Skip to main content

If you wanted to give a different ending to the novel David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, what would it be and why?

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 from the situation when she dies in childbirth.  Dora is immortalized as the perfect young beauty.  It always seemed to me that Dickens just dispatched the wrong girl so that David could rectify his mistake and marry the girl he should have married in the first place, Agnes.  


In Victorian times, divorce was not an option.  It would have been scandalous.  David marries the silly, pretty Dora Spenlow because he is infatuated with her.  It is not a deep love.  He has more of a connection with Agnes.  Yet Agnes is not the stunning beauty that Dora is, so he doesn’t see it.  He marries Dora.  Then when Dora dies, he goes and marries the more comfortable Agnes.  


David did love Dora, in his own way.  He says she captured him. 



I heard a voice say, 'Mr. Copperfield, my daughter Dora, and my daughter Dora's confidential friend!' It was, no doubt, Mr. Spenlow's voice, but I didn't know it, and I didn't care whose it was. All was over in a moment. I had fulfilled my destiny. I was a captive and a slave. I loved Dora Spenlow to distraction! (Ch. 26) 



However, she frustrated him too.  She could not keep house, and she was very weak.  This is why Dickens has her die in childbirth, as David’s own mother did.  This is somewhat poetic, even though it is sad.  David came full circle, marrying his mother.  Freud would have something to say about that. 


When Dora dies, David moves on to Agnes Wickfield.  Agnes is everything Dora is not.  She is intelligent, compassionate, and motherly.  She is the perfect girl for the needy David.  Yet she seems like his second choice, because he had already married Dora. 



I was never unmindful of Agnes, and she never left that sanctuary in my thoughts ... I loved her none the less; I thought of her as the same benignant, gentle angel in my life… (Ch. 28) 



If David had married Agnes to begin with, it would have been a marriage of comfort and friendship as well as love.  The entire situation with Dora is unrealistic.  I think that this different ending would make the book less dramatic, but more satisfying.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A man has a garden measuring 84 meters by 56 meters. He divides it into the minimum number of square plots. What is the length of the square plots?

We wish to divide this man's garden into the minimum number of square plots possible. A square has all four sides with the same length.Our garden is a rectangle, so the answer is clearly not 1 square plot. If we choose the wrong length for our squares, we may end up with missing holes or we may not be able to fit our squares inside the garden. So we have 84 meters in one direction and 56 meters in the other direction. When we start dividing the garden in square plots, we are "filling" those lengths in their respective directions. At each direction, there must be an integer number of squares (otherwise, we get holes or we leave the garden), so that all the square plots fill up the garden nicely. Thus, our job here is to find the greatest common divisor of 84 and 56. For this, we prime factor both of them: `56 = 2*2*2*7` `84 = 2*2*3*7` We can see that the prime factors and multiplicities in common are `2*2*7 = 28` . This is the desired length of the square plots. If you wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

What warning does Chuchundra issue to Rikki?

Chuchundra, the sniveling, fearful muskrat who creeps around walls because he is too terrified to go into the center of a room, meets Rikki in the middle of the night. He insults Rikki by begging him not to kill him. He then insults him by suggesting that Nag might mistake Chuchundra for Rikki. He says, "Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes."  He issues this warning to Rikki not to help keep Rikki safe but as a way of explaining why Rikki's presence gives him, Chuchundra, more reason to fear.  Chuchundra starts to tell Rikki what Chua the rat told him--but breaks it off when he realizes he might be overheard by Nag. He says, "Nag is everywhere, Rikki-Tikki." Rikki threatens to bite Chuchundra to get him to talk. Even then, Chuchundra won't overtly reveal any information. But he does say, "Can't you hear, Rikki-Tikki?" This is enough of a clue for the clever mongoose. He listens carefully and can just make out the "faintest scratch-s...
Post a Comment
Read more