The 21st Annual Book Report Competition
for Secondary School Students
The Distinction of English Junior Section
Name of Award Student
Name of School
Title of Book Read
Author
Publisher
: Chow Tsz Yin, Amelia
: Wa Ying College
: David Copperfield
: Charles Dickens
: Penguin
David Copperfield is a bildungsroman, the story of the narrator’s life from early
childhood to maturity. In it Copperfield describes the obstacles he overcame and the
unhappy events he lived through before becoming a successful novelist in later years.
The book is an expert blend of fiction and autobiography. While Dickens was not an
orphan, he felt abandoned by his parents during the harsh experiences of his early
years. David Copperfield’s father has died before his birth and his mother dies when
he is twelve years old. David has led a happy life with his mother and the housekeeper
Peggotty until his mother’s second marriage to Murdstone, who beats David severely
and whose treatment breaks his mother’s spirit and finally causes her death. Before
her death, Murdstone sends David to Salem House, a school presided over by a master
as cruel as Murdstone himself. It is here, however, that David meets two lifelong
friends, James Steerforth and Tommy Traddles. With his mother dead, he is sent to
Murdstone’s business in London as his stepfather hates him. He lodges with the
amiable Micawber family. He then runs away from the hated warehouse and becomes
the ward of his great-aunt Betsy Trotwood, who sends him to school in Canterbury, a
vast improvement over Salem House. Here he lodges with the Wickfields and is
attracted to Agnes Wickfield, but dislikes Uriah Heep, Agnes’ father’s obsequious
clerk. He studies law under Mr. Spenlow and falls in love with and marries his
daughter Dora. Micawber and Traddles ultimately expose Uriah Heep as a thief, and
the Micawber family immigrates to Australia. David himself eventually becomes a
skilled journalist, but shortly after he finds success, his wife Dora dies. After a period
of wandering, David begins his career as a popular novelist and marries Agnes.
Dickens attempted to write his autobiography, but found that some episodes in
his early life were too painful to relive in an autobiographical, or confessional fashion.
David Copperfield, on one level at least, is a fictionalized account of some of these
episodes. Dickens succeeded in recreating the mind of a child and young man in an
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unsurpassed psychological portrait. Copperfield obviously depends on the memory of
others to give an account of his birth and baby years. Dickens was a close observer of
the world around him from childhood and had a strong memory of events in his life.
David Copperfield has this quality too. Dickens’ imagination allied with the memories
of that period in his own life recaptured not only the physical scene where early
events took place but their emotions as well. The feel of the past lent that quality of
magic so often attributed to the writing of the first part of David Copperfield. It is
unlikely that Dickens knew the term bildungsroman but he set up his novel along the
lines of the classics in that genre. The events of an individual’s life from childhood to
a successful maturity with special emphasis on the difficulties he faces and overcomes
in childhood and youth forms an integral part of these works. Difficulties with parents
occur in the early years of the person’s story. Fatherless at birth and an orphan before
his teen years, David Copperfield has a succession of father substitutes. His is the
only point of view given in this novel.
“Absence” is the most lyrical chapter in David Copperfield, and shows how
versatile Dickens could be in his prose styling. David’s life is coming into focus for
him again. In the village to which he descends, letters are waiting for him. The letter
from Agnes reconfirming her faith in him further aids the healing process. She assures
him that his great grief would become not endless sorrow, but the source of new
strength. His love for her increases. David Copperfield remembers frequently a phrase
used by Dr. Strong’s young wife, Annie, when she confesses to her husband a brief
infatuation she has had for her cousin Maldon. She has not wronged her husband, and
the scene has been described by some critics as typical of the distraught sentimentality
too frequent in Dickens. But David realizes that his own heart is as poorly disciplined.
Disciplining his emotions has been an important part of his self-realization, the
successful conclusion of his bildungsroman. Having come to the maturity that his life
with Agnes has achieved, he can look on himself as an achiever in life and in his
chosen profession as a writer.
Charles Dickens has been one of my favorite authors since I was forced to read A
Tale of Two Cities, but this work, David Copperfield, is truly extraordinary. Like all of
Dickens' novels, this one contains an amazing number of complex and colorful
characters. The novel is in the first person narration, with the voice looking back as an
older man at the entirety of his life. Dicken's creates an incredible cast of characters
and paints a strong portrait of 19th-century England. Aside from fulfilling those
important elements of writing a novel, Dickens told a terrific story. In the end
everything of course comes together beautifully and the characters all get their just
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desserts. This is yet another clinic by Dickens in how to write a well organized,
though unpredictable, novel that maintains the interest of a reader through
approximate 900 pages of writing. It is a wonderful experience that all lovers of good
fiction should at least attempt.
Number of words: 903
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