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At a first meeting, David refuses to give his hand to Murdstone and is clinging to his mother’s hand. This shows from the beginning on the one hand that David does not like Mr Murdstone, on the other hand the strong bonds between mother and son. Later on David is more or less forced to go on a ride with Murdstone and thereby learns more about the qualities of this man. He observes his “appearance with some sort of awe”[4] and describes him as a “cold and clever”[5] man who is a person of respect to many others. This way Dickens shows the qualities of the persons he wants to criticize through the eyes of the persons who have to suffer under their suppression. Eventually David’s childhood idyllic is destroyed by the marriage of his widowed mother to Mr Murdstone. He and his sister, Miss Murdstone, move in at the Copperfields’ and Mr Murdstone makes clear that he is the boss in the house. As a consequence, he suppresses David’s mother by expecting her to be firm towards her son, and he suppresses David with physical cruelty, as he states himself: “If I have and obstinate horse (…) I beat him.”[6] And under the pretence of forming and educating David, he is using the mutual love of mother and son to torture them both. [7] Finally David revolts against the physical and psychological pain he is suffering from Murdstone’s treatment and therefore is sent away to a boarding school. Later on he learns that his mother, and with her his newly- born baby brother, has died, because of the continuous tortures of her cruel husband. So the conflict in his family has finally made an orphan out of David with almost nobody in the world to turn to.
[4] Dickens, Charles, David Copperfield, p.30 [5] Dickens, Charles, David Copperfield, p.32
[6] Dickens, Charles, David Copperfield, p.51 [7] cf. Priestley, J.B., Readings on Charles Dickens, p.112
