David Copperfield

Greatly autobiographical and always popular, this novel was published in 1850. Dickens abandoned his intended autobiography and used large sections in this novel. He also made use of a first person narrator, a new technique for him. David's life does not exactly depict Dickens' life, but many childhood parallels exist, as well as his stint working in a factory and his schooling and reading. David's love for Dora Spenlor also reflects Dickens' passion for Maria Beadnell. He even throws in his departure from parliamentary reporting to become a successful novelist.

Charles Dickens’ 1850 novel, David Copperfield, is arguably the most famous coming-of-age story in the English language. Edgar Johnson, in his definitive 1952 biography of the author, writes: "No other boy has known exactly the same circumstances as David Copperfield, and yet all childhood is there." Much of it is autobiographical. Dickens, like his fictional counterpart, was pulled from school in adolescence and sent to work in a London factory. The novel transmutes the literal life, but the ruefulness is born of authentic hardscrabble memories. Because he knew neglect and betrayal first-hand as a boy, the sanctity of childhood is often paramount in Dickens’ work. Toward the end of his life, he referred to David Copperfield as his "favorite child." Dickens reached deep within himself while writing it, giving voice to residual psychic wounds. In the process, he reclaimed a share of lost innocence for himself and for countless readers. "I have taken with fear and trembling to authorship," Copperfield tells us late in the book. Like his creator, he achieves fame as a writer in his twenties. In many interesting ways, this is a portrait of the artist as a young man.
    The splendid new PBS Masterpiece Theatre presentation of David Copperfield (coproduced by BBC America and WGBH Boston) is remarkably faithful to the sublime melancholy that pervades the story. We’re always aware while reading the book that Copperfield is relating his story as an adult struggling to recapture the essence of a painful childhood. Adrian Hodges’ television script accomplishes something similar with its generous use of spoken narration taken directly from Dickens and beautifully read by Tom Wilkinson. There is a world-weariness and sad wisdom that Wilkinson brings to his off-screen role. He sets the tone for the production again and again.
    The first hour contains a marvelous example of narration and action blending seamlessly. Eight-year-old Copperfield (Daniel Radcliffe) departs for boarding school after a brief Christmas vacation at home. The coach pulls away and he watches from the backseat as his mother (Emilia Fox) stands in the distance holding aloft Copperfield’s infant stepbrother. It’s the last time Copperfield will see either of them alive. The scene is eloquently directed by Simon Curtis, but it is Wilkinson’s narration (taken from the closing lines of chapter eight) that supplies the heartbreak: "So I lost her. So I saw her afterwards, in my sleep at school -- a silent presence near my bed -- looking at me with the same intent face -- holding her baby in her arms."
    Masterpiece Theatre aims straight for the heart of David Copperfield and finds the quiet emotions and the understatement that have often been lacking in previous versions. George Cukor’s 1935 film overplays the sentimentality and melodrama to a degree that distorts the richness of Dickens’ range. Cukor’s film is usually remembered for W. C. Fields’ joyous supporting role as Wilkins Micawber. But Freddie Bartholomew as young Copperfield is the real star of the movie, and his performance is as garish and false as the worst of Shirley Temple. The PBS production wisely focuses on the behavior of the adults, rather than on the adolescent actor portraying Copperfield. Daniel Radcliffe has a naturalistic presence -- rare enough in child actors -- and he seems like a real boy, which is all that’s really required. David Copperfield is not meant to be an exceptional child. He is an ordinary child to whom extraordinary things happen.
    There is nothing ordinary, however, about Wilkins Micawber. He is one of Dickens’ greatest comic creations, as memorable as Shakespeare’s Falstaff. Grandiloquent and good-hearted, Micawber is forever skating on the edge of ruin. Economic hardship keeps him in a state of manic-depressive flux, suicidal one moment and ecstatic the next. A wayward father-figure for Copperfield, the character is actually based in part on Dickens’ father. Like Micawber, the elder Dickens was jailed for a time in debtor’s prison. The versatile British actor Bob Hoskins plays Micawber in the PBS production. By some strange quirk of TV scheduling, Hoskins is all over the cable dial this month, in roles as odd and varied as Manuel Noriega and Sancho Panza. If he fails to erase the memory of W. C. Fields’ fanciful perfection as Micawber, Hoskins nevertheless brings warmth and low-key comedy to his own interpretation of the part. He’s especially effective in a dinner party scene with newlywed Copperfield (the adult Copperfield is played with rather bland earnestness by Ciaran McMenamin). His back to the camera, Hoskins battles to pry open a recalcitrant oyster shell. It’s a priceless moment. With his shoulders and elbows twitching and flailing, he creates a few magical seconds of slapstick heaven.
    Actor Trevor Eve is appropriately chilling as Copperfield’s heartless stepfather, Edward Murdstone. The script goes a bit soft by inventing a scene of Murdstone momentarily letting down his guard, weeping over the deaths of his wife and newborn son, and expressing his hostility and resentment toward Copperfield. It’s not in the novel, and seems closer to our modern compulsion for self-disclosure than to Dickens’ Murdstone, who embodies the sinister ground-zero of Victorian repression. More successful -- and true to the novel -- is the kinky chemistry between the frivolous cad James Steerforth (Oliver Milburn) and the love-sick Rosa Dartle (Clare Holman). Rosa’s upper lip is scarred from Steerforth having hurled a hammer at her face when they were children. Now, as adults, Rosa has an obsessional love/hate relationship with Steerforth that finds its eerie expression one evening when Rosa plays an impromptu harp recital for Steerforth and Copperfield. Typical of this program at its best, the scene distills dozens of pages of complex Dickensian storytelling into five or six compelling minutes of screen time.
    Aunt Betsey Trotwood is such a tailor-made role for Maggie Smith (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie) that it’s easy to overlook how vividly she inhabits the eccentric character. Her transformation from Copperfield’s foe to his strongest defender and benefactor never seems contrived. Nicholas Lyndhurst brings plenty of intensity to playing Dickens’ quintessential hypocrite and all-around weasel, Uriah Heep, but his story line is so condensed from the novel that we’re left with little more than a one-dimensional villain. The crowning performance, however, is Ian McKellen (Gods and Monsters) in an all-too-brief cameo as Mr. Creakle, the abusive headmaster of Salem House boarding school. Laurence Olivier was a hammy embarrassment as Creakle in Delbert Mann’s mediocre 1970 film version of David Copperfield. But McKellen is astonishing. He captures with insidious subtlety the strained whispery voice and bottled-up rage described by Dickens. In the novel, it’s Creakle’s wife who tells Copperfield that his mother is dead. The PBS script dispenses with Mrs. Creakle and gives the scene to McKellen, who works wonders with it, creating a gleefully dark portrait of callous insensitivity. Indeed, McKellen is so good that one can imagine Dickens applauding from on high.
    As with many Masterpiece Theatre adaptations, this one sometimes feels too compressed and truncated, even at three and a half hours spread over two nights. But there is much to enjoy, from the cinematography that shimmers with natural light, to the evocative countryside and seashore locations. Above all, David Copperfield is recommended and worth seeing for a handful of winning Dickensian performances that are as fine as any that have graced television and movie screens.

Plot - David is born at Blunderstone in Suffolk. His father had been dead six months. David's widowed mother draws the attention of Edward Murdstone, whom David dislikes. David goes to Yarmouth for two weeks with Peggotty, his mother's housekeeper, where he meets Mr Peggotty, Emily, Ham, and Mrs Gummidge. On his return home he finds that his mother has married Mr Murdstone, whose sister, Jane, moves into the household.
David, under the oppression of the Murdstones, falls behind in his studies and is given a beating during which he bites Mr. Murdstone He is sent away to school at Salem House Academy near London run by the cruel Mr. Creakle. Upon arrival at the school he is forced to wear a sign saying: Be careful of him, he bites. David befriends Steerforth and Traddles.
David learns that his mother and his baby brother have died and is removed from school. Peggotty marries Barkis and visits David regularly. Murdstone sends David to London to work in the Murdstone and Grinby warehouse. He takes lodging with the Micawbers. The insolvent Micawbers are continually being harassed by creditors until, finally, Mr Micawber is imprisoned for debt in the King's Bench. After Micawber's release from debtor's prison, the family escapes to the country hoping that "something will turn up". David is miserable at Murdstone and Grinby's and decides to run away to Dover to throw himself on the mercy of his aunt, Betsy Trotwood.
David's aunt adopts him after contacting the Murdstones and verifying their treatment of him. David befriends Mr. Dick, who lives with his aunt. Betsy sends David to Dr. Strong's school in Canterbury where he lodges with Betsy's lawyer, Mr. Wickfield, and his daughter, Agnes. He meets Uriah Heep.
David meets the Micawbers again in Canterbury, where they have come to look for work, and introduces Mr. Micawber to Uriah Heep. David finishes school and, trying to decide what to do with his life, journeys back to Yarmouth to visit Peggotty. He stops in London on the way and runs into Steerforth who joins him on the trip to Yarmouth. They visit Peggotty and Mr. Peggotty who announces that Ham and Emily are to be married.
David decides to become a proctor in Doctor's Commons and is apprenticed to Spenlow and Jorkins. He takes lodging with Mrs. Crupp in the Adelphi section of London. Agnes warns David against Steerforth and tells him that that Uriah Heep has weasled his way into a partnership with her father, capitalizing on Mr. Wickfield's weaknesses. David falls in love with Spenlow's daughter, Dora and finds that his old guardian, Miss Murdstone, is Dora's "confidential friend".
David runs into his old friend Traddles and visits him in Camdentown where he learns that Traddles is a boarder with the Micawbers, who are still trying to keep a step ahead of creditors.
Barkis is dying and David journeys to Yarmouth to be with Peggotty during this crisis. Steerforth secretly charms Emily away from Ham and they run away together, Mr Peggotty goes in search of her. Betsy Trotwood visits David in London and informs him that she has lost her fortune through bad business deals, she and Mr. Dick move in with David. David goes to work for Dr. Strong, learning shorthand to try to earn money while still apprenticed at Doctor's Commons.
David and Dora are engaged in secret. Miss Murdstone finds David's letters to Dora and she and Mr. Spenlow confront David, telling him to forget about Dora. Mr. Spenlow is then found dead, with no will, and Dora goes to live with two spinster aunts.
Mr. Micawber is employed by Uriah Heep who has moved in with the Wickfields and has designs on Agnes, much to Mr. Wickfield's agony. David, like Dickens, becomes a parliamentary reporter and begins to write and have his stories published. His success allows him to marry Dora.
David has his first book published and becomes a successful author. Dora has no grasp of housekeeping despite David's coaxing. She begins to deteriorate with an unspecified illness. With the help of Martha, Emily is found, and plans are made for her to emigrate with Mr. Peggotty to Australia.
Mr. Micawber is entangled in the designs of Uriah Heep and becomes estranged from his family. Finally he comes forward and with the help of Traddles, exposes Heep as a cheat and a fraud, responsible for the decline of Mr. Wickfield and Betsy Trotwood's reverse of fortune.
Dora, on her deathbed, secretly asks Agnes to care for David. Betsy, her fortune restored, loans the Micawbers money to emigrate to Australia with Mr. Peggotty and Emily. David travels to Yarmouth to deliver a message to Ham and witnesses a storm at sea in which Steerforth drowns and Ham dies trying to rescue him. Peggotty and Emily emigrate with the Micawbers unaware of the death of Ham.
David travels abroad for three years during which he finds that he has really loved Agnes all along. On his return to England he marries Agnes. Mr. Peggotty and Emily prosper in Australia. Mr Micawber becomes a Magistrate in Port Middlebay. David and Agnes raise a family and David writes his autobiography.

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