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Copperfield Text / Essays & Tools / Dickens Resources / Forum / Creative Writing | Donate |
Page 16
In the novel, David is able to realize his ideal vision, actually to possess the beauty that is his inspiration and end as artist. Mary Hogarth becomes, for Dickens, an idealized vision of beauty that cannot be possessed, but she serves "as a presence and influence of that spirit that directs" Dickens's life. Whether that ideal can be attained beyond this realm is not the issue. The ideal has allowed David to become the hero of his life, not by possessing the ideal but by acting on its inspiration. David the artist becomes artist as the result of realizing his imaginative vision, of creating art. In the act of creating art he possesses the vision.
The world David is born into is flawed. He experiences the evil of the world, deeply at Murdstone and Grinby's, and escapes it. In his adult world he participates in the evil, contributes to it, unwittingly, as when he introduces Steerforth to the Peggottys and brings ruin upon that innocent house. He feels responsible for Dora's death, the loss of Em'ly, Steerforth, and Ham. But in the end he is able, with Agnes's help, to put his universe back together. He has been involved in a struggle, with his undisciplined heart on the one hand, with active evil in the form of Uriah Heep on the other. Agnes tells David that she believes simple love and truth will prevail over evil in the end. It will, for Dickens, only if goodness has the measure of evil and if good people are willing to use their creative energy to work hard to realize that goodness.
