CHAPTER 1
I AM BORN
Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether
that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.
To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was
born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve
o’clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike,
and I began to cry, simultaneously.
‘Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life…’ seems a very important consideration for anyone embarking on telling their own story. The good humoured and yet very powerful question is one we all consider and reconsider, in our own way, throughout our lives. There may be all sorts of reasons and pressures we encounter and experience that seek to hijack our lives away from us, so that we may feel that life has escaped us, cheated us perhaps of our own autonomy and direction.
The modesty and circumspection of David’s reflection on his role in his own life creates an immediate sympathy intimacy with his readers which remains strongly felt throughout the entire story. Perhaps it is the resourcefulness and flexibility of David that allows his his own ‘heroic’ status in his own narrative. Events and characters conspire to challenge him and to reveal him vulnerable. Yet, David’s adaptability, his skilfulness at inhabiting different behaviours for difficult times, even enjoying the flexibility and imaginative healing of new names:
‘Daisy’, ‘Trotwood’ and ‘Davey’ for example, inspire him to survive and to thrive, Phoenix like out of the cruelty and savage limitations he endures.
Reading Copperfield again, I am aware that I don’t worry about him as I do for Pip in Great Expectations. And this is because David Copperfield is flexible. He is resourceful. He changes his behaviour when he recognises unhelpful patterns. He leaves situations when they instil anxiety. Where Pip carries on repeating unhelpful behaviours and thoughts, David recreates himself. He changes his focus and imagines and visualises something new and it comes to him.
He is the hero of his own life!
Little wonder that David Copperfield remained to Charles Dickens his ‘favourite child’!