Дэвид Копперфильд • роман
краткая информация
История создания
О названии
В духе многих романов 19 века, в которых основное внимание уделяется одному персонажу, роман называется просто Дэвид Копперфильд, в честь своего героя. Однако текст был впервые опубликован как Личная история, приключения, опыт и наблюдения Дэвида Копперфильда Младшего из Бландерстоунского приюта (которые он ни в коем случае не собирался публиковать). Это длинное название подчеркивает Дэвида Копперфильда как субъекта и рассказчика текста, место Дэвида в его семье и обстановку, а также автобиографический характер текста; это также создает близость с читателем, который узнает секреты Дэвида.
Жанр произведения
Роман. Автобиографическая проза.
Символы
Blunderstone Rookery
Symbolic of poor life choices, Blunderstone Rookery is the name of the Copperfields’ home. David’s father had called it a rookery because before he bought it he’d noticed rook nests in the trees, not realizing the nests had long ago been abandoned. Miss Betsey points out one aspect of the symbolism of Blunderstone Rookery when she visits on the night David is born. She says it’s just like her nephew to take «the birds on trust, because he sees the nests.» This symbolizes the character flaw of naïveté, something David struggles with, as an inherited family trait. In addition, the word blunder in the name symbolizes the tendency to make errors in judgment.
The Sea
In David Copperfield, the sea is associated with uncontrollable forces in life. It represents both death and rebirth. When David first visits Yarmouth and walks on the beach with Emily, he’s struck by the realization the sea has taken the lives of so many people, including Emily’s father, Ham’s father, and Mrs. Gummidge’s husband. Steerforth, an uncontrollable force in himself, is drawn to the sea and, ultimately, it takes his life.
The sea is also a symbol of rebirth, offering the chance of redemption. Emily, Martha, and other characters needing to start over or seek redemption travel across the sea to start new lives in Australia.
Flowers
Flowers, with their bright colors and pleasant scents, symbolize love, innocence, hope, and romance. David Copperfield’s first sight of Miss Betsey’s cottage, after his long trek from Dover, is of her garden, «full of flowers, carefully tended, and smelling deliciously.» The flower garden symbolizes the love and hope Miss Betsey gives David. When David boldly flirts with the much older Miss Larkins, he asks her to give him one of the flowers she wears in her hair, and he treasures it for days until his hopes are dashed by news of her marriage. When David meets Dora, they spend time walking in the garden, appreciating the beauty of the flowers, and his first gift to her is a bouquet of flowers. Miss Betsey takes to calling Dora «Little Blossom.» The giving of flowers signifies innocence and romance; the nurturing and appreciation of flowers signifies love and hope.
Критика
Основная идея
В чем основная мысль романа Дэвид Копперфильд?
В «Дэвиде Копперфилде» Диккенс анализирует причины нравственного несовершенства людей, их морального уродства. Два образа — Урия Хип и Стирфорт, принадлежащие к различным типам социальной структуры, оказываются живыми иллюстрациями суждения Диккенса о несовер-шенстве системы образования и общественных отношений. Оба терпят фиаско, судьбы обоих искалечены, хотя и по разным причинам.
Художественное своеобразие
Темы
Importance of Life Choices
Charles Dickens’s recently abandoned autobiography was much on his mind as he wrote David Copperfield, and many of the life choices his protagonist makes reflect choices Dickens made in his own life. Dickens’s father rescued him from his warehouse job, but David Copperfield is an orphan, so he makes his first important life choice—to run away from the warehouse—completely on his own. After that, Miss Betsey and Agnes help guide his choices. For example, Agnes patiently lends an ear to David’s passing fancy of other women. It is her unwavering support that makes it possible for David to finally achieve the family life he sought for so long. The key to recovering from poor choices is to learn from them, as David learns from his relationship with Dora. Dickens shows that those who don’t analyze and learn from their life choices, such as Steerforth and Uriah Heep, don’t grow or succeed in life.
Naïveté versus Maturity
Developing self-confidence and the ability to make sound judgments is an important aspect of growing up, which is closely tied to the theme of the importance of life choices. David Copperfield, like many others in life, matures based on the outcome of the decisions he makes. David Copperfield’s innate honesty and desire to please others causes him to take people at face value. In his childlike naïveté versus maturity, he focuses on appearances rather than on gaining insight into motivations. For example, he mistakes Steerforth’s good looks and haughty manner for nobility and maturity. Because David assumes everyone else is as honest and forthright as he is, people often take advantage of him. He’s embarrassed by his «youthfulness» and struggles against his naïveté for a long time. It isn’t until he encounters difficulties in his marriage to Dora that David begins to achieve the kind of insight that leads to maturity.
Perseverance
David Copperfield’s journey through life is a model of the rewards of persevering against the odds. Even before his perseverance is tested through privation and hard work, David shows determination in the quiet way he maintains his self-identity while under the controlling influence of Mr. Murdstone. He does this by escaping into reading, where he identifies with heroes who persevere against mortal threats. Later in his life, David’s imagination helps him adapt his heroic fantasies to the more mundane perseverance he needs to acquire skills and earn a living.
Charles Dickens also shows a darker application of perseverance in the character of Uriah Heep, who spends many long years feigning humble servility. Though both men grow up in a harsh situation, the effects on Heep are negative, especially in his desire to dominate and control others. He keeps wanting more and more. Heep’s plan to acquire power is foiled by the perseverance of Micawber, who spends a year gathering evidence against him. Even in jail, Heep needs to exert a degree of control.
Мотивы
The Undisciplined Heart
The motif of the undisciplined heart represents immaturity, particularly in making romantic choices. Several of the characters, including David Copperfield, have a tendency to fall in love based on physical attraction. David is impressed when Annie Strong says she’s glad she didn’t allow her undisciplined heart to lead her into what would have been a very unhappy marriage to Jack Maldon. David recognizes he’s prone to letting his undisciplined heart lead him to make unwise, immature life choices.
The Forest of Difficulty
David Copperfield uses the metaphor of chopping down trees in the forest of difficulty to represent the hard work ahead of him when he decides he must learn the difficult skill of taking shorthand while also holding down two jobs. He needs to learn shorthand so he can improve his income enough to support his aunt and marry Dora. To inspire himself to persist in his task, he imagines himself as a heroic woodsman, clearing a path through the forest of difficulty.
Персонажи
| Character | Description |
|---|---|
| David Copperfield | David Copperfield, an orphan, later renamed Trotwood Copperfield, is the narrator and protagonist of the novel. Read More |
| Peggotty | Peggotty is David’s nurse. Read More |
| James Steerforth | James Steerforth is an aristocratic older schoolmate of David Copperfield. Read More |
| Uriah Heep | Uriah Heep is Mr. Wickfield’s clerk. Read More |
| Dora Spenlow | Dora Spenlow, the daughter of David’s employer, marries David Copperfield. Read More |
| Miss Betsey | Miss Betsey Trotwood is David’s great-aunt. Read More |
| Agnes Wickfield | Agnes Wickfield is the daughter of Miss Betsey’s lawyer. Read More |
| Adams | Adams is the head boy at Dr. Strong’s school. |
| Captain Bailey | Captain Bailey is one of Miss Larkin’s suitors. |
| Barkis | Mr. Barkis, a stage driver, marries Peggotty. |
| Charley | Charley is the owner of a used clothing shop. |
| Mr. Chestle | Mr. Chestle is the hop-grower who marries Miss Larkins. |
| Mr. Chillip | Mr. Chillip is the doctor who delivers David Copperfield. |
| Miss Clarissa | Miss Clarissa Spenlow is Dora’s aunt, who takes her in after Dora’s father dies. |
| Clickett | Clickett is the Orfling (orphan) girl from the workhouse who is the Micawbers’ servant. |
| Clara Copperfield | Clara Copperfield is David’s mother who was a governess before her marriage. |
| Mr. Creakle | Mr. Creakle is the headmaster of Salem House school who later becomes a magistrate. |
| Mrs. Creakle | Mrs. Creakle breaks the news of his mother’s death to David. |
| Miss Creakle | Miss Creakle, Mr. Creakle’s daughter, has a crush on Steerforth at Salem House. |
| Sophy Crewler | Sophy Crewler, a parson’s daughter, is the fiancée and later the wife of Tommy Traddles. |
| Mrs. Crupp | Mrs. Crupp is David’s landlady on Buckingham Street. |
| Miss Dartle | Rosa Dartle is Mrs. Steerforth’s ward and companion. |
| Mr. Dick | Mr. Dick, whose real name is Richard Babley, is Miss Betsey’s ward, whom she rescued from an insane asylum. |
| Emily | Emily is Mr. Peggotty’s orphaned niece and David’s childhood sweetheart. |
| Martha Endell | Martha Endell is a disgraced friend of Emily’s who becomes a prostitute. |
| Grainger | Grainger is one of Steerforth’s Oxford friends who attends David’s housewarming dinner. |
| Mr. Grayper | Mr. Grayper is Clara Copperfield’s neighbor at Blunderstone. |
| Mrs. Grayper | Mrs. Grayper is Clara Copperfield’s neighbor who holds the party where Clara meets Mr. Murdstone. |
| Gregory | Gregory is the foreman at Murdstone and Grimly’s warehouse. |
| Mr. Gulpidge | Mr. Gulpidge, a guest at the Waterbrooks’ dinner party, is connected with banking and the law. |
| Mrs. Gummidge | Mrs. Gummidge lives in Mr. Peggotty’s house and is the widow of Mr. Peggotty’s former partner. |
| Mrs. Heep | Mrs. Heep, Uriah Heep’s mother, is a widow. |
| Captain Hopkins | Captain Hopkins, an acquaintance of Mr. Micawber, is an inmate in debtor’s prison. |
| Janet | Janet is Miss Betsey’s maid. |
| Jip | Jip, short for Gipsy, is Dora’s little dog. |
| Master Jones | Master Jones is a student at Dr. Strong’s school whom Miss Shepherd likes more than David. |
| Joram | Joram is Mr. Omer’s coffin maker who later manages the business. |
| Mr. Jorkins | Mr. Jorkins is Mr. Spenlow’s partner who is falsely reputed to be a ruthless manager. |
| Mrs. Kidgerbury | Mrs. Kidgerbury is a maid employed by David and Dora Copperfield. |
| Miss Kitt | Miss Kitt is a young woman David flirts with at Dora’s birthday party. |
| Miss Larkins | Miss Larkins is David’s love interest at age 17. |
| Miss Lavinia | Miss Lavinia Spenlow is Dora’s aunt, who takes her in after Dora’s father dies. |
| Littimer | Littimer is Steerforth’s servant who helps him run away with Emily. |
| Jack Maldon | Jack Maldon is Annie Strong’s cousin and childhood companion with whom she’s suspected of having an affair. |
| Markham | Markham is an Oxford friend of Steerforth who attends David’s housewarming dinner. |
| Mrs. Markleham | Mrs. Markleham, called the Old Soldier, is Annie Strong’s mother. |
| Mr. Mell | Mr. Charles Mell is an assistant master at Salem House. |
| Mrs. Mell | Mrs. Mell is Charles Mell’s mother who lives in the poorhouse. |
| Master Micawber | Master Wilkins Micawber Jr. is the oldest son of Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. |
| Miss Micawber | Little Miss Emma Micawber is the oldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. |
| Mr. Micawber | Mr. Wilkins Micawber, a family man constantly in debt, rents a room to David in London and later reenters his life. |
| Mrs. Micawber | Mrs. Emma Micawber believes in Mr. Micawber’s ability to succeed. |
| Julia Mills | Julia Mills is Dora Spenlow’s bosom friend and confidant. |
| Miss Mowcher | Miss Mowcher, a dwarf, is a traveling hairdresser. |
| Mr. Murdstone | Mr. Edward Murdstone, Clara Copperfield’s second husband, is cruel and controlling. |
| Miss Murdstone | Miss Jane Murdstone is Mr. Murdstone’s sister, who moves into the Copperfield home. |
| Minnie Omer | Minnie Omer, a seamstress and the daughter of Mr. Omer, marries Joram. |
| Mr. Omer | Mr. Omer is the undertaker who arranges Clara Copperfield’s funeral. |
| Mary Anne Paragon | Mary Anne Paragon is one of David and Dora’s incompetent maids. |
| Mr. Passnidge | Mr. Passnidge is an associate of Mr. Murdstone. |
| Ham Peggotty | Ham Peggotty, Mr. Peggotty’s nephew, is a fisherman and boat builder who is jilted by Emily. |
| Mr. Peggotty | Mr. Daniel Peggotty, Clara Peggotty’s brother, is a fisherman who lives in a converted boat and adopts his orphaned niece and nephew. |
| Mealy Potatoes | Mealy Potatoes is a boy who works at the Murdstone and Grinby’s warehouse. |
| Mr. Quinion | Mr. Quinion, an associate of Mr. Murdstone, is the manager of the Murdstone and Grinby’s warehouse. |
| Mr. Sharp | Mr. Sharp is first master at Salem House. |
| Miss Shepherd | Miss Shepherd is David’s dancing school partner and his first love in Canterbury. |
| Mr. Spenlow | Mr. Francis Spenlow is David Copperfield’s employer at Doctor’s Common, and Dora’s father. |
| Mr. Spiker | Mr. Spiker is a solicitor and a guest at the Waterbrooks’ dinner party. |
| Mrs. Spiker | Mrs. Spiker, dubbed «Hamlet’s aunt» by David, holds forth on the merits of aristocracy at the Waterbrooks’ dinner party. |
| Mrs. Steerforth | Mrs. Steerforth is James Steerforth’s doting mother. |
| Annie Strong | Annie Strong is Dr. Strong’s much younger wife, who is falsely suspected of being unfaithful to him. |
| Doctor Strong | Doctor Strong, the headmaster at David’s school in Canterbury, is writing a Greek dictionary. |
| Mr. Tiffey | Mr. Tiffey is a clerk at Spenlow and Jorkins. |
| Tipp | Tipp is a worker at the Murdstone and Grinby’s warehouse. |
| Tommy Traddles | Tommy Traddles, David’s schoolmate at Salem House, becomes a close friend. |
| Tungay | Tungay, Creakle’s assistant at Salem House, has a wooden leg. |
| The waiter | The waiter at the Golden Cross in London makes David feel young and inexperienced. |
| Mick Walker | Mick Walker, the oldest of the boys who work at the Murdstone and Grinby’s warehouse, is the son of a bargeman. |
| Mr. Waterbrook | Mr. Waterbrook is Mr. Whitfield’s agent in London. |
| Mrs. Waterbrook | Mrs. Waterbrook, the wife of Mr. Waterbrook, invites David to a dinner party. |
| Mr. Wickfield | Mr. Wickfield, Miss Betsey’s lawyer in Canterbury, is Agnes’s father and Uriah Heep’s employer. |
| William (1) | William is the waiter at the Yarmouth inn who tricks David out of his meal. |
| William (2) | William is the coachman who convinces David Copperfield to give up his seat. |
Интересные факты
David Copperfield, published serially in 1849–50 and one of Charles Dickens’s best-loved novels, tells the story of young David, whose life from childhood to maturity closely mirrors Dickens’s own. Like many of Dickens’s novels, David Copperfield focuses on the social imbalance between rich and poor, often making the point that poverty can ennoble more easily than wealth.
Russian writer Leo Tolstoy pronounced it «a delight,» and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud gave the novel to his fiancée when they got engaged. David Copperfield’s myriad richly drawn characters have enchanted readers for well over a century and a half.
1. David Copperfield was Dickens’s favorite novel.
Dickens wrote a preface to David Copperfield in which he described his sad feelings at finishing the novel. He said:
It would concern the reader little, perhaps, to know how sorrowfully the pen is laid down at the close of a two-years’ imaginative task…Of all my books, I like this the best. It will be easily believed that I am a fond parent to every child of my fancy, and that no one can ever love that family as dearly as I love them. But, like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child. And his name is DAVID COPPERFIELD.
2. Dickens had at least a dozen different titles for David Copperfield.
When it was first published in serial form, David Copperfield was titled The Personal History, Adventures, Experience & Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery. (Which He Never Meant to be Published on any Account.) In addition, Dickens had used or considered at least 12 other titles for the novel, including Mag’s Diversions: Being the Personal History of MR THOMAS MAG THE YOUNGER and The Copperfield Survey of the World as It Rolled.
3. David Copperfield is the most autobiographical of Dickens’s novels.
Critics see many parallels between the events in the novel and those of Dickens’s own life. Creakle, the school headmaster in the novel, bears similarities to the headmaster in Dickens’s school. David’s experiences working in a factory reflect Dickens’s own labors as a child. Mr. Micawber, imprisoned for debt in the novel, is like Dickens’s own father, also imprisoned for debt. Even the initials of the main character’s name, D.C., are those of Dickens, transposed.
4. The character Uriah Heep is said to have been based on fairy-tale author Hans Christian Andersen.
Dickens met Andersen, the author of tales such as «The Little Mermaid» and «The Emperor’s New Clothes,» in 1847. Andersen was very impressed with Dickens; Dickens was less taken with the Danish writer. A decade later Andersen came, uninvited, to stay with Dickens. He found the house too cold, forced Dickens’s son to shave him in the mornings, and generally irritated his hosts with both his complaints and his adulation.
Dickens’s daughter wrote in a letter, «He was a bony bore, and stayed on and on,» and Dickens himself put a note on the door of the room he’d left that said, «Hans Andersen slept in this room for five weeks — which seemed to the family AGES!» The effect Andersen had on the family is said to have been immortalized in the character of Uriah Heep, the pernicious, blackmailing moneylender in David Copperfield.
5. Dickens named his daughter after a character in David Copperfield.
Dickens’s daughter Dora was born while he was writing David Copperfield. He loved the character Dora Copperfield in his novel and decided to name the child after her. Dora Copperfield dies in childbirth in the novel. Sadly, Dora Dickens did not live long either; she died at only eight months old, after having convulsions. Dickens wrote about her illness in a letter to his wife, who was away, «You would suppose her quietly asleep. But I am sure she is very ill, and I cannot encourage myself with much hope of her recovery. I do not—and why should I say I do, to you my dear!—I do not think her recovery at all likely.»
6. David Copperfield is one of only two Dickens novels written in the first person.
By the time David Copperfield was published, Dickens had published eight other novels, all with third-person narrators. David Copperfield was written with a first-person narrator, which reflected the personal and autobiographical nature of the novel. Great Expectations, published almost a decade later, is also narrated in the first person.
7. The name Uriah Heep came to symbolize a particular kind of villainy.
In David Copperfield, Uriah Heep is a skinny, pale moneylender whose obsequious fawning and wicked blackmail schemes have made him a favorite villain among readers. In fact, his character is so universally despised that the name Uriah Heep has come to mean someone who is hypocritical in his false humility.
8. Writer Virginia Woolf thought David Copperfield was the best of Dickens’s novels.
Modernist writer Virginia Woolf was a huge fan of David Copperfield. Though in an essay on the book, she claimed Dickens lacked charm and was «everybody’s writer and no one’s in particular,» she made an exception for David Copperfield. About it she wrote:
Though characters swarm and life flows into every creek and cranny, some common feeling—youth, gaiety, hope—envelops the tumult, brings the scattered parts together, and invests the most perfect of all the Dickens novels with an atmosphere of beauty.
9. The character Uriah Heep was the inspiration for the name of a heavy metal band.
The band Uriah Heep was formed between 1967 and 1969. Originally called Spice, it featured five musicians playing British rock but evolved into more of a heavy metal sound. The name change, which happened in 1969, was suggested by their manager. The band explained that the name Uriah Heep was «based on the ‘orrible little character from Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield—Dicken’s name being everywhere around Christmas ’69 due to it being the hundredth anniversary of his death.»
10. The shipwreck in David Copperfield may have been inspired by one of several that took place around the time of publication.
Chapter 55 of David Copperfield is titled «Tempest» and features a terrible shipwreck. In 1849, when the novel’s earlier chapters were published, there were at least 13 shipwrecks on England’s coasts, most avidly reported in the British newspapers. Dickens would doubtless have read about these wrecks. In 1850, when Chapter 55 was published, there were several more wrecks, some very close to the seaside resort where Dickens was staying. The Sarah was lost in February with everyone onboard; and the Brig struck the sands at Bristol—all men were saved except the captain, who would not leave the ship.