The Pickwick Club discussion

Dear Fellow Pickwickians,

Another week has gone by which means it is getting closer to Christmas and it is my turn to open the David Copperfield thread. Feel free to talk about either one, David Copperfield or Christmas. In Chapter 10 the first thing that Miss Murdstone does is dismiss Peggotty with a month's warning. I was surprised that Miss Murdstone actually gave Peggotty a month to find another place, I don't think Miss Murdstone would having any problem sending Peggotty on her way that day. Mr. and Miss Murdstone now take no interest in David after his mother’s death and he is almost ignored unless he comes into their company, then he is frowned away . How sad this conversation between David and Peggotty seemed to me:

'Peggotty,' I said in a thoughtful whisper, one evening, when I was warming my hands at the kitchen fire, 'Mr. Murdstone likes me less than he used to. He never liked me much, Peggotty; but he would rather not even see me now, if he can help it.'

'Perhaps it's his sorrow,' said Peggotty, stroking my hair.

'I am sure, Peggotty, I am sorry too. If I believed it was his sorrow, I should not think of it at all. But it's not that; oh, no, it's not that.'

'How do you know it's not that?' said Peggotty, after a silence.

'Oh, his sorrow is another and quite a different thing. He is sorry at this moment, sitting by the fireside with Miss Murdstone; but if I was to go in, Peggotty, he would be something besides.'

'What would he be?' said Peggotty.

'Angry,' I answered, with an involuntary imitation of his dark frown. 'If he was only sorry, he wouldn't look at me as he does. I am only sorry, and it makes me feel kinder.

That poor boy actually thinks Mr. Murdstone liked him better before? What an awful life he must be having now with the Murdstones to think that. They make it clear that they want him around as little as possible. Peggotty decides she will return to Yarmouth to live, and proposes to take David with her for a visit. Miss Murdstone actually gives her consent saying:

'The boy will be idle there,' said Miss Murdstone, looking into a pickle-jar, 'and idleness is the root of all evil. But, to be sure, he would be idle here - or anywhere, in my opinion.'

Mr. Barkis takes David and Peggotty to Yarmouth, and after they arrive Peggotty asks David what he would think if she married Mr. Barkis after all. David says he thinks it would be a good idea for then Peggotty would always have the horse and cart to bring her to see him," and could come for nothing, and be sure of coming.'

Arriving at Mr. Peggotty's David finds the cottage just the same as his last visit:

"All within was the same, down to the seaweed in the blue mug in my bedroom. I went into the out-house to look about me; and the very same lobsters, crabs, and crawfish possessed by the same desire to pinch the world in general, appeared to be in the same state of conglomeration in the same old corner."

The only change was in Em'ly who had grown even more beautiful. Her eyes were bluer, her face was brighter, she was prettier and gayer. During the visit Mr. Peggotty inquires about Steerforth, and David launches into a long description of Steerforth's noble character while little Em'ly listens intently. He brags Steerforth up so much with Mr. Peggotty backing him that I have a feeling nothing good is going to happen with Steerforth, I just get a bad feeling with him, hopefully I'm wrong. One day, just before the end of his visit, David, little Em'ly, Peggotty, and Mr. Barkis take a holiday trip together. Mr. Barkis stops the coach at a church, and he and Peggotty go inside while David and Em'ly wait in the chaise-cart. When they come out Mr. Barkis announces that they are now married. Shortly after the wedding this sad event happens:

"I went home in the morning, with herself and Mr. Barkis in the cart. They left me at the gate, not easily or lightly; and it was a strange sight to me to see the cart go on, taking Peggotty away, and leaving me under the old elm-trees looking at the house, in which there was no face to look on mine with love or liking any more."

Now David talks about his solitary life, a state of neglect, no friendly notice, apart from all companionship except his own thoughts. So far in the book I always think of David as the same age, a boy of about 6 or 7, but he must be a good deal older by now, he says "Day after day, week after week, month after month, I was coldly neglected." So months are going by, plus the months he was at school, and the months before school when his mother first married Murdstone.

I thought I would like Mr. Barkis, but he is falling in my opinion because of this:

"I found out that Mr. Barkis was something of a miser, or as Peggotty dutifully expressed it, was 'a little near', and kept a heap of money in a box under his bed, which he pretended was only full of coats and trousers. In this coffer, his riches hid themselves with such a tenacious modesty, that the smallest instalments could only be tempted out by artifice; so that Peggotty had to prepare a long and elaborate scheme, a very Gunpowder Plot, for every Saturday's expenses."

I hope Mr. Barkis doesn't turn out to be a miser like some of the other Dickens characters have been. One thing that puzzled me was what Murdstone said to David about returning to school:

'I suppose you know, David, that I am not rich. At any rate, you know it now. You have received some considerable education already. Education is costly; and even if it were not, and I could afford it, I am of opinion that it would not be at all advantageous to you to be kept at school. What is before you, is a fight with the world; and the sooner you begin it, the better.'

I thought it was Murdstone who was so anxious to send David away to school in the first place, but maybe I'm remembering it wrong. Whatever his reasons, instead of getting rid of David by sending him back to school he is sending him to work with his partner, Mr. Quinion, I had wondered at this point when Murdstone tells David that Mr. Quinion "manages that business" what in the world Murdstone does anyway other than terrorize people. It is so sad to see how much David dreads going to work with Mr. Quinion at Murdstone and Grinby's knowing that Dickens is writing of his experience at Warren’s Blacking, but more of that in Chapter 10.

The first paragraph of Chapter 10 was the saddest in the book for me so far:

" I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything; but it is matter of some surprise to me, even now, that I can have been so easily thrown away at such an age. A child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of observation, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally, it seems wonderful to me that nobody should have made any sign in my behalf. But none was made; and I became, at ten years old, a little labouring hind in the service of Murdstone and Grinby."

Dickens when writing about his own childhood experiences at Warren's Blacking says this:

"It is wonderful to me how I could have been so easily cast away at such an age. It is wonderful to me that, even after my descent into the poor little drudge I had been since we came to London, no one had compassion enough on me—a child of singular abilities, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt, bodily or mentally—to suggest that something might have been spared, as certainly it might have been, to place me at any common school. Our friends, I take it, were tired out. No one made any sign. My father and mother were quite satisfied. They could hardly have been more so if I had been twenty years of age, distinguished at a grammar-school, and going to Cambridge."

Dickens describes Murdstone and Grinby's this way:

"Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse was at the waterside. It was down in Blackfriars. Modern improvements have altered the place; but it was the last house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving down hill to the river, with some stairs at the end, where people took boat. It was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was out, and literally overrun with rats. Its panelled rooms, discoloured with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years, I dare say; its decaying floors and staircase; the squeaking and scuffling of the old grey rats down in the cellars; and the dirt and rottenness of the place; are things, not of many years ago, in my mind, but of the present instant. They are all before me, just as they were in the evil hour when I went among them for the first time, with my trembling hand in Mr. Quinion's.

I know that a great many empty bottles were one of the consequences of this traffic, and that certain men and boys were employed to examine them against the light, and reject those that were flawed, and to rinse and wash them. When the empty bottles ran short, there were labels to be pasted on full ones, or corks to be fitted to them, or seals to be put upon the corks, or finished bottles to be packed in casks. All this work was my work, and of the boys employed upon it I was one.

There were three or four of us, counting me. My working place was established in a corner of the warehouse, where Mr. Quinion could see me, when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool in the counting-house, and look at me through a window above the desk. Hither, on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning life on my own account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned to show me my business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a ragged apron and a paper cap."

And Dickens describes Warren's Blacking in these words:

"The blacking-warehouse was the last house on the left-hand side of the way, at old Hungerford Stairs. It was a crazy, tumble-down old house, abutting of course on the river, and literally overrun with rats. Its wainscoted rooms, and its rotten floors and staircase, and the old gray rats swarming down in the cellars, and the sound of their squeaking and scuffling coming up the stairs at all times, and the dirt and decay of the place, rise up visibly before me, as if I were there again. The counting-house was on the first floor, looking over the coal-barges and the river..... When a certain number of grosses of pots had attained this pitch of perfection, I was to paste on each a printed label, and then go on again with more pots. Two or three other boys were kept at similar duty down-stairs on similar wages. One of them came up, in a ragged apron and a paper cap, on the first Monday morning, to show me the trick of using the string and tying the knot. His name was Bob Fagin; and I took the liberty of using his name, long afterwards, in Oliver Twist."

As to the boys working with David, Mick Walker's his father was a bargeman, of Mealy Potatoes's father was a waterman, and a fireman, and "was engaged as such at one of the large theatres; where some young relation of Mealy's - I think his little sister - did Imps in the Pantomimes."

Dickens worked with Bob Fagin an orphan who lived with his brother-in-law, a waterman." "Poll Green's father had the additional distinction of being a fireman, and was employed at Drury Lane theatre; where another relation of Poll's, I think his little sister, did imps in the pantomimes."

So much of this chapter is autobiographical I could just keep comparing Dickens life with David's life and they match almost word for word. One thing that is different is the Micawbers. Charles had no such family to live with when he worked at the warehouse but was lodged with "a reduced old lady, long known to our family, in Little College Street, Camden-town, who took children in to board, and had once done so at Brighton; and who, with a few alterations and embellishments, unconsciously began to sit for Mrs. Pipchin in Dombey when she took in me." David, however lodges with the Micawbers. David is introduced to Mr. Micawber by Mr. Quinion who tells him that he will be living with Mr. Micawber and his family. David describes Mr. Micawber as a "stoutest middle aged person" and going home with him that evening he meets Mrs. Micawber "a thin and faded lady, not at all young" and four young children. David learns that the family has been forced to take in a lodger because of Mr. Micawber is "in difficulties", and creditors appear at the house at all hours of the day. However, Mr. Micawber is always certain that something will turn up. I was glad to see that difficulties or not the Micawber's didn't take David's money that he offered them and they were kind to them, he says:

"A curious equality of friendship, originating, I suppose, in our respective circumstances, sprung up between me and these people, notwithstanding the ludicrous disparity in our years." Mr. Micawber (who was a thoroughly good-natured man, and as active a creature about everything but his own affairs as ever existed, and never so happy as when he was busy about something that could never be of any profit to him)

Eventually Mr. Micawber is arrested and taken to debtors' prison, where his family soon joins him and a little room is rented for David near the prison. Soon Mrs. Micawber informs David that her family has decided to help Mr. Micawber and he should be released in about six weeks. At which time Micawber says he will live in a new manner if something should turn up.

In Chapter 12 Mr. Micawber is released from jail and his debts are resolved. Mrs. Micawber informs David that her family thinks that leaving London would be best for Mr. Micawber and that something could be done for him in Plymouth at a counting house. She becomes hysterical when David asks whether she will accompany him saying she will never desert Mr. Micawber. In a week they leave for Plymouth and David decides not to stay in London without them but to leave and go to his aunt. He says he doesn't know how or when the idea of going to his Aunt Betsey and telling her his story came to him but now that it did he had to act upon it. David writes Peggotty for Miss Betsey's address and the loan of a half-guinea for travelling expenses without telling her why he needs the address or the half- guinea. When this arrives, he hires a young man with a cart to transport his trunk to the coach office, but the stranger steals his half-guinea and rides off with the trunk. David is left alone in London without luggage or funds to get to his aunt.
This installment ended with quite the cliffhanger:

"At length, confused by fright and heat, and doubting whether half London might not by this time be turning out for my apprehension, I left the young man to go where he would with my box and money; and, panting and crying, but never stopping, faced about for Greenwich, which I had understood was on the Dover Road: taking very little more out of the world, towards the retreat of my aunt, Miss Betsey, than I had brought into it, on the night when my arrival gave her so much umbrage."

The original readers had to wait a month to find out if David finds his aunt. I would like to say good riddance to the Murdstones but I would think even if Miss Murdstone doesn't care where David has disappeared to, I think perhaps Mr, Murdstone will look for him, at least for a short while, not through any compassion he has but perhaps from a sense of duty. Oh, today our pastor's sermon was about being firm in our faith or something like that. I thought of Murdstone as he was talking about firmness in the Lord. Perhaps while Mr. Quinion is running their business Murdstone is actually a pastor. :-} I'm on to find the illustrations.

Thanks so much for all your research, Kim. There are so many parallels with Dickens's own life; no wonder he called the book his 'favourite child'.

So much heartbreak and then poor old Micawber for light relief. I know that the family could scarcely feed themselves or they would have been certain to have fed David. I felt a sense of relief that in the debtors' prison they at least were having meals and even David got to partake of them on occasion. I don't know the background to this idea, that is whether or not the prison provided their food. Otherwise I can't see how they could have paid for it. Nevertheless, there are few who would swap liberty for food. Micawber held on to his optimism against all odds. He'd make a life for them in Plymouth...

Kim

I echo Hilary's thanks. Both you and Tristram give us so much to think about and discuss. Where to start...?

It is sad that David's early life is made up of so many partings and separations. His mother dies and David is sent from his home and Peggotty. Earlier, his brief, happy, and memorable time with Little Em'ly and the Peggotty family was not so much a time meant for David's pleasure as it was a time to be sent away when his mother marries Murdstone. David is then sent away by Murdstone to a horrid school. After David's mother dies, Murdstone sends David to work in London at in a rat-infested workhouse. David is sent to live with the Micawbers, which is, in its own strange way, much better than the boarding arrangements at school. Now, at the end of this section, David is off again to find his aunt Betsey.

David is orphaned many times. First, he has lost his mother and his family home. His time at school, as horrid as it was, did allow David some feeling of home and allow some links to people who seemed to have some care for him. David is taken out of the school. Next, his time with the Micawber's ends. David decides to leave London and set out to find his aunt Betsey, to try and reconnect with his family, indeed any type or form of family, to begin, once again, to establish some semblance of a caring and loving home.

If any lesson has been learned by David it may be that a home and a family can take many forms. The Peggotty boat was a curious mix of people, but did illustrate how people from diverse backgrounds can bind together into a family a create a loving place to be. The Micawber residence was, perhaps, a financial disaster, but it did show David the value of optimism and love.

As a still innocent young boy, David has already gained a lifetime of experience in the meaning, shape and possibilities that families can offer. It will be up to him to create his own life based on his early experiences.

Hilary wrote: "Thanks so much for all your research, Kim. There are so many parallels with Dickens's own life; no wonder he called the book his 'favourite child'.

So much heartbreak and then poor old Micawber f..."

The debtor's prison was a curious place. Those who were imprisoned were often reliant on friends, relatives, charitable individuals or others to supply their food. When Dickens's father was sent to prison for debt, the entire family, with the exception of Charles, the eldest son, went to prison as well. Little Charles went to work at Warren's Blacking Factory and pasted labels on bottles. The section we have just read, as Kim has pointed out, was very close to the reality of Charles Dickens's own experience. The Dickens family were released from the infamous Marshalsea Prison only after his father appealed under the Insolvent Debtors Act. The memory and scars of those horrid months when Charles would take his earnings to the jail so his family could eat never healed. Even Dickens' first biographer and very close friend was never fully informed of the great secret of Charles' early life. The Marshalsea Prison will make other appearances in Little Dorrit and Great Expectations.

Hilary wrote: "Thanks so much for all your research, Kim. There are so many parallels with Dickens's own life; no wonder he called the book his 'favourite child'.

So much heartbreak and then poor old Micawber f..."

Kim wrote: "The first paragraph of Chapter 10 was the saddest in the book for me so far:

" I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything; but it is matte..."

According to my footnotes...

Dickens describes Murdstone and Grinby's this way:
Yes and Murdstone and Grinby is also a pun on the word Grindstone, young David is off to the "grindstone" to work his little fingers to the bone.

There are so many parallels with Dickens's own life; no wonder he called the book his 'favourite child'.

I think the Micawbers were representative of Dicken's parents, another example of this is the sign David saw for "Mrs. Micawber's Boarding Establishment for Young Ladies." Mrs. Dickens too attempted to have a boarding establishment for ladies when they moved to 4 Gower Street North at the end of 1823, but it amounted to nothing and the family had to move in April of 1824.

:)

Kim wrote: "

Mrs Gummidge casts a damp on our departure

Chapter 10

A note in my copy says we should pay attention to the chain linked to a broken piling in the left foreground, it "may comment unobtrusively..."

Me either, or associating the broken chain to the perils of marriage...So interesting!

Thanks, Peter for clarifying the food issue. I wonder who helped the family; David could hardly feed himself. It reminds me of a hospital in Ghana with which we have had connections: patients' relatives had to bring food to their sick family members otherwise they would have starved.

Kim wrote: " Feel free to talk about either one, David Copperfield or Christmas."

[chuckle] :)

How sad this conversation between David and Peggotty seemed to me:

If he was only sorry, he wouldn't look at me as he does. I am only sorry, and it makes me feel kinder.

I agree Kim, especially that last line. Poor David. He knows that he feels sorry for Mr. Murdstone, and his instinct is to be kind to him because of Mr. Murdstone's sadness.

"I went home in the morning, with herself and Mr. Barkis in the cart. They left me at the gate"

For some reason I thought Peggoty was taking David to actually live with the Peggoties, and that Miss Murdstone consented to this because then her brother would be happier. I didn't realize until this sentence that David just went to visit the Peggoties.

I thought I would like Mr. Barkis, but he is falling in my opinion because of this:

"I found out that Mr. Barkis was something of a miser,

Totally my reaction too, Kim. I don't want Barkis to be a miser....

Kim, thank you for all the research regarding Dickens' life and how it parallels David's life at this point in the book.

I was also glad that the Micawbers did not take advantage of David's weekly wages. I was just waiting for them to "borrow" some money and then not be able to pay him back. I was also glad of David not accepting their dinner offers, knowing that they were very strapped. David offered the Micawbers friendship and likewise they did the same for David.

Names:

Micawber - I can't help but think of "macabre", although they don't seem to fit this image. I also think of a "macaw" parrot, but they don't seem to fit this image either.

Mealy Potatoes - I don't know what's up with this name, but that I can't read it without laughing. (was it just his complexion that gave him this unfortunate nickname?)

Thank you again, Kim, for the autobiographical comparisons; they are indeed startling in their similarity. I found this part particularly hard, regarding the blacking-warehouse:

My father and mother were quite satisfied. They could hardly have been more so if I had been twenty years of age, distinguished at a grammar-school, and going to Cambridge.

It's difficult to believe parents being satisfied with the arrangement. I did not know that debtor prisons did not always provide food, so perhaps their 'satisfaction' had an element of relief in Charles' ability to earn. Still miserable though.

Ami wrote: "Kim wrote: "

Mrs Gummidge casts a damp on our departure

Chapter 10

A note in my copy says we should pay attention to the chain linked to a broken piling in the left foreground, it "may comment u..."

I was also disappointed to learn Barkis is miserly. It makes Peggotty's reasoning for marriage, after witnessing Clara' experience, more ironic:

"...I think I should be more independent altogether, you see; let alone my working with a better heart in my own house, than I could in anyone else's now."

And far from "coming for nothing" as David supposes, Peggotty has to prepare a "Gunpowder Plot" in order to visit him. I'm relieved Dickens can inject some humour in it.

I actually read the last two chapters of this week's instalment in a café again - a different one from the one I visited the other day because it might have worried the people in the old place to see me take a book out of my bag -, and while I was reading about David's various experiences as a menial worker and as a lodger in the Micawber - yes, Linda, it does also sound bird-like to me; conjuring up sound images of marabous - household, I could not help but think how wonderfully Dickens manages to make it all seem so real and so lifelike, and one of the secrets, apart from Dickens's remarkable talent as a writer, is probably that most of what he describes here is drawn from his own life and experience and that he makes a vicarious confession to his readers by integrating that infamous episode into the life of our hero. Kim very carefully pointed out the parallels between the experiences of Dickens himself and those of David in stunning detail.

I can only guess at how traumatizing it must have been for Dickens as a child to see his old family life suddenly fall apart - thanks to Peter here for pointing out the importance of family life as exemplified by the Micawbers and the patchwork family down in Yarmouth and of David's attempts at re-establishing family ties by venturing on a trip to a person he has not known and who has actually abandoned his mother; and on founding his hopes on the little detail remembered by his mother of how gently his Aunt Betsy touched his mother's hair - and to find himself forced to forego a formal education and to work in a factory instead. Just imagine the sense of betrayal Dickens must have felt with regard to his parents, who were ready to sacrifice his childhood, and - Dickens has his hero point it out in a not too modest way - the young boy's talents and gifts for higher aims, just in order to make him pay for their meals in the debtors' prison! Maybe the rather merciless caricature he drew of his mother as Mrs. Nickleby is also due to his feelings of alienation and betrayal dating from that very period. Apart from the hardships connected with child labour, it must also have been a very humiliating experience for Dickens to be cast among working class people - Dickens would probably have regarded himself as being socially superior to these boys -, and that is probably also why David makes a point of not fraternizing with Walker and Mealy Potatoes and of being referred to as "the little gent" by some of the workers. This sense of class consciousness might also explain why another of his child heroes, Oliver Twist, would never pick up the ways and habits of the Artful Dodger and other petty criminals although he practically grew up amongst thieves and criminals.

There is so much power in those chapters that I am really grateful to have been able to pick up this book again; you may remember that I did not particularly like it from the memories of my first acquaintance with it, but as in the case of DS, this has dramatically changed.

Tristram wrote: "Just imagine the sense of betrayal Dickens must have felt with regard to his parents, who were ready to sacrifice his childhood, and - Dickens has his hero point it out in a not too modest way - the young boy's talents and gifts for higher aims, just in order to make him pay for their meals in the debtors' prison!"

I wonder what his parents did think? I wonder if they read his books at all.

"you may remember that I did not particularly like it from the memories of my first acquaintance with it, but as in the case of DS, this has dramatically changed."

Ah, I can see we really should read TOCS again.

Kim wrote: "Ah, I can see we really should read TOCS again. "

Well, I actually liked the book a lot the first time I read it; so the pattern of my changing my mind about a novel as I grow older is indeed intact. :-)

As to Dickens's parents, I would not even take it for granted that they saw any relations between David's and Dickens's story even if they have read the book.

Wasn't Mr. Micawber a great character? While he is a man who is broke it is I important to note that he is an honest man. In fact, I think this is a point worth remembering. While David was taken advantage of by the waiter earlier in the novel, and Steerforth, for all his apparent positive attention to David, is willing to extract David's money/food and convince David to read to him rather than allow David the opportunity to sleep, Mr. Micawber is forthright and honest.

Mr. Micawber proves you can make something of yourself from very little. As an orphan, alone in the world, this is a life lesson for David to remember.

Kim wrote: " I was surprised that Miss Murdstone actually gave Peggotty a month to find another place, I don't think Miss Murdstone would having any problem sending Peggotty on her way that day. "

If she got a reputation in the community for dismissing servants out of hand, she would have had trouble getting any new servants, and her present servants might have been quite unhappy and feeling insecure.

Ami wrote: "Me either, or associating the broken chain to the perils of marriage...So interesting!
"

There were many understood symbols in Victorian illustration. Illustration was an art form that is mostly lost today, since we have TV, movies, the Internet, glossy magazines to give us images of the world, but in Victorian times the illustrated papers and book illustrations were about all there were to show people the outside world (and most people didn't travel far from home in their entire lifetimes). So they were much more important than they are today.

With no Downton Abbey and costume dramas on TV, the ordinary person's only knowledge of what the inside of a great home might look like was through the illustrated papers. Ditto with great events (royal weddings, funerals, battles, etc.) the illustrated papers took the place of today's live TV broadcasts.

Peter wrote: "Wasn't Mr. Micawber a great character. While he is a man who is broke it it important to note that he is an honest man. In fact, I think this is a point worth remembering. While David was taken ..."

It was interesting to me that when Tristram reminded me of how Dickens must have felt when his parents sent him to work to pay for their meals in the debtors prison, I got wondering if his parents read DC and saw how Dickens felt of those times through what David goes through. I looked to see if they were even alive when DC was published and I saw that the character of Mr. Micawber was based on Dickens father. I really like Mr. Micawber so I guess Dickens must have liked his father more than I do right now.

The bitterness that Dickens felt at being forced to leave school and work as a drudge, to fend for himself, comes through loud and clear in DC. No child should feel discarded. I just about cried for that poor manchild.

I was a bit confused about the long-legged boy stealing David's box and money--did he really think David stole the money and was going to turn him in, or was it just a ruse to steal the half guinea?

Kim wrote: "Tristram wrote: "Just imagine the sense of betrayal Dickens must have felt with regard to his parents, who were ready to sacrifice his childhood, and - Dickens has his hero point it out in a not too modest way - the young boy's talents and gifts for higher aims, just in order to make him pay for their meals in the debtors' prison!..."

I am wondering though, just what were the options for Dickens' parents? As Peter mentioned (thank you for the additional details), the entire family, excepting Charles, went to the debtor's prison, so how were they to feed their younger children if the prison doesn't provide food? This seems a horrific choice for a parent to have to make. Charles was a couple years older than his hero David when working at the warehouse, and I also wonder if he would have been allowed to live in the prison.

I'm afraid I had a different response to the Micawbers, and I did indeed find them macabre, as Linda suggested. These chapters are generally disturbing in showing the injustice of a system that destroys childhood, but also because the Micawbers burden David with their troubles and their rollercoaster feelings. When he is "relieved of much of the weight of Mr. and Mrs. Macawber's cares", I feel the same.

I am struck that Mr. Mell, other than the Peggottys, is the most decent example of an adult David has yet come across, which makes the way he was dispensed with seem even more cruel, while making his unconditional caring for David more noble.

Vanessa wrote: I'm afraid I had a different response to the Micawbers, and I did indeed find them macabre, as Linda suggested.
Until this reading, I always viewed the Micawbers as comic characters--I think in broad terms they are, certainly the adaptations I remember (most notably with W.C. Fields) this aspect is played up, but I agree that they are macabre rather than endearingly humorous.

When he is "relieved of much of the weight of Mr. and Mrs. Macawber's cares", I feel the same.
Ditto!

Yes, I found the humour jarring in the face of such distressing circumstances, Jane. While I appreciated that the Micawbers valued and were fond of David (much more than others who should have --the Murdstones), I felt disturbed by their predicament and their mercurial attitude to it.

Regarding the long-legged boy, my impression was that he suspected David was running away, and his challenge of 'Come to the pollis' was meant to discourage David from calling for help against theft. David certainly meets with many who take advantage of him...

Everyman wrote: "Ami wrote: "Me either, or associating the broken chain to the perils of marriage...So interesting!
"

There were many understood symbols in Victorian illustration. Illustration was an art form tha..."

A very good point, Everyman - all the more so as today, we are drowning in a flood of pictures and can hardly imagine what people must have felt at that time when looking at these wonderful illustrations.

Jane wrote: "I was a bit confused about the long-legged boy stealing David's box and money--did he really think David stole the money and was going to turn him in, or was it just a ruse to steal the half guinea?"

Actually, I think the latter was the case. He did not seem to be very prepossessing in the first place, but that might be because David's description of him could be influenced by the feelings towards him generated by his later experience.

Vanessa wrote: "I am wondering though, just what were the options for Dickens' parents? As Peter mentioned (thank you for the additional details), the entire family, excepting Charles, went to the debtor's prison, so how were they to feed their younger children if the prison doesn't provide food? This seems a horrific choice for a parent to have to make. Charles was a couple years older than his hero David when working at the warehouse, and I also wonder if he would have been allowed to live in the prison. ."

I am sure that it was this very conclusive reasoning which actually made Dickens's parents decide for him to work at Warren's. However, there might have been an inherent necessity for Dickens to support his younger siblings by doing menial work, and yet, watched through the eyes of a child, his parents' yielding to this necessity might still have looked like something in the lines of a betrayal and a sacrifice of his childhood. And maybe, this experience was so traumatic to Dickens that even as an older person he was still not able to see it but from the perspective of the betrayed and forsaken child.

As to the Micawbers, I see your point, Vanessa and Jane, but still they did not exploit David's scarce means. When Mr. Micawber borrowed some money from him, he gave him a written note for Mrs. Micawber to reimburse him. They ask him for help, but they treat him kindly and, strangely, or not so strangely, given their rather irresponsible outlook on life, as an equal although he is a child. And let's not forget that for all his cares in behalf of the Micawbers, David felt very lonely without them.

Tristram wrote: "And let's not forget that for all his cares in behalf of the Micawbers, David felt very lonely without them."

Absolutely--I don't see them as villains and they provided a family of sorts for David, but don't see them as the comic characters I once did.

Jane wrote: "Absolutely--I don't see them as villains and they provided a family of sorts for David, but don't see them as the comic characters I once did."

I agree. The back of my book describes Mr. Micawber as "one of literature's great comic creations". This being my first time reading DC I don't know if the Micawbers will make a reappearance, but thus far I don't view them as comical at all.

I also don't view them as "macabre" either, at least not them personally. But their situation definitely so. And as Venessa pointed out, the system of injustice that leads to ruined childhoods.

Kim wrote: "Here's my last Mr. Micawber also by Fred Barnard:



Text illustrated: "But within half an hour afterwards, he would polish up his shoes with extraordinary pains, and go out, humming a tune with a ..."


Thanks Kim. Mr. Micawber, one of the greatest of all Dickens' characters!

Kim wrote: "Here's Fred Barnard's idea of him:

"Mr. Micawber, impressing the names of streets and shapes of corner houses upon me as we went along, that I might find my way back easily in the morning."

Illu..."

I think this is my favorite. Seeing this reminded me that I meant to comment last week that I was surprised that David described himself as being chubby in Chapter 7.

With regards to Mr. Creakle: " I am confident that he couldn't resist a chubby boy, especially; that there was a fascination in such a subject, which made him restless in his mind, until he had scored and marked him for the day. I was chubby myself, and ought to know."

In all the illustrations of David, I have never seen him depicted as chubby. On the contrary, he is slight and small. Despite his own words, I can't shake the image of David as a small, slight boy, not a chubby one.

Jane wrote: "I meant to comment last week that I was surprised that David described himself as being chubby in Chapter 7."

Oh yes! I meant to comment on this too, so I'm glad you brought it up. Like you said, all the illustrations show him being so small, I couldn't get fit the image of a chubby David in my mind. It just wouldn't go there!

Kim wrote: "All this talk about Mr. Micawber reminds me we don't want to miss Kyd:"

Yeah, that's a creepy Micawber illustration. Good job Kyd.

Again, thanks for the abundant choice of illustrations you dug out, Kim. As for me, I prefer Mr. Micawber the way he is depicted in message 33. His clothes bear ample witness of the shabby-genteel but what is more, there is a certain buoyancy in his whole manner - just see how he whirls his stick and with what an air of ownership he walks through the London streets, or - as he would call it: performs his pedestrian perambulations throughout the streets of the metropolis. And yet, for all his self-confidence, he looks genial and warm-hearted. That is exactly how I picture Mr. Micawber.

Linda wrote: " The back of my book describes Mr. Micawber as "one of literature's great comic creations". This being my first time reading DC I don't know if the Micawbers will make a reappearance, but thus far I don't view them as comical at all. "

It wouldn't astonish me if they re-appeared. Would Dickens go to the trouble to create such a character and leave him for good so early in the work?

Well, we will see. I agree that based on what we have seen of them so far, they don't seem to justify the description of great comedic figures.

Kim wrote: "Here's my last Mr. Micawber also by Fred Barnard:


Text illustrated: "But within half an hour afterwards, he would polish up his shoes with extraordinary pains, and go out, humming a tune with a ..."

This was one of the passages where, for me, Micawber became macabre: At these times Mr. Micawber would be transported with grief and mortification, even to the length (as I was once made aware by the scream of his wife) of making motions at himself with a razor; but within half an hour afterwards, he would polish...

Then in the same paragraph David relates finding Mrs Micawber lying "under the grate in a swoon" with a twin. I'm not sure what he means by a grate (fireplace?), but it gives me a feeling that this 'elastic' couple may snap, while thinking how unlikely it would be for both twins to survive, even under better circumstances. I hope they do reappear, twins intact, but I found the chapter title funnier than the chapter.

(A chubby David didn't work for me, either!)

Vanessa wrote: "This was one of the passages where, for me, Micawber became macabre: "

Thanks for pulling that passage, Venessa. That is a good example of macabre in the Micawbers. I don't quite remember it, especially the "making motions at himself with a razor" bit!

Linda wrote: "Vanessa wrote: "This was one of the passages where, for me, Micawber became macabre: "

Thanks for pulling that passage, Venessa. That is a good example of macabre in the Micawbers. I don't quite..."

I was surprised by the razor comment and Mrs. M lying under the grate--I don't remember those descriptions from earlier reading. They do seem unstable--that used to be comic, I suppose, but modern sensibility renders this couple more macabre than comic, I think.

For me Micawber's statement is enduringly amusing, though tainted with heartache it is one of my favourite Dickens's quotations:
"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."

Sheer genius ...

Hilary wrote: "For me Micawber's statement is enduringly amusing, though tainted with heartache it is one of my favourite Dickens's quotations:
"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen s..."

You are so right, Hilary.

:-) Peter

Haha Kim. I hadn't particularly noticed the magistrate and the donkey bit. Very much in keeping with Dickens's 'the law's an ass' quip.

I'm very much enjoying my reread this, and all your insightful comments.

I do find though, that I don't see Micawber as "macabre". From the start he seems an over-the-top comic creation, and his wife Emma ditto. The part where both are "acting up" and having hysterics, whether on or off stage, are just that - stagey! As with all the posturing and dramatics in Nicholas Nickleby, I can see that this would lend itself very well to being adapted for the stage and perhaps Dickens had an eye to this. His love of melodrama made Micawber's protestations that he would take a razor to himself seemed hilariously funny, albeit black humour. Neither he nor his wife took this seriously I don't think. It was some sort of roleplay game habit for them - and for us.

And I think this is all in keeping with Dickens's wish to write memories of both his parents in fiction, as a sort of catharsis. If he had not felt able to publish his memoirs for fear of upsetting his mother (as we are given to understand) then this approach must have seemed an ideal answer. After all, we are told that his mother hardly believed anyone like Mrs Nickleby could possibly have ever existed, never mind not realising that the character of Mrs Nickleby was based on her! So Dickens must have felt pretty safe in the Micawbers being unrecognised, as long as he made the pair extreme caricatures of reality. In the event I looked it up and both his parents died in 1851, the year after David Copperfield finished and was issued in book rather than serial form. But he wasn't to know that, so was perhaps erring on the side of caution.

I think you can feel how much more lighthearted he is at root with this one than with Dombey and Son. Despite all the sad/tragic parts there is an inner core of hope, and a very light touch.

Jean wrote: "I'm very much enjoying my reread this, and all your insightful comments.

I do find though, that I don't see Micawber as "macabre". From the start he seems an over-the-top comic creation, and his ..."

Hi Jean

I enjoyed the recent reread of DC and it sounds like you are too. You will see that while I'm not a big fan of the Micawber sections. I do agree with you that Dickens's own family seem to be hovering about his writing desk.

Peter wrote: "I do agree with you that Dickens's own family seem to be hovering about his writing desk."

Yes, they most certainly were continuously hovering about Dickens's writing desk - and considering the traumatic experience the time at the factory must have been to Dickens, I find this very understandable. Probably it was the safest way for Dickens to get certain things off his chest without directly opening the family closet to the public - something that is often done today but was, rightly, considered bad taste in former times. - Coming to think of it, while Mr. Micawber is definitely a very funny creation, he was also a most terrible father and husband, and I sometimes even feel tempted to consider him a "light" version of Mr. Skimpole.

That comparison hadn't occurred to me, Tristram!

It's odd just how often we see reinterpretations of Dickens's mother though. Maybe he felt he'd got it pretty close with Mr Micawber for his father, but Mrs Nickleby wasn't quite right, Mrs Micawber perhaps wasn't quite right either ...

Jean wrote: "I'm very much enjoying my reread this, and all your insightful comments.

I do find though, that I don't see Micawber as "macabre". From the start he seems an over-the-top comic creation, and his ..."

I agree Jean. DC seems to carry some lightness and naïveté within its story. I found D&S to be dark. D&S has always been one of my favourite Dickens.

Peter - I loved Dombey and Son as you know. And it was partly your comments which helped me towards the understanding that it represented a great leap forward in his powers of writing (thank you!) It was so much deeper on every level.

But I am enjoying the lightness of touch with this one. It is such a contrast! In a way I feel he had proved that he could write a "literary novel" with Dombey and Son and although there's all the autobiographical content with this one, there is a bit of a return to the delight and whimsy we saw in The Pickwick Papers in his characters again.

It is wonderful to see the progression, and half know what is yet to come :)

Jean

One of the many reasons I love the work of Dickens is the fact (to my eyes at least) that his progression and maturation as a writer is so clearly documented and exampled in each of his successive novels. He always offers new delights and twists of style, but the overriding progressive arc always is in the assent.

It is indeed! Reading this way has made me want to read each author whom I rate highly again "from the beginning"! But then I also want to go back and restart Dickens's oeuvre too. I hope we do a wraparound.

It is so tempting for me to skip ahead and join you in your current read. But this is the reason why I don't! And I AM getting there :) (And will be with you for the Christmas story, whichever it is.)