The Old Curiosity Club discussion
David Copperfield
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DC, Chp. 10-12
message 51:
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Kim
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Aug 19, 2020 10:32AM
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Thank you Kim!
Kim wrote: "
I am presented to Mrs. Micawber
Chapter 11
Fred Barnard
1872 Household Edition
Text Illustrated:
At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber reappeared. I washed my hands and face, to..."
The kid on the floor looks like it's been dead for a while ... the face on that child is scary!
Here no clock, but mr. Micawber is holding his watch it seems.
Kim wrote: "
I am presented to Mrs. Micawber
Chapter 11
Fred Barnard
1872 Household Edition
Text Illustrated:
At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber reappeared. I washed my hands and face, to..."
The kid on the floor looks like it's been dead for a while ... the face on that child is scary!
Here no clock, but mr. Micawber is holding his watch it seems.
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Did you pass? :-)"
Of course, because I read Mr. Creakle's famous manual of how to be a teacher first ;-)
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What about Mrs. Gamp, Dolly Varden, Mr. Micawber, Ebenezer Scrooge (before he went mad and soft), Mr. Guppy, Mr. Bucket, Mr. Pickwick, Mr. Crummles, and Dick Swiveller? These are just a few of the characters that pop into my mind as extremely likeable. So, I am not such a grump as they all make me out to be, after all.
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If I am not mistaken, there is a lot in these reminiscences of Dickens's that almost goes in so many words into David's autobiography. It must have been a traumatic experience for Dickens, and I must say that I admire him for having kept such a stiff upper lip. He had guts.
Kim wrote: "From The Life of Charles Dickens by John Forster:"But I held some station at the blacking-warehouse too...."
Wow. Without looking it up, that sounds almost word for word like the text of David Copperfield. Do we know which he wrote first - the letter or the novel? It's quite uncanny.
I'm not blown away by any of this segment's illustrations. My favorite of the bunch is probably Barnard's depiction of David with the trunk thief. But I don't know that that scene was the one I would have chosen to illustrate. I wondered something, but think I've answered my own question. Why did David decide to go to Aunt Betsey rather than Peggotty? I figured he didn't want to put Peggotty into a compromising position, knowing that that would be the first place the Murdstones would look for him (if they looked at all). I also decided that David might have felt that, as a relative, Aunt Betsey would have a familial obligation towards him.
I do think, though, that a 10-year-old wouldn't have thought all of this through much, and would be most likely to go where he's familiar, safe, and cared for. I don't remember Dickens showing us any thought process along those lines, which is a minor oversight, but an omission, nonetheless.
I think that David might have thought that Peggotty could not protect him from Murdstone's wrath - she couldn't before. And he had heard such stories about aunt Betsey's fierceness, that he probably thought that if there was someone who could scare away Murdstone it must have been aunt Betsey.
I am so looking forward to this next section.
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I agree, and if he did go to Peggotty I think Murdstone would have gone there and brought him right back again.
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Me too.
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David meets the Micawbers
Ron Embleton
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She looks drunk
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I concur. David already had the experience that for all her love and benevolence, Peggotty was not able to stand up to Mr. Murdstone face to face. Apart from that, being not related to him, she could hardly make a claim to take care of the boy. Maybe another reason that kept David from going to seek Peggotty' help was that by then he had learned of Mr. Barkis's parsimonious nature and would have told himself that the old carter might not be too happy about another mouth to feed at his home.
But strangely, Dickens, who is often a very outspoken author, leaves us to figure all this out for ourselves.
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She looks drunk"
Or she is sleep-walking?
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David meets the Micawbers
Ron Embleton"
Mr. Micawber does look like Humpty-Dumpty here, doesn't he?
Tristram wrote: "Kim wrote: "She looks drunk"Or she is sleep-walking?"
My first thought was that she was playing Blind Man's Bluff. What a horrible picture. What was Kyd thinking??
I LOVE the Reynolds one of Mrs. Micawber (msg. 65) - she has that exhausted, careworn expression that says, "Oh, NOW what?" that can be seen on so many mothers with toddlers and babies.
Despite all the mouths to feed and the lack of income, the Micawbers still have the "orfling" to serve the tea. I know we've discussed this phenomenon in other books, but it still never ceases to amaze me that dirt-poor people still have even dirtier-poor servants. I wonder if some didn't just do it to get off the street and have a bite of bread, with no other compensation.
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Or she is sleep-walking?"
My first thought was that she was playing Blind Man's Bluff. What a horrible picture. What was Kyd thinking??
I LOVE the R..."
Mary Lou
I’m with you. I think the Reynold’s is great. It completely captures the careworn nature of the woman. And, as you say, it also transcends itself into countless mothers who must deal with their impoverished lot in life.
Where did David learn about romantic love? He has these notions about Emily that he hasn’t seen in real life. Reading the comments here, I wonder if it’s the fairy tales and books he’s read. Is that a healthy way to learn about how to live life? Will it serve David poorly that that is his only example of love and life? Obviously the answer to some of these is simple, but I’m just pondering these things.Also, reading this with the idea that David the narrator is different than David the child in the forefront of my mind, has brought up some different thoughts. In chapter 10 David is left alone with Mrs G and Emily and he says he wishes a snake or something big and sacrum would come so he could defend them. This goes back to what he asks at the beginning of the book- am I the hero of my own sorry? He said that is yet to be seen and David the narrator is considering that right here. Is he going to be the hero? That’s his focus and goal, but does it have to be done in this way? Isn’t it supposed to be done in small and simple ordinary ways? Again simple, maybe rhetorical questions to convey my thoughts.
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Hi Ashley
David does refer to a great number of books some of which are fairy tales. I think you are right. Much (almost all?) of his initial learning is coming from fairy tales and adventure stories. I think most children at some point in their early lives do frame themselves as heroes. Even today, on t-shirts, action toys and pixel movies we see many of the simple universal themes of heroes represented. Children pick up on such representations and actions and often project themselves into such roles.
I’ve always pondered about how to read the first lines of the novel. The adult David who writes those lines knows his life story and is going to unfold it to his reading audience. As the first person narrator that gives him a great control over the choice of material he will present to his reader. As we have mentioned in earlier discussions how do we as readers approach a first person narrative.
Ashley wrote: "Is he going to be the hero? That’s his focus and goal, but does it have to be done in this way? Isn’t it supposed to be done in small and simple ordinary ways? ..."I think you've hit the nail on the head. Children have different ideas of heroism - slaying dragons, catching the bad guys, etc. With maturity we come to realize that heroism can just mean getting up every day and going to a job you hate so you can feed your kids, like Bob Cratchit, or taking care of a cantankerous in-law and treating her with dignity as we see with Flora Finching. It will be interesting to see if David grows into this mature type of hero.
Mary Lou wrote: "I LOVE the Reynolds one of Mrs. Micawber (msg. 65) - she has that exhausted, careworn expression that says, "Oh, NOW what?" that can be seen on so many mothers with toddlers and babies."Yes. Also the "looks drunk" drawing is fitting in this respect. I think she looks like I feel when three members of my household are talking to me at once. Mrs. M has four children, a servant, a husband, a boarder, and debt collectors at the door. She can pass out on the grate and still not be left alone.
Tristram wrote: "Jantine wrote: "I think that David might have thought that Peggotty could not protect him from Murdstone's wrath - she couldn't before. And he had heard such stories about aunt Betsey's fierceness, that he probabl..."I concur. David already had the experience that for all her love and benevolence, Peggotty was not able to stand up to Mr. Murdstone face to face."
I think it's the prospect of money. David desperately wants to be a gentleman again. If he had to choose between love and status, which do you think he would pick?
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Probably, "Let's make this as beautiful as I can!"
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Although I tend to be critical of David's character, I'm not inclined to see David in such a mercantile light, Julie, although, of course, money is a solution to lots of problems. I am the last person to speak lightly of money and to pretend not to know what side my bread is buttered on, because although money does not necessarily mean happiness, it is very hard, nigh impossible, to be both poor - in the Victorian sense of the word - and happy. Maybe, unconsciously to David, money played a role in his decision to go and try his luck with Aunt Betsey, but more in the sense of having shelter, something to eat and being allowed to lead a child's life again. Apart from that, I think that it is fair to say that David attaches great importance to the chance of getting an education - probably Dickens's own experience prevailing here - and that he thought that Aunt Betsey, as his relation and a representative of his own class, will be more likely to grant it to him.
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This reminds me of my favourite scene from The Magnificent Seven, a scene that already moved me as a kid: When the Mexican boy says to Charles Bronson that he would like to be like him and not like his father and the other farmers, because they were all cowards, Bronson reacts angrily and tells the boy that their fathers are anything but cowards because they had decided to marry, have children and do farming, while he, Bronson, is just drifting around.
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And this is again where class comes in, I'd say: The Micawbers may be poor, but they still regard themselves as genteel people, and so, come what may, they must have a servant.
I like what is pointed out about Mrs. Micawber's being there for all her family members and how the picture presents her as an exhausted woman, drenched of all her vital powers. Still, do you think that the Micawbers are a happy family?
Tristram wrote: "Apart from that, I think that it is fair to say that David attaches great importance to the chance of getting an education - probably Dickens's own experience prevailing here - and that he thought that Aunt Betsey, as his relation and a representative of his own class, will be more likely to grant it to him."Yes, wanting an education makes sense. He does seem to be aware of his own potential, and that would explain why he picks Aunt Betsey over Peggotty, who could also give him love and a good meal.
But I still have a sense that "off to find Aunt Betsey" is like "off to seek my fortune." It doesn't have to be mercenary in an ugly sense, but Betsey represents in a number of ways, including money, more opportunities than Peggotty does.
She does. However, I think I see it more as 'off to seek safety' than 'off to seek my fortune'. Even when David wasn't even is the worst of circumstances yet (he was provided with shelter and clothes), he worked about 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, and had to plan to make his money stretch long enough to feed himself. He was about 11 or 12 years old at most I think, based on something his aunt says in a later chapter about it being a little more than 10 years since his birth. Imagine a kid of that age in that kind of situation ... He wouldn't think of fortune, that he thought of wanting education was quite something already. I still imagine that what he wanted most of all was safety, away from the Murdstones' influence and the wine factory. And, yes, the education, because it might help him not getting into that situation again. I don't like how he felt 'better' than his peers, but I do understand his wanting to get out of it.
Jantine wrote: "She does. However, I think I see it more as 'off to seek safety' than 'off to seek my fortune'. Even when David wasn't even is the worst of circumstances yet (he was provided with shelter and cloth..."True--you can't blame him for wanting to get out of those circumstances at all. In fact I have to admire his initiative.
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W. C. Fields
Jean Cadell
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Charles Dickens in the Blacking Factory
C. I. Doughty
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Charles Dickens as a boy in the blacking factory.
Neville Dear
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From David Copperfield:
I was so young and childish, and so little qualified—how could I be otherwise?—to undertake the whole charge of my own existence, that often, in going to Murdstone and Grinby’s, of a morning, I could not resist the stale pastry put out for sale at half-price at the pastrycooks’ doors, and spent in that the money I should have kept for my dinner. Then, I went without my dinner, or bought a roll or a slice of pudding. I remember two pudding shops, between which I was divided, according to my finances. One was in a court close to St. Martin’s Church—at the back of the church,—which is now removed altogether. The pudding at that shop was made of currants, and was rather a special pudding, but was dear, twopennyworth not being larger than a pennyworth of more ordinary pudding. A good shop for the latter was in the Strand—somewhere in that part which has been rebuilt since. It was a stout pale pudding, heavy and flabby, and with great flat raisins in it, stuck in whole at wide distances apart. It came up hot at about my time every day, and many a day did I dine off it. When I dined regularly and handsomely, I had a saveloy and a penny loaf, or a fourpenny plate of red beef from a cook’s shop; or a plate of bread and cheese and a glass of beer, from a miserable old public-house opposite our place of business, called the Lion, or the Lion and something else that I have forgotten. Once, I remember carrying my own bread (which I had brought from home in the morning) under my arm, wrapped in a piece of paper, like a book, and going to a famous alamode beef-house near Drury Lane, and ordering a ‘small plate’ of that delicacy to eat with it. What the waiter thought of such a strange little apparition coming in all alone, I don’t know; but I can see him now, staring at me as I ate my dinner, and bringing up the other waiter to look. I gave him a halfpenny for himself, and I wish he hadn’t taken it.
From The Life of Charles Dickens by John Forster:
"I was so young and childish, and so little qualified—how could I be otherwise?—to undertake the whole charge of my own existence, that, in going to Hungerford Stairs of a morning, I could not resist the stale pastry put out at half-price on trays at the confectioners' doors in Tottenham Court Road; and I often spent in that the money I should have kept for my dinner. Then I went without my dinner, or bought a roll, or a slice of pudding. There were two pudding-shops between which I was divided, according to my finances. One was in a court close to St. Martin's Church (at the back of the church) which is now removed altogether. The pudding at that shop was made with currants, and was rather a special pudding, but was dear: two penn'orth not being larger than a penn'orth of more ordinary pudding. A good shop for the latter was in the Strand, somewhere near where the Lowther Arcade is now. It was a stout, hale pudding, heavy and flabby; with great raisins in it, stuck in whole, at great distances apart. It came up hot, at about noon every day; and many and many a day did I dine off it.
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I was such a child, and so little, that frequently when I went into the bar of a strange public-house for a glass of ale or porter, to moisten what I had had for dinner, they were afraid to give it me. I remember one hot evening I went into the bar of a public-house, and said to the landlord: ‘What is your best—your very best—ale a glass?’ For it was a special occasion. I don’t know what. It may have been my birthday.
‘Twopence-halfpenny,’ says the landlord, ‘is the price of the Genuine Stunning ale.’
‘Then,’ says I, producing the money, ‘just draw me a glass of the Genuine Stunning, if you please, with a good head to it.’
The landlord looked at me in return over the bar, from head to foot, with a strange smile on his face; and instead of drawing the beer, looked round the screen and said something to his wife. She came out from behind it, with her work in her hand, and joined him in surveying me. Here we stand, all three, before me now. The landlord in his shirt-sleeves, leaning against the bar window-frame; his wife looking over the little half-door; and I, in some confusion, looking up at them from outside the partition. They asked me a good many questions; as, what my name was, how old I was, where I lived, how I was employed, and how I came there. To all of which, that I might commit nobody, I invented, I am afraid, appropriate answers. They served me with the ale, though I suspect it was not the Genuine Stunning; and the landlord’s wife, opening the little half-door of the bar, and bending down, gave me my money back, and gave me a kiss that was half admiring and half compassionate, but all womanly and good, I am sure.
From The Life of Charles Dickens by John Forster:
Another characteristic little incident he made afterwards one of David's experiences, but I am able to give it here without the disguises that adapt it to the fiction: "I was such a little fellow, with my poor white hat, little jacket, and corduroy trowsers, that frequently, when I went into the bar of a strange public-house for a glass of ale or porter to wash down the saveloy and the loaf I had eaten in the street, they didn't like to give it me. I remember, one evening (I had been somewhere for my father, and was going back to the borough over Westminster Bridge), that I went into a public-house in Parliament Street,—which is still there, though altered,—at the corner of the short street leading into Cannon Row, and said to the landlord behind the bar, 'What is your very best—the VERY best—ale, a glass?' For the occasion was a festive one, for some reason: I forget why. It may have been my birthday, or somebody else's. 'Two-pence,' says he. 'Then,' says I, 'just draw me a glass of that, if you please, with a good head to it.' The landlord looked at me, in return, over the bar, from head to foot, with a strange smile on his face, and, instead of drawing the beer, looked round the screen and said something to his wife, who came out from behind it, with her work in her hand, and joined him in surveying me. Here we stand, all three, before me now, in my study in Devonshire Terrace. The landlord, in his shirt-sleeves, leaning against the bar window-frame; his wife, looking over the little half-door; and I, in some confusion, looking up at them from outside the partition. They asked me a good many questions, as what my name was, how old I was, where I lived, how I was employed, etc. etc. To all of which, that I might commit nobody, I invented appropriate answers. They served me with the ale, though I suspect it was not the strongest on the premises; and the landlord's wife, opening the little half-door and bending down, gave me a kiss that was half admiring and half compassionate, but all womanly and good, I am sure."
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I agree. Still, let's not forget that David is taking a great risk here in that he does not know how his aunt is going to react to her nephew's showing up and asking for her protection. He cannot know for sure - and the vicarious memories he has of his aunt might be quite discouraging - whether she will play along with him.
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Where did you find this illustration, Kim? I would never ever have seen any similarity between Micawber and Hitler, and I still don't.
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Where did you find this illustration, Kim? I would ne..."
Okay, I'll tell you how I did it but I don't know if it works the same way where you are. I have google chrome, I open the it and type mrs. Micawber in searc.h. A whole bunch of stuff comes up but click on images. Now you'll have lots and lots of images, scroll down and you eventually find it, but it will be hidden in all kinds of other things since the "normal" illustrations usually come first.
I tried just posting a link to it but my computer won't me, it keeps saying the site can't be reached. Or that I've reached a web page that doesn't exist which is odd considering that's where I am. Meanwhile I'm going to go look for the web site I'm on in a different tab that doesn't exist.
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https://punch.photoshelter.com/image/...
See if this works
