David Copperfield
------Charles Dickens
The summary of chapter 1,2
In chapter one, the author narrates something happened when David Copperfield was born.His birth brought different arguments from the nurse and some sage women in the neighbourhood. They thought the time of David's birth indicated the unlucky and he could see ghosts and spirits. On the day of David's birth, at the midnight on a Friday night, a strang lady came up the garden.She was Miss Betsey, an aunt of David's father's, and a great aunt of David's, and the principal magnate of his family. She came and spoke with David's mother,Clara.Miss Betsey informed Clara that she intended to take custody of the girl. When David was born and Mr.Chillip, the doctor, told Miss Betsey that Clara had a boy.Then, Miss Betsey left the house without coming back.
In chapter two,David Copperfield began to observed all matters around him. Although David's mother had married, she was still very beautiful and bewitching .Peggotty , an unmarried servant, was very loyal to David's family.David, David's mother and Peggotty lived together happily.One evening,while Peggotty and David were waiting for Clara,David saw his mother returned home with Mr.Murdstone,a large man with black whiskers and a deep voice .David and Peggotty both disliked Mr.Murdstone, and Peggotty warmed David's mother not to be with Mr.Murdstone. As a result, Mr.Murdstone returned later again and took David on a short trip .When they got home,Peggotty proposed that she and David went to visit her brother and his family in
Yarmouth. My comments:
Although I have read only two chapters of this novel,I am really attracted by the beginning ,and I am expecting what will happen in this novel. Charles Dickens uses foreshadowing and creates an atmosphere of mystery, which make his story more dramatic. From the dialogue between Clara and Miss Betsey ,Miss Betsey is fantast, and it seems that she really hates Clara and her boy,David.But I can feel her kindness and softheart because of Miss Betsey's unconspicuous concern about David's mother.The darkness and abruptness established around Miss Betsey in the opening chapter characterize her,which make readers longing for the next context.
David's mother ,Clara , is a beauty but really much weaker and sentimental. Even more , I think she is innocent. She falls in love with Mr.Murdstone,so that she ignores Peggotty;'s warmings.I think these are Dickens' foreshadowing and lay the basis for Clara's miserable fate in the end.
Charles Dickens describes David as a gentle, native child. This character also lay a basis for David suffers a lot in the later.We can see David's innocence in his narrative voice.Additionally, as a child ,David often fears and dreads aspect of characters that an adult will not. All these maybe indicate the coming events.
In addition, we can find out some great sentences apart from portrait. For example,\"There is nothing half so green that I know anywhere ,as the grass of that churchyard; nothing half so shady as its trees; nothing half so quiet as its tombstones.\"Charles Dickens uses parallel structure to show the peace and silence
around David's house and life at that time.Actually,it is difficult for me to translate it well into chinese. Of course ,from the two chapters ,I think Dickens satirizes evil by writing things during David's youth. Such as , his memory of Mr.Murdstone's loyalty to his mother, his misunderstanding of Mr.Murdstone's friends and on. I will continue to read this novel to find more wonderful and useful expressions.
