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SEBASTIAN LEHNER
David Copperfield as an example of the Victorian socio-critical novel

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Page 30

So it can be summarized that with the character of Uriah Heep, Dickens draws the picture of a bitter and evil man, who directs his rage on the misstandings in the social-system towards the people in his environment and tries to rise in society with the help of illegal and criminal measures. But Dickens also criticizes that these measures are never a solution and that this way of changing society can never work out: Uriah Heep hires Mr Micawber as his clerk, to get the opportunity to spy on David Copperfield. Mr Micawber, however, detects the evil intentions of Heep and this finally leads to his conviction of taking over Mr Wickfield’s law firm and misappropriating his money.

This is also proved in the text, as Mr Micawber states himself in his final conviction speech: “He obtained Mr W’s signature (…) induced Mr W to empower him drawouts [of money] and employed it to meet pretended business charges and deficiencies [that] had never really existed.”[43] All this finally leads to Uriah Heep’s imprisonment and here one can find another striking feature of the Victorian Social Novel at that time: the unmistakeable belief in morality and the power of the common people to change the given conditions they live in, as well as the ability of human beings to change their personality. In prison, however, Heep keeps manipulating his keepers and pretends to be the “umble”[44] prisoner, like he pretended to be umble before, to achieve his release earlier.[45] And here, finally, Dickens conveys, with a strong moralizing undertone, his opinion that evil in society can be battled, however, never can be exstinguished from the earth completely. And this seems to be true, today as much as in those days.

[43] Dickens, Charles, David Copperfield, p.691     [44] Dickens, Charles, David Copperfield, p.242
[45] cf. http://www.planetpapers.com/print.php?id=1473

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