An Analysis on the Characters of Figures in David Copperfield

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1、对于大卫科波菲尔中人物性格的分析An Analysis on the Characters of Figures in David CopperfieldContentsAbstract.1Key Words.1I. Introduction .2II. Literature Review.4III. Relation Between the Works and the Life of Charles Dickens5IV. The Creation of the David Copperfield.61. Outlook on the text of novel.62. The creati

2、on of David Copperfield.7V. Appearance, the Manner of Speaking and Behavior Present theCharacters of Figures.81. The symbol of the appearance.82. Using exaggerated depiction to reflect the life.10 3. Analysis of major figures.12VI. Mothers and Mother Figures.14VII. Conclusion.14References.15 Abstrac

3、t: Novels, as products of its age, naturally reflect the realities of the society. The creation of figures is one of the fundamental elements in novels. Especially in Dickens works, well read a whole range of figures. They are not described in the same pattern, but in different poses and with differ

4、ent personalities. In this paper, the writer sums up categories of characters of figures in David Copperfield and analyzes them, intending to disclose why and how the author creates them, and deepen the understanding of the social reality of its time.Key words: figure; Dickens; novel; character摘 要：小

5、说，作为时代的产物，理所当然的反映了当时的社会现实。而人物的塑造是小说的基本要素之一。狄更斯小说中有各式各样的人物，他们造型不同，性格迥异。本论文试图总结狄更斯小说大卫科波非尔人物性格的几大类型，并且通过对他们进行分析，以加深对当时社会的了解。关键词：人物; 狄更斯; 小说; 特征I. IntroductionAs a master of story telling and characterization, Charles Dickens arouses my interest. Out of the vast host of Victorian novelists, Dickens, Th

6、ackeray, and George Eliot are the three greatest ones. And the first of these to achieve fame was Charles Dickens. As one of the greatest representatives of English critical realism, Charles Dickens successfully presents a picture of the 19th century English bourgeois society in detail of different

7、social status and people. He holds the readers attention with his rich plot, horrible or comic figures, and sensational ups and downs in his vivid and intimate style and language. With the successful use of exaggeration, Dickens gives the figures peculiarities in their physical appearances or in the

8、ir manners of speech or in some habitual actions or other. And from the ancient to nowadays, so many papers have been written, and different stages had different features, forms, and styles. In fact, all of this can reflect the current society. For example, if you read the book, The History of Weste

9、rn Culture, you will find the editor have divided the culture into different categories, which contains the romantic period, Victorian age and so on. All of this can help us know the politics, culture, life, and peoples thoughts in that period. Literature is, first of all, to be experienced, to be l

10、oved. Each reader, in the process of experiencing a literary work, thus, the meaning derived from having experienced that work is personal and is based on all that the reader knows and experiences outside that work. Now, more and more people are attracted to pay attention to the literature research.

11、 And the definition of culture is wider. Its meaning involves not only the daily life but also the economical life. The literature research contains many aspects. An analysis of the character is one of them. Actually, the characters of figures in the work stem from the realistic society. From litera

12、ry work we can realize the life of the different people, that is, people of the upper class and people of lower class. My research in this paper concentrates on one of the Dickenss novel David Copperfield. We all know Charles Dickens is the greatest English realist of the time. With a striking force

13、 and truthfulness, he creates pictures of bourgeois civilization, describing the misery and sufferings of common people. David Copperfield is his favorite works. It is also a kind of his autobiographical romance. In this works, each figures character is stereotyped for a type of people in realistic

14、society. If we say, “research his book”, in another words, we also can say, “outlook the real society.”Originally published in serial form from May 1849 through November 1850, David Copperfield is the first of Dickens novels written entirely in the first person. Converting his autobiographical impul

15、se into fiction allowed Dickens to explore uncomfortable truths about his life. David Copperfields time at Murdstone and Grinbys warehouse, his schooling at Salem House, and his relationship with Dora all have their bases in Dickenss own life. But, it may be Dickens most autobiographical novel, Davi

16、d Copperfield is a work of fiction. But Copperfield is foremost a novel about memory. Amidst the tumultuous rise and fall of the London cityscape (obsessively cataloged in the novel), Copperfields memory preserves the links to his past and brings continuity and coherence to his life while the sudden

17、 recollection of the past charges the present with meaning. However, memory also proves to be a source of anguish. Copperfield prefaces the time he spent at Murdstone and Grinby by remarking: “I now approach a period of my life, which I can never lose the remembrance of, while I remember anything; a

18、nd the recollection of which has often, without my invocation, come before me like a ghost, and haunted happier times.” By tagging different characters, Charles Dickens invented many distinct characters in his novels. They are intensely alive and thus memorable long after the plots and even the titl

19、es of the books have been forgotten. Especially in David Copperfield, Dickens describes his characters by their appearances and manners of speaking and behavior. These figures are complex and developing in character, they are comics of humor or of satire, created to extol the true, the good, and the

20、 beautiful, and to criticize the false, the evil and the ugly, producing very strong comical effects. If you just analyze the surface of the characters in David Copperfield, you will think that Heep is “humble”; Aunt Betsey is “eccentric”; Micawber is “just for happy”; and Murderstone is “firmness”.

21、 But through knowing and understanding the life of Dickens and his novels, following the plot of his novels and talking with the created figures, you will find summary the characters is not enough. It doesnt match them exactly. In David Copperfield, the figures are not flat, motionless but complex a

22、nd developing. The figures are from the life, but above life. They are typical kind. In another words, from one character, we know firmly a kind of people. Inevitably, it may be a bit exaggerating . II. Literature ReviewAs one of the greatest representatives of English critical realism, Charles Dick

23、ens successfully presents a picture of the 19th century English bourgeois society in detail of different social status and people. He holds the readers attention with his rich plot, horrible or comic figures, and sensational ups and downs in his vivid and intimate style and language. With the succes

24、sful use of exaggeration, Dickens gives the figures peculiarities in their physical appearances or in their manners of speech or in some habitual actions or other.He achieved recognition and financial security with the success of The Pickwick Papers (1836-37), in which his genius for comic character

25、ization was fully displayed. His greatest works, which include Oliver Twist (1837-38), Barnaby Rudge (1841), Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-44), David Copperfield (1849-50), Bleak House (1852-53), Little Dorrit (1857-58), and Great Expectations (1860-61), combine intense vitality and wide-ranging comedy wi

26、th penetrating criticism of social abuses and human folly. His public readings from his works were enormously popular. During his lifetime he viewed situations on the streets and wrote about real-life situations of the poor people of London. His stories and novels were usually published in magazines

27、 only a chapter at a time, as an on-going saga. Stories such as Oliver Twist encouraged people to push Parliment to change laws to protect. And his greatest works is David Copperfield (1849-50). Alan Shelston, professor of the University of Manchester, had commented about Dickens:Dickens has always

28、presented problems for literary criticism. For theorists whose critical presuppositions emphasize intelligence, sensitivity and an author in complete control of his work the cruder aspects of his popular art have often proved an insurmountable obstacle, while for the formulators of traditions his gi

29、gantic idiosyncrasies can never be made to conform. And if difficulties such as these have been overcome by the awareness that Dickens sets his own standards, or rather that the standards that he sets, far from being inimical to great art, are his own expression of it, there remains a further proble

30、m: since his own lifetime Dickens has invariably seemed as much an institution as an individual. Glancing at the impact of new, or practical criticism we can see an example of how one method challenges another, on two of the favorite kinds of Dickens studies from earlier in the century. Prototype st

31、udies attempted to identify the “real” human beings behind Dickenss characters, while topographical studies sought to identify the “real” places which flourished as movement in the 1950s and 1960s, sought to remove literary texts from the historical arena through a concentration on their structure a

32、nd language, and so was committed to a rejection of this implied equation of art and reality. This approach was superseded by new kinds of theory which problematizd, among other matters, the existence of an external reality without the experience of the observer as subject and suggested that the aut

33、hor was now dead, as a challenge to the traditional role of the artist as creator of fictional worlds which mirrored both external reality and the writers personal life.III. Relation Between the Works and the Life of Charles DickensCharles Dickens composed this passage between 1845 and 1848 referrin

34、g to the dark times of his youth when his family moved to London in the early 1820s. The imprisonment of his father forced the family to send the twelve-year-old Dickens to work in a blacking factory. This disruption to Dickens childhood and education remained a source of intense grief throughout hi

35、s life. Dickens found these memories too painful to continue his autobiography; in fact, he jealously guarded the facts of his London youth. It was only after his biographer John Forster published his Life of Charles Dickens in 1872 that readers learned of Dickens difficult youth and of the autobiog

36、raphical nature of one of his finest creations, David Copperfield.As I said, David Copperfield is Dickens autobiography works, so the figures, setting, background, life experienced are all the mirror of the Dickens life. In another word, Dickens wrote his own story through the Davids hand. It is not

37、 difficult to realize it. Overviewing David Copperfield , the author used the first personal style to narrate the story. This is the brief introduction of author. The son of a naval clerk, Dickens spent his early childhood in London and in Chatham. When he was 12 his father was imprisoned for debt,

38、and Charles was compelled to work in a blacking warehouse. He never forgot this double humiliation. At 17 he was a court stenographer, and later he was an expert parliamentary reporter for the Morning Chronicle. Charles Dickens is one of the giants of English literature. He wrote from his own experi

39、ence a great dealthe Marshalsea prison dominates Little Dorrit, and his father was at least partially the model for Mr. Micawber in David Copperfield. Although he was expert at journalistic reporting, he wrote nothing that was not transformed from actuality by his imagination. Sharp depiction of the

40、 eccentricities and characteristic traits of people was stretched into caricature, and for generations of readers the names of his charactersMr. Pickwick, Uriah Heep, Miss Havisham, Ebenezer Scroogehave been household words.His enormous warmth of feeling sometimes spilled into sentimental pathos, so

41、metimes flowed as pure tragedy. Dickens was particularly successful at evoking the sights, sounds, and smells of London, and the customs of his day. He attacked the injustices of the law and social hypocrisy and evils, and gained still more readers. Some critics complain of his disorderliness in str

42、ucture and of his sentimentality, but none has attempted to deny his genius at revealing the very pulse of life. David in Dickens works has the similar experience to Dickens. IV. The Creation of the David Copperfield1. Outlook on the text of novelDickens divides the life of Copperfield into two dist

43、inct parts, the first recounting the untimely loss of his innocence. In this orphan tale, Copperfield endures the hardships of his mothers death, a wretched education at Salem House, the toiling at Murdstone and Grinbys, and a desperate escape to his aunts. Made aware of the vicissitudes of life, Co

44、pperfield also learns of the cyclical patterns of life as “David Copperfield of Blunderstone” is reborn at his aunts as “Copperfield Trotwood”; the barbarous schooling of Mr. Creakle is replaced by the kind instruction of Mr. Wickfield and Dr. Strong; the callous neglect of his stepfather is replace

45、d by the solicitude of his aunt. The practical lesson for Copperfield is to eschew the sternness of Murdstone as well as the carelessness of Micawber, the grandiloquent and improvident father figure who lodges Copperfield. In the novels second part, Copperfield establishes himself first as a legal c

46、lerk and parliamentary reporter, and later as a novelist. But his professional matters are of less importance than Copperfields two emotional attachments that frame this part of the novel: his relationships with James Steerforth and Dora Spenlow. Both relationships are portrayed as the “mistaken imp

47、ulses of an undisciplined heart,” and we are meant to second Betsey Trotwoods comment, “Blind! Blind! Blind!” In retrospect, Copperfield confesses that he “loved Dora to idolatry.” Dora, who resembles Copperfields mother in looks and manner, lacks the maturity required to share actively in Davids li

48、fe or to take up the Victorian burdens of housekeeping. The relationship falters and Copperfield begins to see parallels with the marriage of the aging Dr. Strong and his “child wife” Annie. When the marriage dissolves, Dora dies in laborquite conveniently, some critics have charged, for her death r

49、eleases Copperfield of his conjugal obligations. Idolatry also characterizes his relationship with the Byronic James Steerforth, whom Copperfield unwittingly assists in the seduction of young Emily away from her uncles care at Yarmouth. The concluding chapters function as an epilogue to the first tw

50、o parts. Copperfield, now a famous novelist, takes his sufferings to Europe in a listless journey. He eventually returns to London with renewed vigor to learn of the emigration to Australia of the Micawbers, Peggotty, Emily, and Martha, and of the imprisonment of Steerforths servant, Littimer, and U

51、riah Heep. The novel concludes with Copperfield marrying Agnes. 2. The creation of David CopperfieldDavid Copperfield is conceived in the 1840s. In part, their mobility is geography: travels voyage and return from England to the continent, the United States, Australia, and India. Travel has everythi

52、ng to do with offering different perspectives. The shifts of location are one of the means by which the readers attention is continually redirected. In these, different groupings of characters are interwoven, juxtaposed, brought into implicit conversation with one another in a way which amplifies th

53、e novels central conceptual concerns with selfishness, with forms of value, with families, with desire, and with self-realization. David Copperfield, being unified by one central narrative voice, its own sense of motion is given not just by the successive stages through which David passed on “the ro

54、ad of life” but by the continual oscillation of time between the present of the narration, and the recollections- sometimes sharp, sometimes dream- like and hazy- which haunt the writer, causing him to lose “the clear arrangement of time and distance. Reading David Copperfield, it is not to find a p

55、arallel in Davids experience, as he moves through Europe in the blur of consciousness that fallows the death of Dora, his first wife; passing on, “from city, seeking I know not what, and trying to leave I know not what behind.”Also a nameless, restless population- the loss of aim and direction that

56、accompanies familiar and financial deprivation- is found in David Copperfield. Dickenss favorite novel is David Copperfield. It traces the development of David from childhood through his widowed mothers remarriage- leaving him with a memory of a “happy old home, which was like a dream. I could never

57、 dream again”. School- MR Creacles establishment forms part of Dickenss attack on unimaginative, forcing- house methods of education; his mothers death; his brief employment at a wine traders; his salvation at the practical hands of his Aunt Betsey; more education and employment in a law office; a f

58、irst marriage based on sentiment; and following Doras death- a second and far promising match with Agnes. This last comes as no surprise to the reader: David drops heavy hints as to his blindness to her quiet, practical, loving virtues from the first time he meets her.V. Appearance, the Manner of Sp

59、eaking and Behavior Present the Characters of Figures1. The symbol of the appearance In David Copperfield, physical beauty corresponds to moral good. Those who are physically beautiful, like Davids mother, are good and noble, while those who are ugly, like Uriah Heep, Mr. Creakle, and Mr. Murdstone,

60、 are evil, violent, and ill-tempered. Dickens suggests that internal characteristics, much like physical appearance, cannot be disguised permanently. Rather, circumstances will eventually reveal the moral value of characters whose good goes unrecognized or whose evil goes unpunished. In David Copper

61、field, even the most carefully buried characteristics eventually come to light and expose elusive individuals for what they really are. Although Steerforth, for example, initially appears harmless but annoying, he cannot hide his true treachery for years. In this manner, for almost all the character

62、s in the novel, physical beauty corresponds to personal worth.When David met the Micawber at first time, he gave David a deeply impression: “in a brown surtout and black tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head than there is upon an egg. His clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt

63、-collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his, and with a genteel air, when he speaks”.(Dickens,179) Whenever he appeared, he always was “with his eye-glass, and his walking stick, and his shirt-collar”. These symboli

64、zed his upper circles position. But his clothes were shabby, and the eye-glass was used to decorate and because of the debts, he ever was put into prison. These sharp contrasts make the figure alive. Micawber lay in a lower position but he pretended the gentle gesture that only upper circles used, and also made him dignified.The female in England at that age were particular about their wearing and the manner of speaking and behavior, but Aunt Betsey was opposite to that fashion. It symbolize her eccentric. When she visited David home, she came walking up to