David Copperfield, Chapters XVI-XIX (16-19)

[Zulfiya]

Let me be honest here – I loooooove long reading journeys. And Dickens always indulges me with his novels. With this confession made, I am happy to announce that we are reading and discussion the next four chapters (16-19) this week, and we are still in early stages of the novel.

[Zulfiya]

It seems like the sea of David's life has not experienced major storms, and the boat of his life is cruising peacefully. David really acquired a new family in the face of his aunt Betsy, and his 'competition' with his imaginary sister seems to be well-balanced. At least, David does not seem to disappoint his aunt.
His experience at school is also peaceful and rewarding, and as a smart child, he sincerely enjoys his school days. But his past does not seem to have disappeared for good as the Micawbers and Steerforth have made again the appearance. The Micawbers seem to be in the perpetual economic distress, so the same rule for twenty pounds still holds water for them and other people. Steerforth is another reminder of the dark childhood, and he we see that David acquires another pet name/nickname 'Daisy'. It again signifies a new life stage. Now he is a young, handsome, naïve man. It also characterizes Steerforth as a young CONDESCENDING man. I am still quite apprehensive about his nature and true motives. He is not an evil guy, but there is some darkness in him that can be turned into a leading force.
David is also introduced to the family of Uriah Heep, and being a young and grateful man, he is unwilling to directly dislike the Heeps, but there is something undeniably creepy about their existence and their perpetual self-deprecation. We all know that people like this are rarely truly humble.
Despite the happy years, David gradually becomes aware of the darkness in the world that surrounds him. Mr. Wickfield starts drinking, and he is prone to moods swings, and his disposition becomes more and more pensive and brooding. In spite of David's naivete, we also understand all the darker implications in the relationship between Dr. Strong, Annie Strong, and Jack Maldon. I wonder how much young David could understand what is transpiring and all these secretive affairs of the heart. On the other hand, young David is quite often in and our of love, and many young ladies have fascinated and clouded his mind.
As we have seen, the past never truly goes away. The gossamer threads and even heavy ropes conjoin the present and the past together and are quite possibly shaping David's future.

[Sarah]

These chapters demonstrate a broader scope of time than have the previous ones, and with a few vignettes we are taken through “Trotwood’s” entire time at Dr. Strong’s school. This is very different from the painstaking detail of Creakle’s, indicating again Dickens’ social commentary. Dr. Strong is the opposite of Creakle, and it is therefore sufficient for David to tell us that he excelled and enjoyed his time there. Uriah makes an interesting and enlightening take on education in chapter 17: “There are people enough to tread upon me in my lowly state, without my doing outrage to their feeling by possessing learning.” In Victorian England, and even in certain occupations today, someone with too much education is looked upon with condescension and suspicion.

As for Uriah, he seems to be emerging as a dark character, and quite possibly a villainous one. There is definitely something unsettling and sneaky about him, and the tea episode with his mother and David reminded me of Mrs. Brown and Alice from “Dombey and Son.” Here, Uriah and Mrs. Heep pry information out of David, details that he is not comfortable revealing: “They did just what they liked with me; and wormed things out of me that I had no desire to tell, with a certainty I blush to think of, the more especially, as in my juvenile frankness, I took some credit to myself for being so confidential and felt that I was quite the patron of my two respectful entertainers.” David’s statement that “I really had not yet been able to make up my mind whether I liked Uriah or detested him” (chapter 17) made an impression on me and reminded me of when people today say of others, “You either love him/her or hate him/her.” Also, I doubt that it is coincidence that Mr. Micawber’s jaunt with Uriah came shortly before the Micawbers became official beggars, and that Uriah always approaches Mr. Wickfield when his nervous anxiety is more exacerbated.

Likewise, there is something distinctly wrong with Annie Strong. I suspect that she and her cousin Jack Maldon had/have a clandestine love affair, or are at least in love with each other. David and Mr. Wickfield both recognize her oddness, and I am curious to discover the entire story there. Steerforth’s reappearance promises to be interesting, also. I somewhat expected him to be lacking in funds, but it appears that he has sufficient money.

Meanwhile, David himself is about to make his way in the world, but he is still very naïve and immature, although endearingly so. His infatuation with older women is humorous, and while I felt sorry for him I was also laughing at the nuptials of Miss Larkin and Mr. Chestle and the fact that after hearing about the match David successfully won a fight against the butcher. David is still easily taken advantage of, as by the man in the coach to London, and he is still star-struck by the likes of Steerforth. The rude introduction to the world that he received at Murdstone and Grinby has been replaced again by the sheltered life of a student with means, and we will have to see where it takes him now.

[Zulfiya]

Sarah wrote: "The rude introduction to the world that he received at Murdstone and Grinby has been replaced again by the sheltered life of a student with means, and we will have to see where it takes him now. "

I have a suspicion that this sheltered life is just a lull before a storm. The old players are all back ... It is hardly accidental.

[Sarah]

Zulfiya wrote: "I have a suspicion that this sheltered life is just a lull before a storm. The old players are all back ... It is hardly accidental. "

I'm sure you're right. Just like all of our lives, we have ups and downs, and I fear that we are headed into a "down" in David's life.

[Hedi]

Well, great comments. I do not think I can really add something new, but I will mention my thoughts nevertheless.

General speaking, I must admit that despite the event-driven pace, I rather miss Dickens's detailed and poetical descriptions of the surroundings which we have often seen in his previous novels.
However, you can still find some gems like

"...there was Uriah’s blue bag lying down and vomiting papers; there was a company of Uriah’s books, commanded by Mr. Tidd; ..."

And I am surprised about the pace, as I thought that many of the events we have read were the major ones, but we are just at about a third of the novel at the
moment. I am wondering whether my feeling for time and events is wrong or whether there is just so much to tell. It is definitely different from the previous novels in which we had sometimes some passages that felt rather long and eventless.

David is really having a quiet and rather happy life despite the butcher and the different crushes he is having.
You mentioned that his period at school is described in so few words. I thought the same and am wondering whether Dickens rather prefers writing about the bad things in the world. Sometimes it is easier to show and think of the bad things as the good things seem so natural.
This might also lead to the rather detailed description of Uriah Heep and his mother. As you have mentioned there is something sneaky and insincere around him and his mother. And maybe this also applies to Steerforth.

The story and secret that surrounds Mrs. Strong, her mother, her husband and Mr. Maldon is so nicely hinted at and described from the naïve view of a young boy.
I thought that Mrs. Strong and her mother almost had a type of relationship as Edith and Cleopatra in D&S.
In chaper 16 they seem to have a little bit of a tense relationship and I was wondering whether Anne felt the necessity to accept the marriage proposal by Dr. Strong for her mother's sake. It seems that she and Jack Maldon have been very close since childhood and assume that they were emotionally attached to each other.
Only Mr. Wickfield sees this and wants to spare his friend the disappointment. Therefore, he is initiating the job "home or ABROAD". Annie faints when Jack Maldon is leaving after having given him her lovely red bow as a farewell gift. Later in chapter 17, David describes her as pale, probably unhappier.

[Hedi]

Sarah wrote: "His infatuation with older women is humorous, and while I felt sorry for him I was also laughing at the nuptials of Miss Larkin and Mr. Chestle and the fact that after hearing about the match David successfully won a fight against the butcher. ..."

I was wondering whether David looks for his mother in other women and therefore attaches himself to rather older ones. Though to have a crush on 30 year-old woman as a 17 year-old man seems rather unlike the Victorian ages, but I might be wrong. In Stendhal's "The Red and the Black" there was a similar relationship.

[Robin P, Moderator]

As a fan of musicals, I thought of a scene in "Mame" where the boy (Patrick I think) has a song that starts out when he is young, writing a letter from school to the aunt who has adopted him, and as the verses go on, he matures so that an adult actor is there at the end. That's what David does here. I loved how he described the various infatuations he went through.

[Zulfiya]

Hedi wrote: "I thought that Mrs. Strong and her mother almost had a type of relationship as Edith and Cleopatra in D&S."

Isn't it wonderful to see how one novel gradually turns into another, and we find similar motifs, themes, plots, ideas? It is as if all Dickens's novels turn into a beautifully interwoven fabric with evolving but still recognizable patterns.

[Lynnm]

I really liked these chapters - no major chaos or villainous behavior.

There is foreshadowing - as others have posted - of darker days. The Doctor/Annie/Jack Maldon and Mr. Wickfield/Uriah Heep and the mysterious person who is given money by Aunt Betsy. And, of course, the reappearance of Steerfield, a young man we have generally agreed is not as trustworthy as he might appear.

Two passages I just loved:

One, when Dickens "aged" David from a young boy to a young man. Such a beautiful piece of writing.

Two, when David attended the theater, and was so captured by the experience, it was a letdown to come out of the theater into the "real" world.

"When I came out into the rainy street, at twelve o'clock at night, I felt as if I had come from the clouds, where I had been leading a romantic life for ages, to a bawling, splashing, link-lighted, umbrella-struggling, hackney-coach-jostling, patten-clinking, muddy, miserable world."

David then says that it was as if "I really were a stranger upon earth."

Those of us who love books and any type of story (theater, film, quality television shows) understand completely how he feels. A sign of wonderful artistry (although Steerforth mocks the play).

I know I prefer my books (and film / shows) over real life. If only I could climb into the pages of the books ... :-)

[Lynnm]

Robin wrote: "As a fan of musicals, I thought of a scene in "Mame" where the boy (Patrick I think) has a song that starts out when he is young, writing a letter from school to the aunt who has adopted him, and a..."

One of my favorites, although I don't remember the actual scene - I haven't watched the film in some time. I need to put it on my list of films to rent.

[Zulfiya]

Lynnm wrote: "When I came out into the rainy street, at twelve o'clock at night, I felt as if I had come from the clouds, where I had been leading a romantic life for ages, to a bawling, splashing, link-lighted, umbrella-struggling, hackney-coach-jostling, patten-clinking, muddy, miserable world.""

What a lovely, lovely quotation, and RELATABLE! Postmodernity and Dickens are worlds apart, but we might consider it a sneaky preview of metafiction. Besides, David's story we are reading turns him into an author, and this is the moment of epiphany for him, awareness of his professional calling ...

[Robin P, Moderator]

Dickens loved everything about the theater, and it shows here!

[Frances, Moderator]

Lots of interesting developments in these chapters, and lots of sympathetic and good-hearted characters who care for David.

I was also struck by the foreboding in the Strong's relationship-clearly Annie and Jack Maldon had had a childhood infatuation, Jack is still secretly wooing Annie and it is unclear what role Annie is playing. Her mother clearly threw her at Dr Strong so that Dr Strong could then support Annie and all her relatives (which he seems content to do) and therefore I would expect her to try to keep Jack Maldon away from her daughter to preserve the marriage, however she seems positively to throw them together, to keep stressing their childhood love for each other and keeps working hard to get Jack Maldon back from India to rejoin them. Annie's feelings about it all are unclear. There is a passage after the farewell party when David finds them in the library:

The Doctor was sitting in his easy chair by the fireside, and his young wife was on a stool at his feet. The Doctor, with a complacent smile, was reading aloud some manuscript…and she was looking up at him. But with such a face as I never saw. It was so beautiful in its form, it was so ashy pale, it was so fixed in its abstraction, it was so full of a wild, sleep-walking, dreamy horror of I don't know what…Distinctly as I recollect her look, I cannot say of what it was expressive…Penitence, humiliation, shame, pride, love, and trustfulness-I see them all; and in them all, I see that horror of I don't know what.

I can't imagine with this kind of description that Annie was intentionally deceiving her husband, but clearly she is caught in a net of some sort and feels trapped.

Finally, we meet Steerforth again. I think he is drawn is some ways as a contrast to David, as someone who is naturally self-confident (likely due to some money behind him) who therefore commands respect and good-treatment from those around him. David, despite his apparent handsome and grown up appearance, is still someone of whom people clearly feel they can take advantage, from the coachman who cheats him out of his paid-for seat of honour to the innkeeper who gives him the musty attic room and the cheap cuts of food and the remains of other peoples wines. Perhaps this is a commentary on the effects of growing up poor versus rich, that one never quite acquires the veneer of those "To the Manor Born", no matter how much education or wealth one accumulates.

I am struck by the number of May-December marriages in Dickens-was that common for the time? I was particularly struck by that of Miss Larkins as we weren't led to believe that she was impoverished or that the marriage was particularly advantageous.