David Copperfield - Dora Spenlow

[KEV67]

I watched the 1935 film adaption of David Copperfield, the one with W.C. Fields as Mr MiCawber. It was alright. It was a fairly straightforward adaption, well cast, but it is a book with many strands and it is difficult to pack it all in. David Copperfield is not my favourite book by Charles Dickens. However, in that book my favourite character and storyline was Dora Spenlow, who was *SPOILER ALERT* David's first wife. What I liked about that storyline was that David would be irritated with her for not being very good with the housekeeping. He would talk to her about it. Then he would go off to deal with all his business. The next time he'd speak, it was obvious that Dora had been thinking a lot on what David had said to her, sometimes in a heart breaking way. I cannot think of this done in any other book.

[Hayley]

Dora’s part in the story is sad. Her intentions are good but she’s so young and just does not know what she’s doing at all. Even sadder when you consider the fact that David Copperfield is semiautobiographical and the issues with Dora likely reflect Dickens’ real issues with his wife.

 

Spoiler

Although the real one didn’t conveniently die, like Dora 😬

 

[France]

7 hours ago, Hayley said:

Dora’s part in the story is sad. Her intentions are good but she’s so young and just does not know what she’s doing at all. Even sadder when you consider the fact that David Copperfield is semiautobiographical and the issues with Dora likely reflect Dickens’ real issues with his wife.

 

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Although the real one didn’t conveniently die, like Dora 😬

 

If they reflect anything in his marriage it would be what he wanted the public to think not anything approaching truth. He was absolutely foul to his wife, she had been married to him for over 20 years and had 10 children when he fell in love with an 18 year old actress and first of all publicly said that his wife was a bad mother and was mentally ill, then tried tried to have her  institutionalised. That didn't work so he bullied her into a separation and took the children.

 

None of the heroes in his books behave like that.

[KEV67]

8 hours ago, France said:

If they reflect anything in his marriage it would be what he wanted the public to think not anything approaching truth. He was absolutely foul to his wife, she had been married to him for over 20 years and had 10 children when he fell in love with an 18 year old actress and first of all publicly said that his wife was a bad mother and was mentally ill, then tried tried to have her  institutionalised. That didn't work so he bullied her into a separation and took the children.

 

None of the heroes in his books behave like that.

I think he wrote David Copperfield long before he separated from his wife, Catherine Hogarth. If David Copperfield was Charles Dickens you have to wonder whether Dora Spenlow was Catherine Hogarth. Dora Spenlow knows her limitations; she knows David is a big brain, but she still thinks deeply. David told her she was encouraging the servants to be dishonest by being lax with the household accounts. That stung, she thought about it, and came to the conclusion he was being unfair. That was correct, but the way she mentioned it to David after he had been away for some time told him she had been thinking about it. David is away trying to resolve several knotty problems. Dora is at home thinking about things. I cannot remember exactly how it went, but there was another instance when Betsy Trotwood, David's aunt, told Dora how David had walked from London to Canterbury. Dora made some weak joke, and then made plain she was joking, just in case anyone did not realise and was offended. Despite David trying to be nice, Dora comes to understand David is dissatisfied with her. It is painful to read, particularly as she is a perfectly pleasant person.

[Hayley]

On 7/12/2023 at 4:47 PM, France said:

If they reflect anything in his marriage it would be what he wanted the public to think not anything approaching truth.

Yes, definitely not an accurate portrayal of his marriage 😅. Perhaps more the way he’d have liked it to have gone…

 

@KEV67 is right though, he wrote David Copperfield quite a few years before the divorce. So it’s kind of a sweeter portrayal of youth and naivety and marriage not always being what you expect. 
But I agree, it is painful to read! 

[France]

Granted it was written before he dumped poor Catherine but nothing I've read about her indicates that she had much in common with Dora, though she probably did suffer from post natal depression.

 

He was a brilliant writer but he didn't do women very well, they tend to be stereotypes whereas his male characters leap off the page with their vitality.

[KEV67]

3 hours ago, France said:

Granted it was written before he dumped poor Catherine but nothing I've read about her indicates that she had much in common with Dora, though she probably did suffer from post natal depression.

 

He was a brilliant writer but he didn't do women very well, they tend to be stereotypes whereas his male characters leap off the page with their vitality.

He had a problem with young, pretty women when he was a younger writer. He got better at them as he grew older. I think he was always good at older women. A lot of older actresses should be grateful to Dickens, because he wrote good parts for them. Miss Haversham and Estella from Great Expectations were great characters. There was a female vlogger I used to follow on YouTube whose favourite book was Our Mutual Friend, largely because of the characters Lizzie Hexham and Jenny Wren, both young women. Esther Summerson in Bleak House shows he could do women all right. Lucie Manette in Tale of Two Cities was not very interesting, but Mme Defarge was a great villainess. In Oliver Twist, the main heroine in volume 2 was so boring I cannot be bothered to look up her name, but Nancy was quite good.

[Hayley]

On 7/14/2023 at 9:33 AM, France said:

Granted it was written before he dumped poor Catherine but nothing I've read about her indicates that she had much in common with Dora, though she probably did suffer from post natal depression.

No, I don’t think Dickens modelled Dora on Catherine. I think it’s more that, viewing David Copperfield as based on the events of Dickens’ life, Dora’s an acknowledgement of the fact that he’d started to view his first marriage as something that he didn’t necessarily want to last forever. Of course, things didn’t work out as conveniently for him in reality. Hence the attempt to have Catherine institutionalised, which you mentioned!

 

On the subject of women in Dickens, I’d also like to throw Betsy Trotwood in to the list of good characters. She’s one of my favourites.

 

 

[KEV67]

George Orwell and G.K. Chesterton both wrote essays on Dickens. They both preferred David Copperfield's first wife, Dora, to his second. I was reminded of that because G.K. Chesterton really did have a problem writing women. George Gissing wrote an essay on Dickens too. I do not know what he thought about about Dora Spenlow. Since Gissing's first wife was an alcoholic prostitute, and his second wife was a termagant who was put away in an asylum, I expect he thought David was expecting the moon on a stick.

[Hayley]

On 7/19/2023 at 12:00 AM, KEV67 said:

They both preferred David Copperfield's first wife, Dora, to his second.

I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to anyone who preferred Agnes! She’s a bit too perfect.