page_title: David Copperfield
section_title: Characters
hierarchical_section_title: David Copperfield / Characters
caption_attribution_description: English: David and Emily on the beach at Yarmouth (Harold Copping)
context_page_description: David Copperfield is the eighth novel by Charles Dickens. The novel's full title is The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery. It was first published as a serial in 1849–50, and as a book in 1850.
  The novel features the character David Copperfield, and is written in the first person, as a description of his life until middle age, with his own adventures and the numerous friends and enemies he meets along his way. It is his journey of change and growth from infancy to maturity, as people enter and leave his life and he passes through the stages of his development.
  It is often described as his masterpiece, "the triumph of the art of Dickens", which marks a turning point in his work, the point of separation between the novels of youth and those of maturity. Though written in the first person, David Copperfield is considered to be more than an autobiography, going beyond this framework in the richness of its themes and the originality of its writing, which makes it a true autobiographical novel. In the words of the author, this novel was "a very complicated weaving of truth and invention".
context_section_description: David Copperfield – The narrator and protagonist of the novel. David's father, David, Sr, died six months before he was born, and he learns his mother has died when he is at Salem House, on his ninth birthday. He is characterised in the book as having goals in his life, but much to learn to attain maturity.
  Clara Copperfield – David's affectionate and beautiful mother, described as being innocently childish, who dies while David is at Salem House school. She dies a couple of months after the birth of her second son, who dies a day or so later. That baby's father is Edward Murdstone, her second husband.
  Clara Peggotty – The faithful servant of the Copperfield family and a lifelong companion to David - she is called by her surname Peggotty within David's family, as her given name is Clara, the same as David's mother; she is also referred to at times as Barkis after her marriage to Mr Barkis. After her husband's death, Peggotty helps to put in order David's rooms in London and then returns to Yarmouth to keep house for her nephew, Ham Peggotty. Following Ham's death, she keeps house for David's great-aunt, Betsey Trotwood.
  Betsey Trotwood – David's eccentric and temperamental yet kind-hearted great-aunt; she becomes his guardian after he runs away from the Murdstone and Grinby warehouse in Blackfriars, London. She is present on the night of David's birth but leaves after hearing that Clara Copperfield's child is a boy instead of a girl, and is not seen again until David flees to her house in Dover from London. She is portrayed as affectionate towards David, and defends him and his late mother when Mr Murdstone arrives to take custody of David: she confronts the man and rebukes him for his abuse of David and his mother, then threatens him and drives him off the premises. Universally believed to be a widow, she conceals the existence of her ne'er-do-well husband who occasionally bleeds her for money.
  Mr Chillip – A shy doctor who assists at David's birth and faces the wrath and anger of Betsey Trotwood after he informs her that Clara's baby is a boy instead of the girl Betsey wanted. David meets this doctor each time he returns to the neighborhood of his birth. Mr Chillip, met in London when David Copperfield returns from Switzerland, tells David of the fate of Murdstone's second wife, much the same as the fate of David's mother.
  Mr Barkis – An aloof carter who declares his intention to marry Peggotty. He says to David: "Tell her, 'Barkis is willin'!' Just so." Peggotty marries him after Clara Copperfield's death. He is a miser, keeping an unexpected amount of wealth in a plain box labelled "Old Clothes". He bequeaths two-thirds of his money to his wife from his savings of £3,000 (equivalent to $271,000 in 2019) when he dies after about ten years of marriage. He leaves annuities for Mr Daniel Peggotty, Little Emily, and David from the rest.
  Edward Murdstone – The main antagonist of the first half of the novel, he is Young David's cruel stepfather who beats him for falling behind in his studies. David reacts by biting Mr Murdstone, and is sent to Salem House - a private school owned by Mr. Murdstone's friend Mr Creakle - in retribution. After his mother dies, David is sent to work at his stepfather's factory in London, where he has to clean wine bottles. He appears at Betsey Trotwood's house after David runs away. Mr Murdstone appears to show signs of repentance when confronted by Copperfield's aunt about his treatment of Clara and David, but when David works at Doctor's Commons, he meets Murdstone taking out a marriage license for his next young and trusting wife.
  Jane Murdstone – Mr Murdstone's equally cruel spinster sister, who moves into the Copperfield house shortly after Mr Murdstone marries Clara Copperfield, taking over the housekeeping. She is the "Confidential Friend" of David's first wife, Dora Spenlow, and is the one who found David's letters to Dora, and creates the scene between David Copperfield and Dora's father, Mr Spenlow. Later, she rejoins her brother and his second wife in a marriage much like the one with
caption: David and Emily on the beach at Yarmouth, by Harold Copping.
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