David Copperfield Analysis

The famous Charles Dickens,–world-renowned Victorian-age author–claims that the imaginative reading of literature can cause a person to be better, more enlightened beings.

Reading great literature often can help a person look outside of themselves more. In Dickens’s famous novel, David Copperfield, David Copperfield overcomes the tremendously trying circumstances of his youth to become an upstanding man, whereas David’s foil in the story, the villainous Uriah Heep, who grew up in a similar circumstances, turns out to be a rotten and self-interested being. David developed resilience and empathy in his early youth through reading. and Uriah did not. David describes his reading as his “only and [his] constant comfort” (Dickens, p. 58.) Through

For example, in The Odyssey, Odysseus checks himself while he lives in disguise among the suitors and chastises himself by saying, “‘Bear up old heart! You’ve born worse, far worse’” and “forced his spirit back into submission, the rage in his breast reigned back–unswerving, all endurance” (Homer, p. 411). Odysseus dissolved his pride to make way for a brighter future for himself. Odysseus’s learned from his past mistakes to control his anger, and pride. I have learned through Odysseus that people can learn to control their pride, and that when I am having difficulties controlling my emotions I need to remember that I have endured worse. In the first scene of Much Ado about Nothing, Beatrice declares that Benedick “wears his faith but as the fashions of his hat; it ever changes with the next block” (Shakespeare, p. 51). Beatrice and Benedick’s relationship grows rapidly throughout the play, but Beatrice’s half-joking, half-serious comment helps me to remember to forget my pride, and let people know how I truly feel instead of playing games with them. Lastly, in David Copperfield, David learns from Annie Strong that “there can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose” (Dickens, p. 552). From this, I have realized that happiness in marriage comes from an equal in mind and purpose above interests, likes, dislikes, or