David Copperfield wonders ‘whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life or whether that station will be held by anybody else’.
The novel shows that David is indeed the hero of his own life, in that he attains almost every goal he sets himself. He runs away to his aunt to escape his wretched life in the blacking factory, succeeds, as a result, in getting an education, wins both the girls of his dreams and forges a highly successful career.
The point, however, is that David is not a traditional, self-sacrificing ‘hero’, running around valiantly saving others; his life story is realistic and David, at best, plays only a secondary role. Heroism, the novel shows, is found in everyman—and it’s this that David’s autobiography triumphs in and celebrates. It’s Mr Micawber who topples Uriah Heep (at the risk of his own financial welfare), Traddles who bravely stands up for Mr Mell against the tide of popular opinion, Mr Dick who saves Dr Strong’s marriage, Mr Peggotty who valiantly dedicates his life to the search for Little Emily, and the prostitute Martha who finds her, Ham who dies attempting to rescue Steerforth (who at this point is behaving heroically himself) from the shipwreck, Mrs Gummidge who’s transformed into a self-forgetting heroine as she becomes a ‘prop and staff’ for Mr Peggotty, and so on.
While David’s role is secondary, though, it is sometimes instrumental. For example, it may be Martha who finds Little Emily, but if David had not placed his trust and faith in this ‘fallen’ woman, and actively sought her help, Emily would not have been found—indeed, Martha herself might well have committed suicide.
“I made a perfect victim of myself . . .”
David: “I am afraid we present opportunities to people to do wrong, that never ought to be presented . . . We are positively corrupting people.” Some people, by their behaviour, set themselves up to be victims—Mr Micawber frequently calls himself a ‘victim’—and until he ‘grows’ in the latter part of the book, the naive and innocent David is robbed and cheated continually. One of David’s great virtues is the trust he places in people, but place too much trust in others and you’re likely to get exploited.
David and his mother (another ‘victim’) are short-changed over the covering from his birth: ‘The caul was put up in a raffle . . . to fifty members at half-a-crown a head, the winner to spend five shillings. The caul was won by an old lady . . . who, very reluctantly, produced the stipulated five shillings, all in halfpence, and twopence halfpenny short—as it took an immense time and a great waste of arithmetic, to endeavour without any effect to prove to her.’
And he’s short-changed again over his outer covering: ‘But I resisted all these overtures, and sat there in desperation; each time asking him . . . for my money [18 pence] or my jacket. At last he began to pay me in halfpence at a time; and was full two hours getting by easy stages to a shilling. . . . ‘will you go for fourpence?’ I was so faint and weary that I closed with this offer’. Twopence short.
The caul fetched fifty half crowns plus five shillings which makes £6.10 . . .
‘This unlucky page, engaged in an evil hour at six pounds ten per annum, was a source of continual trouble to me . . . He stole Dora’s watch. . . . A little while afterwards, he . . . confessed to a knowledge of burglarious intentions as to our premises, on the part of the pot-boy, who was immediately taken up. I got to be so ashamed of being such a victim . . .’
