Good, deep analysis here. For some reason, there's been a tendency to denigrate "A Tale" as inferior to Dickens' bigger, more eccentric, more complicated novels. But as you demonstrate, it's very well put together and full of memorable characters and scenes. (One of my favorites being the early scene of the four servants required to serve chocolate to a pampered aristocrat - the existing social situation nicely summed up in that vignette.)
Reread it last fall and loved it. This is an excellent take that explains why this book is still worth reading. That said, it is somewhat mechanical, with characters who are more chess pieces than relatable human beings. That is why I still love Copperfield. Much too long for sure, but what characters. Aunt Betsey, Heep, Micawber, Steerforth. Truly memorable. Just my opinion.
I suppose this is an extreme spoiler but "Traddles and Sophy, and Dr. and Mrs. Strong, were the only guests at our quiet wedding." is the line that distills all the noise and everything that Dickens's journalistic instincts told him to write down. (I think Dickens doomed Doctors' Commons just from his scathing description of it in this book.) David tells us at the very beginning that these pages will tell who was the hero of his life and the story unfolds who might be the hero of his life and what he had to struggle through to have relationships of simple love and truth and his testimony of the different kinds of this relationship that he had seen even if he had been treated with deep carelessness and cruelty.
Another through line is that after David is sent to school he's not "David" to anyone who's important to him. He is Trotwood, or Doady, or Daisy, or several other things.
Good, deep analysis here. For some reason, there's been a tendency to denigrate "A Tale" as inferior to Dickens' bigger, more eccentric, more complicated novels. But as you demonstrate, it's very well put together and full of memorable characters and scenes. (One of my favorites being the early scene of the four servants required to serve chocolate to a pampered aristocrat - the existing social situation nicely summed up in that vignette.)
Wonderful essay! Really puts "A Tale of Two Cities" in a new light.
ROL, keep this kind of content coming.
Reread it last fall and loved it. This is an excellent take that explains why this book is still worth reading. That said, it is somewhat mechanical, with characters who are more chess pieces than relatable human beings. That is why I still love Copperfield. Much too long for sure, but what characters. Aunt Betsey, Heep, Micawber, Steerforth. Truly memorable. Just my opinion.
"Great Expectations" is also amazing.
Miss Havisham is a creation of genius.
The horror, David Copperfield is one of my desert island books.
That almost all of England at the time Dickens wrote it is in this book is one of the things I LIKE about it.
I think that it probably helps that I was assigned to read it the summer before 10th grade.
I suppose this is an extreme spoiler but "Traddles and Sophy, and Dr. and Mrs. Strong, were the only guests at our quiet wedding." is the line that distills all the noise and everything that Dickens's journalistic instincts told him to write down. (I think Dickens doomed Doctors' Commons just from his scathing description of it in this book.) David tells us at the very beginning that these pages will tell who was the hero of his life and the story unfolds who might be the hero of his life and what he had to struggle through to have relationships of simple love and truth and his testimony of the different kinds of this relationship that he had seen even if he had been treated with deep carelessness and cruelty.
Another through line is that after David is sent to school he's not "David" to anyone who's important to him. He is Trotwood, or Doady, or Daisy, or several other things.