David Copperfield | Plot Summary

David Copperfield Overview

David Copperfield is a bildungsroman, the story of the narrator's life from early childhood to maturity. In it Copperfield describes the obstacles he overcame and the unhappy events he lived through before becoming a successful novelist in later years.

The book is an expert blend of fiction and autobiography. While Dickens was not an orphan, he felt abandoned by his parents during the harsh experiences of his early years. David Copperfield's father had died before his birth and his mother dies when he is twelve years old. David had led a happy life with his mother and the housekeeper Peggotty until his mother's second marriage to Murdstone, who beats David severely and whose treatment breaks his mother's spirit and finally causes her death.

Before her death, Murdstone sends David to Salem House, a school presided over by a master as cruel as Murdstone himself. It is...
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