Key themes
- Childhood and the formation of the self
- Memory and the retrospective construction of a life
- Innocence, experience and the various shapes that love takes
About this book
It adds to the charm of this book to remember that it is virtually a picture of the author's own boyhood. It is an excellent picture of the life of a struggling English youth in the middle of the last
Published serially 1849-50, David Copperfield draws closely on Dickens's own childhood, including his period of child labour in a blacking factory. Freud considered it the most important work of imaginative literature.
Discussion questions
- David narrates his own life from childhood to adulthood. How does the adult narrator's perspective shape how we read the child's experiences — what does the older David understand that the young David cannot?
- Uriah Heep's 'umbleness' is performative and malevolent. What is Dickens saying about the relationship between claimed humility and actual ambition?
- Agnes Wickfield is often read as a passive ideal — the 'good angel' figure. Is she a rounded character or a Victorian fantasy — and does the novel's treatment of her feel like a limitation?
- Dickens described this as his 'favourite child' among his novels. Which of David's experiences feel most autobiographical — and what does knowing the biographical parallels add to your reading?
- The novel contains some of Dickens's most memorable minor characters (Micawber, Steerforth, the Peggottys). How does Dickens use these vivid supporting figures to make his themes visible without making David carry them directly?
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