David Copperfield

Peggotty invites David to spend a fortnight with her at her brother's place in Yarmouth, a seaside town on the coast of Norfolk. She paints a wonderfully idyllic picture of the place, with its...

In David Copperfield, Dickens uses first-person point of view, an autobiographical style, and careful characterization of his protagonist as his key narrative techniques. These techniques are...

A bildungsroman can actually be called a novel of education. It depicts the struggles and challenges that a protagonist faces and how they develop and mature as a result of those challenges until...

David and Peggotty travel to Yarmouth in chapter three of David Copperfield to stay with Peggotty’s brother, Dan, for two weeks. They are met by Ham, who takes them back to the Peggotty home....

David Copperfield first meets Mr. Murdstone as early as chapter II, "I Observe." He describes him as a large man with black hair and whiskers. From the beginning, David doesn't like him and...

Poor young David's treated abominably at Salem House. But then, that was always the idea. His wicked stepfather Mr. Murdstone sent him there precisely because he knew it would be a living hell for...

Dora represents the idealized figure of female beauty, while Agnes is a practical beauty. David’s first wife, Dora, is angelic. She is young, small, cheerful, helpless, and pretty. She is also...

David Copperfield is realistic fiction, because the events could happen in real life. Fantasy usually involves magic, and science fiction uses technology we do not really have yet. Realistic...

David's mother marries very young, has David when she is young, and is widowed when she hardly more than a girl. She is childlike, gentle, and full of kindness—in other words, ill fitted for the...

David is miserable at Salem House. He describes it as desolate and depressing. When he first arrives, the students are on holiday. He is also forced to wear a sign saying that he bites. The...

Wow! You do realise that this is one of the longest novels by Charles Dickens! Any attempt to summarise it in 150 words is going to miss out a number of details, so I have included a few links...

David lost his father before he was even born—six months before, and only a year after his mother had married the man. The rest of the novel David Copperfield deals with the repercussions of the...

It is following his adoption by his long-lost Aunt, Betsey Trotwood, that David is sent to a new and infinitely better school than the one he was sent to in London by the Murdstones. This event...

Steerforth has treated a friend of David’s terribly, but he wants to be remembered as he was before. He needs people to think well of him. Steerforth is a childhood friend of David’s that he met...

On the most basic level, Salem's House is a pretty awful school while Dr. Strong's school is a fine school. Salem's House essentially treats its pupils like inmates at a prison. The master takes...

David knows his aunt likes him—especially after she begins calling him Trot—but he wonders about his schooling. Then one night at the beginning of chapter 15, as they are playing backgammon, Miss...

At the beginning of chapter 19 of David Copperfield, the title character candidly informs us of his lack of regret upon leaving school. Although David had been very happy at Doctor Strong's and had...

Betsey Trotwood is David Copperfield’s father’s aunt. This ”formidable person” is a sharp-tongued, rigid widow who thinks highly of her own opinions. Miss Betsey’s strength of character is shown...

When Charles Dickens was a boy he was sent to work in a grotty old blacking factory to help pay off his father's debts. The work was long, hard, and utterly soul-destroying, and marked Dickens for...

Miss Betsey Trotwood shows up in the beginning pages of the novel before David is born, and she doesn't appear again until David runs away to her. David initially learns about her through his...

David Copperfield says that his lessons with Mr. Murdstone, his stepfather, were "the death-blow of my peace, and a grievous daily drudgery and misery." He was extremely apprehensive before being...

David Copperfield gets the idea that Peggotty, his family’s live-in servant, is “cross” with him when he asks her about marriage (Chapter 2). The boy is trying to find out if a person can remarry...

Uriah Heep in David Copperfield is one of the least appealing characters that Charles Dickens created. Although he does not, on the outside, seem evil, Uriah’s obsequious personality hides his...

Although a work of fiction, David Copperfield purports to be a memoir or autobiography penned by Copperfield himself. Therefore, memory is highly important to the book. A clue as to how memory...

The climax is the turning point of a story, and the most exciting part. In David Copperfield, the climax occurs when David witnesses the aftermath of a shipwreck and Steerforth’s death. In the...

The answer you are looking for can be found in Chapter 17 of this amazing classic Dickens novel. Having shifted educational establishments to Mr. Strong's school, much to his relief, David reports...

It is important to remember that this book is a bildungsroman, or a novel of education, which features a protagonist and his or her journey towards maturity and finding his place in society. As...

After Miss Betsey Trotwood decides to take charge of her grand-nephew David's education, she enrolls him at Doctor Strong’s school in Canterbury. She also decides he should be called Trotwood, as...

One of the best ways you can tell that this is a story about growing up is by reading the first sentence, which I think is one of the best openings in all of literature. Whether I shall turn out...

In writing an essay about the recollection of childhood in David Copperfield, it is important to bear in mind that David's recollections are not always completely accurate. On the whole, the...

David Copperfield starts in Blunderstone Rookery, a house in Suffolk England, but really is set all over. At different parts during the novel, Copperfield is in London, Yarmouth, Canterbury, and...

1. Both novels are categorized in Dickens' orphan series. Pip from Great Expectations and David are children who have lost one or both parents and who experience abuse at the hands of someone who...

In chapter 15 of David Copperfield, Miss Betsey Trotwood takes her great-nephew to the house of Mr. Wickfield, her lawyer. Her intention is to ask Wickfield's advice concerning David's education....

When they are both children, Emily notes David's fear of the ocean, and says she is not afraid of it in "that way." (She is not afraid of the waves.) She says she is afraid of the power of the wind...

Mr. Micawber, as you will have noticed and as David more than once observes, is more than a little dramatic. In this section, Mr. Micawber has just finished conversing (with some effort) with David...

Young David is sent by his wicked stepfather, Mr. Murdstone, to school at Salem House. It's a grim-looking place in an advanced stage of decay. There are no boys there; they've all gone home for...

David Copperfield, originally titled The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any...

When Aunt Betsey Trotwood shows up at the Copperfield home, she asks why it is called "the Rookery." David's mother explains that that was what David's father, who is now deceased, named it. She...

It is in Chapter 45 that we find the final answer to all of the suspicion and curiosity concerning the exact nature of the "friendship" between Annie Strong and Jack Maldon, when Annie has a...

There are several interesting points of comparison: both men are fathers of women David eventually marries, for instance, and both men are to an extent defined by their relationship to money. While...

There are many autobiographical elements in David Copperfield. First of all, look at the protagonist's initials: "D.C." They are an inversion of Dickens's own initials. As a small boy, poor David...

Clearly, a work that is as long as this novel is will have a number of themes and will contain a number of different symbols. The answer given above refers to a number of the themes, so I will...

This is an entirely subjective answer, of course, but I would say that Tommy Traddles is easily the more likable of the two. Although he comes across as a bit of a clumsy clodhopper, Tommy has a...

Peggotty told David that he was going to see her family in Yarmouth and it would be fun, and nothing about his mother's wedding. Peggotty did not tell David that his mother was getting married; she...

Dora and Emily are both attractive women who have poor judgment; and David Copperfield falls in love with each of them, although Emily is a child crush. Dora's poor judgment comes out in her...

What has always bothered me about David Copperfield is that it is too idealistic. Dickens presents a picture of David marrying a girl who is really all wrong for him, but then David is released...