Autobiographical Elements in Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield

Abstract

Charles Dickens, the great Victorian novelist, was born at Portsea, near Portsmouth, on February 7, 1812. His boyhood was one of extreme hardships, with meager educational opportunities. His father, owing to severe financial difficulties ended up in prison for debt in the Marshal Sea. Charles was not a healthy boy and devoted more of his time to reading than sports. While he was supposed to be at school he had to stay at home, and when his father went to prison, he started working in a blacking factory at six shillings a week. It was this life of extreme challenges that finds expression in many of the works by the writer. There are very strong and clear evidences of the presence of Dickens’ personal life in his novels and he himself accepts this also. For instance Dickens has immortalized some of his traits in the easy-going optimism of Mr. Micawber. The misery of his childhood situation is aptly pictured in David Copperfield’s experiences in the wine warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby. Also, when the elder Dickens becomes a parliamentary reporter, his son, like David Copperfield, learns shorthand and enlarges his reading with a view to following the same occupation. The present paper deals with the autobiographical elements that appear in the novel David Copperfield. The paper also discusses how Dickens changes the personal elements to suit the literary purpose to make sure that the novel does not turn into an autobiography.