A few plot notes from some of Dickens’ books
Paradis | November 25, 2009
Just a few plot notes on some of Dickens’ books:
David Copperfield
Dickens always considered David Copperfield his best work, and his favourite.
David Copperfield concerns the growing-up of a boy, who, orphaned at an early age, experiences considerable hardship. He is ill-treated by his stepfather, Mr. Murdstone, then forced to work under appalling conditions in a London warehouse. This is a marked contrast to his idyllic early childhood, before the re-marriage and death of his gentle mother.
David’s life improves greatly when he runs away from his job to seek out his Aunt, Betsey Trotwood. She sends him to school and arranges for him to board with kindly lawyer, Mr. Wickfield, whose daughter, Agnes, proves to be a good friend to David. Once his education is completed, David is articled in law and meets Dora, whom he loves passionately and marries.
The main action of the plot concerns Mr. Wickfield’s clerk, Uriah Heep, who is both ambitious and malicious. Heep secretly plots his employer’s riun. Once his wicked schemes are exposed, it only remains for David, now an accomplished writer, to find true fulfilment. When Dora dies, David turns to Agnes for comfort. She has quietly loved him all along and, by the end of the book, David has matured enough to return her love.
A Christmas Carol
Scrooge sits in his counting house ignoring the sounds of Christmas Eve. His nephew Fred invites him to Christmas dinner, but Scrooge rudely refuses. Christmas is humbug, he declares. He even begrudges giving his clerk, Bob Cratchet, the day off.
Back at home Scrooge sits by a meagre fire. The ghost of Scrooge’s long-dead partner, Marley, appears to warn him of the dreadful life after death. Three spirits will visit, says Marley, and offer Scrooge a chance to avoid eternal wandering. Marley departs and the first spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Past, arrives. Scrooge is transported back to his youth, when he enjoyed Christmas to the full. Scrooge’s old heart begins to soften.
Scrooge then meets to Ghost of Christmas Present who takes him to the Cratchits, who are celebrating despite their poverty, then onto his nephew Fred, who is making merry, and then to festivities across the globe. Now comes Scrooge’s third visitor: Christmas Yet To Come. It shows Scrooge his unlamented end, his death a blessing to his debtors.
Scrooge awakes on Christmas morning and, having fully repented of his past life, he rushes to make amends: he sends the Cratchits a turkey, goes to Fred’s party and next day raises Bob Cratchit’s salary.
Great Expectations
Pip, an orphan, is being brought up by his sister and her husband, Joe, a blacksmith. They live on the Kent marches. with prison ships nearby. One night Pip meets Magwitch, an escaped convict, who coerces him into bringing him food and a file. The next day, soldiers come in search of Magwitch, find him fighting with another escapee and recapture them both.
Soon after a strange recluse, Miss Havisham, invites Pip to play with her young ward, Estella. Pip falls in love with Estella who scorns him. When a lawyer, Jaggers, tells Pip that he has “great expectations” as a secret benefactor is to pay for him to become a gentleman, Pip thinks the benefactor is Miss Havisham. He goes off to London ignoring Joe and the maid Biddy who have both been devoted to him.
Many years later when Pip is a man of 23, Magwitch suddenly appears again. As a convict in Australia he made his fortune, and risks his life in returning to see Pip. Magwitch reveals that it is he who is the provider of Pip’s wealth, in gratitude for Pip’s help on the marshes so many years before. Pip tries to organise Magwitch’s escape, but in vain, and Magwitch dies in prison. Pip learns that Estella is Magwitch’s daughter and that the second convict on the marshes was Compeyson, the man who deserted Miss Havisham so long ago.
Joe marries Biddy and Pip goes abroad. Later he meets Estella whose life is in ruins. Pip and Estella are both wiser, but their future, together or apart, is left a mystery.
Oliver Twist
Orphaned at birth, Oliver must endure the cruelties of workhouse life before being apprenticed to an undertaker. Here, he is treated little better than a slave and so runs away to the city, where he is adopted by the evil Fagin and his family of pickpockets.
Oliver is soon arrested, although innocent, and is taken in by kind Mr. Brownlow, only to recaptured by Nancy, the lover of housebreaker Bill Sikes. When Oliver assists Sikes in a robbery, he is shot in the arm. Again he is rescued from the streets – this time by the compassionate Rose and Mrs. Maylie.
Despite living in the country, Oliver is hunted down by Fagin and a tall, gaunt stranger called Monks, who later turns out to be Oliver’s half-brother. But Nancy betrays their plotting and is murdered by Sikes.
The net then closes in on Sikes and Fagin. The rest of the book unravels the mystery of Oliver’s birth: he is found to be related to his benefactor, Mr. Brownlow. No longer a pauper and an orphan, Oliver lives happily ever after.
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
The unfinished novel Dickens was working on when he died The Mystery of Edwin Drood was the fifteenth novel of Charles Dickens. Dickens was only halfway finished with the book when he died leaving it to become the biggest mystery ever.
Possible Endings
There is much speculation about how The Mystery of Edwin Drood was to have ended. Dickens didn’t leave any notes so no one will ever really know what he intended.
One of the most popular beliefs is that John Jasper, Edwin’s uncle, is the murderer. Jasper lead the double life of a choirmaster and opium addict. He was also in love with Rosa Bud, the woman his nephew was to marry.
Conversations Dickens had before he died support this theory. Dickens good friend, John Forester, said Dickens told him that Jasper had indeed murdered Drood. Dickens’s son, Charley, also stated that his father told him Drood really was dead.
Some people speculate that Edwin Drood, like John Harmon in Our Mutual Friend, wasn’t really dead. The fact that Edwin’s body was never found adds weight to this theory.
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