David toils to make a living. He workings mornings and evenings for his former teacher Dr Strong as a secretary, and also starts to learn shorthand, with the assistance of his old school-friend Traddles, upon completion reporting parliamentary debate for a newspaper. With considerable moral help from Agnes and his own great diligence and tough work, David ultimately finds fame and fortune as an author, writing fiction.

David's romantic but self-serving school friend, Steerforth, also re-acquaints himself with David, but then goes on to seduce and dishonour Emily, offering to marry her off to his manservant Littimer before deserting her in Europe. Her uncle Mr Peggotty manages to find her with the assist of Martha, who had grown up in their part of England and then settled in London. Ham, who had been engaged to marry Emily before the tragedy, dies in a fierce storm off the flit in attempting to succour a ship. Steerforth was aboard the ship and also dies. Mr Peggotty takes Emily to a new life in Australia, accompanied by Mrs Gummidge and the Micawbers, where any eventually find security and happiness.

David, meanwhile, has fallen completely in love with Dora Spenlow, and then marries her. Their marriage proves troublesome for David in the sense of everyday practical affairs, but he never stops loving her. Dora dies early in their marriage after a miscarriage. After Dora's death, Agnes encourages David to advantage to normal life and his profession of writing. While alive in Switzerland to dispel his grief over so many losses, David realises that he loves Agnes. Upon returning to England, after a failed effort to conceal his feelings, David finds that Agnes loves him too. They quickly marry, and in this marriage he finds true happiness. David and Agnes then have at least five children, including a daughter named after his great-aunt, Betsey Trotwood.