David Copperfield Chapter 1 Summary I Am Born

David Copperfield is born on a Friday at 12:00 AM. The time of his birth makes several local women predict that (a) he'll be unlucky, and (b) he'll be able to see ghosts. David hasn't been able to see ghosts so far, but as to the first part of the prediction (the unlucky bit), the rest of the novel will prove whether or not they were correct. David is also born with a caul (which is a piece of the amniotic sac still attached to some babies' faces during childbirth; see this website for more on cauls and the superstitions they inspire). Continuing with his own birth, David tells us that he is born six months after the death of his father. The one person in David's family with any cash is his father's aunt (so, David's great aunt), Betsey Trotwood. Miss Betsey had been married, to a complete jerk who she finally packed off to the Indian colonies (for a map of the British empire around the time that David Copperfield is published, click here). Her husband dies after ten years in India, at which point Miss Betsey returns to title of "Miss" and takes up a secluded life in a village on the seaside. David's father and Miss Trotwood used to be close, but Miss Betsey doesn't like his father's marriage to David's mother. Miss Betsey calls David's mother a "a wax doll" (1.8), because she's half the age of her husband, Mr. Copperfield. Miss Betsey and David's father don't see each other again before David's father dies. On that March Friday when David is about to be born, his mother sits by the fire feeling miserable, what with being pregnant, young, and alone in the world. David's mother sees a woman coming up to the house, and realizes that it is probably Miss Betsey. David's mother invites Miss Betsey in. His mother is dressed in black (in mourning), very pregnant, and her face is red with weeping. She looks like a child. Miss Betsey comments on her childlike appearance: "Why, bless my heart! [...] you are a very Baby!" (1.26). Miss Betsey then asks David's mother why she has called her house the Rookery? A rookery is a nesting place for rooks, a crow-like black bird. But Miss Trotwood can't see any birds. David's mother, Mrs. Copperfield, answers that the name came from Mr. Copperfield, who saw birds' nests and thought there must be lots of rooks in the neighborhood. In fact, the nests are old, and Mrs. Copperfield has never seen a rook around the Rookery. Miss Betsey thinks this is a perfect illustration of Mr. Copperfield's character: he names a place the Rookery assuming that there will be rooks, without any proof that his house has come stocked with birds. Mrs. Copperfield seems to feel that this observation is an insult to Mr. Copperfield, and stands up, apparently toattack Miss Betsey. But then Mrs. Copperfield faints dead away. When she comes to, Miss Betsey asks what Mrs. Copperfield calls "her girl" (1.44). Mrs. Copperfield replies that she's not sure her kid will be a girl. Miss Betsey says, no, she meant Mrs. Copperfield's servant-girl. Mrs. Copperfield answers: Peggotty. Miss Betsey demands tea from Peggotty for Mrs. Copperfield, who is not looking well. Miss Betsey then tells Mrs. Copperfield she's sure the child will be a girl. Miss Betsey insists that the child will be called Betsey Trotwood Copperfield and that Miss Betsey will be her godmother. She promises to look after Betsey Trotwood Copperfield's education. Miss Betsey then asks Mrs. Copperfield more about her life. Mrs. Copperfield tells Miss Betsey that she was a nursery-governess (a bit like a nanny) for a family Mr. Copperfield visited. He proposed to her and they were married soon after. (All through this conversation, Mrs. Copperfield is bursting into tears over and over again.) Mrs. Copperfield admits that she doesn't know much about keeping house. Mr. Copperfield left his wife and unborn child an income of 105 pounds (about the equivalent of $13,470 U.S. in today's dollars) per year.

Miss Betsey agrees that he could have done worse. The servant woman, Peggotty, comes in with Mrs. Copperfield's tea and sees at once that she is not well. Peggotty sends her nephew, Ham Peggotty, for a doctor: the baby's on the way. In the meantime, Miss Betsey sits in the parlor. The doctor (Mr. Chillip) arrives. Mr. Chillip goes upstairs to check on Mrs. Copperfield and then comes down again to sit with Miss Betsey. Miss Betsey is violently nervous, yelling at Mr. Chillip and shaking Ham Peggotty, the servantwoman's nephew, in her agitation. Finally, Mr. Chillip comes to tell Miss Betsey the baby has been born. He also brings her the news that the baby is a boy, not a girl, as Miss Betsey had assumed. At this, Miss Betsey hits Mr. Chillip with her bonnet and walks out the door without a word

Analysis The start of the first chapter foreshadows the morose tone of the rest of the novel. According to narrative convention, it is obvious that Davids life will be full of sadness and misfortune because a nurse has predicted it. At the same time, being born with a caul is a symbol of good fortune. One relevant belief is that babies born with a caul are safe from drowning, a very prevalent form of death in this novel. Cauls are also said to indicate psychic ability, although, as David mentions, he has yet to see any such thing. In the beginning chapters, David is setting a standard of true happiness. He finds his childhood to be the time of his fondest memories, as can be seen by the beautiful scenes with him, his mother, and Peggotty sitting and laughing by the fire. David Copperfield is often read as a narrative on the pursuit of happiness; in this reading, these childhood memories can be seen as constituting the kind of true happiness David seeks to recover throughout the novel after he loses it to his mother's marriage to the dark, controlling Mr. Murdstone. This happiness is characterized by love, family, freedom from care, comfortable leisure, and wonder (reading the book about crocodiles). It is also clear from these beginning chapters that Dickens does not think very highly of fathers, or he at least shows resentment about his own father. He portrays the family in a bright, happy way when there is no father figure present. As soon as Mr. Murdstone steps in as a stepfather, however, things become awful in Blunderstone Rookery. Mr. Murdstone does not represent fathers or males in general, however; Mr. Murdstone is uncharacteristically distasteful and controlling in the family. With Jane, he usurps power in the household and leaves Davids own mother with practically no power or rights in the house. Murdstones name suggests his muddy, crappy (merde) personality and his stone-cold treatment of Clara, unlike a father and husband in a truly happy family. It is no wonder that he causes stress and anxiety in Davids life, and when he goes too far, no wonder that David fights back. Davids severe and prolonged punishment, seclusion and then banishment to a boarding school, is another example of Mudstones personal failures as a father figure. Even so, Dickens suggests that there is something wrong with a society in which children who are deemed to be problems can be swept away into a boarding school and forced to wear signs warning others to beware. The warning that David bites is a stigma much like that of the A worn by the adulteress in The Scarlet Letter. Another interesting instance of foreshadowing can be found in David and Peggotty's visit to Yarmouth. It is there that readers first see the ocean and, through the stories of Ham, Little Em'ly, and Mrs. Grummidge, are introduced to drowning, a mode of death that will become prominent throughout the rest of the novel. Finally, it is important to look at how David handles the anticipation of the arrival of the other boys to Salem House. He is particularly concerned about his sign; he will need allies against teasing. David will immediately pick out Steerforth as one of the strong ones, foreshadowing the control and respect that Steerforth will command throughout the novel. David has been thrust into an unfamiliar world, and his anticipation shows that the way his first extended stay away from home develops will either give him hope or push him to a point of despair from which he may not recover.

Summary David was born in the "Rookery," in Blunderstone, Suffolk, England, on a Friday just as the clock began to strike midnight. This was thought to be an unlucky omen by some women of the neighborhood and by the nurse who attended his birth. A few hours before David's birth, however, Mrs. Copperfield is unexpectedly visited by Miss Betsey Trotwood, an aunt of David's father whom Mrs. Copperfield has never met. Miss Trotwood, "the principal magnate of our family," is a domineering woman who immediately takes charge of the household and insists that the expected child will be a girl; she declares that the new baby girl will be named Betsey Trotwood Copperfield. "There must be no mistakes in life withthis Betsey Trotwood," she says. "I must make that my care." Already agitated by the impending birth of this new baby, and by the death of David's father six months before, Mrs. Copperfield is further troubled by the abrupt appearance and manner of Miss Trotwood. She becomes ill with labor pains, and Ham, the nephew of the servant, Peggotty, is sent to get the doctor, Mr. Chillip. The mild-mannered Chillip is astonished, as is everyone else, by the brusqueness of Miss Trotwood. Later, when he tells her the baby is a boy, she silently but swiftly puts on her bonnet, walks out of the house, and vanishes "like a discontented fairy."

analysis
The first chapter is typical of the Victorian novelistic style, especially its long sentences and frequent digressions. The second paragraph is a long single sentence containing eighty-nine words (many sentences are longer). This chapter, and indeed the entire novel, frequently wanders from the main story line. The fourth paragraph of the book is a long digression on David's being born with a caul (a membrane that covers the head of a new-born child and was thought to bring good luck) and on his family's attempt to dispose of it profitably. After a lengthy detour, David pulls himself back to his narrative with an admonition to himself not to "meander." These stylistic features were the result of the publishing practices prevalent at Dickens' time. Books were first published serially in magazines and writers were paid by the word; hence, they included as many words as possible, even if the story became rambling and excessively wordy. The first chapter also illustrates Dickens' handling of characterization. Dickens is often criticized for creating caricatures rather than characters in his works, of producing people who are one-dimensional and unreal. Both Miss Trotwood and the doctor are described extravagantly, but it must be remembered that this burlesque produces a humorous effect, and most readers of the time accepted the "overdone" quality, preferring entertainment to realism. David's mother and the servant girl, Peggotty, are described with greater restraint. The character of Mr. Murdstone is strongly caught in Chapter 2. His name itself, compounded of "murder" and "stone," is typical of Dickens' device of creating an artificial name to reflect a person's character. As this chapter ends, the lines are drawn David and Peggotty are hostile to Mr. Murdstone; Mrs. Copperfield, on the other hand, flattered and naive, is grateful for his attentions.