AJ Dunn Reads

  David Copperfield by Charles Dickens In David Copperfield , Dickens explores his favorite themes of the industrial Victorian era: the exploitation of the weak and poor by the wealthy, and the moral integrity of the exploited versus the evil and greed of their superiors. The story follows the life of David Copperfield, who lives with his young mother and nursemaid as a young boy. As he grows he has to navigate an overbearing and abusive stepfather; an abusive schoolmaster; hunger and child labor; and the difficulties of making a life for himself out of those circumstances as he grows into adulthood. Along the way he encounters a large cast of characters, all with their own Dickensian quirks who help and hinder him along the way. Some he comes to love who then betray his trust and confidence, some he despises who return the favor, and some who seem bad at the beginning but become his saving graces. David Copperfield, himself, is very likeable, almost too likeable. He is morally upr...