Chapter 1: What is the premise of Storytime for Grownups?
Hello and welcome to Storytime for Grownups. I'm Faith Moore and this season we're reading David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. Each episode I'll read a few chapters from the book, pausing from time to time to give brief explanations so it's easier to follow along. It's like an audiobook with built-in notes. So brew a pot of tea, find a cozy chair, and settle in. It's Storytime!
Hello, welcome back. I'm so glad you're here. We have so much to talk about.
I feel like maybe even more to talk about after this chapter than after the chapter where it was revealed what the big thing was that was going to happen.
I don't know. So many different things happened in this last chapter that I feel like we have Lots to discuss, and it's kind of a longest chapter that's coming up, so I won't take too much of your time right now at the beginning. The only reminder that I have is that tonight, so if you're listening in real time, it is tonight, Thursday, April 30th. At 8pm is tea time.
Tea time happens over in our online community, which is called the drawing room, because in old Victorian houses, there was always a drawing room, and it was short for withdrawing room, because it was where you would withdraw after tea. dinner was over, you would go in there and you would chat with your house guests or your family members.
You might read, you might play board games or card games, and you would talk about life and you would talk about what you were reading and the gossip. And that's what we like to do. Every month, we like to withdraw to the drawing room, which is our online community, and chat. And so that is going to happen tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern. And I hope that you will come.
If you are not yet a member and it is not yet past, if you're listening to this in real time and it is not yet tonight, then you can still sign up and join us. The link to do that is in the show notes. You just click that link. It tells you all about the drawing room and it gives you some options and you can decide if you would like to sign up.
You have to be a member of the Landed Gentry membership tier in order to participate in Tea Time. If you're not that, if you're a house guest at the moment and you would like to switch to landed gender, you can also do that by clicking that link. So I hope that you'll check it out. And I hope that you'll join us tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern to chat.
We can chat all about the crazy goings on that have been happening in this book so far. And I have a lot of other things I want to discuss with you. So hopefully it'll be a really fun time. I always enjoy it. The time always flies by. So I'm looking forward to chatting with my old friends and I hope to meet some new ones tonight as well. So please do join us. Okay.
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Chapter 2: What happened in Chapter 32 of David Copperfield?
If there was any word of comfort that would be a solace to her in her dying hour and only I possessed it, I wouldn't part with it for life itself. I mean, like, whoa, what the heck, right? That's seriously uncalled for. But I think that Carol is right here.
I think that we're meant to feel, and we talked about this a little bit before, but we're meant to feel that Miss Dartle is in love with Steerforth, that she's been in love with him for a very long time, probably since they were children, and that Steerforth's charming way of sort of flirting with everyone probably gave her some false hope
that perhaps he loved her too and would one day marry her. And I think that's what Miss Dartle means when she says, I know that James Steerforth has a false corrupt heart and is a traitor, but what need I know or care about this fellow and his common niece? Okay, so she's saying that she knows that Steerforth isn't going to be true to her, isn't going to honor whatever flirtation or mock
relationship that they had as children. But choosing a common fisherman's niece over her, Miss Dardle, that is unforgivable. In other words, if he'd married some rich heiress or something, Miss Dardle would have been upset, but she would have understood. But to pick someone like Little Emily when he could have had Miss Dardle, that's the true sin in her eyes.
And that's why she's so angry with Little Emily. How could this lower-class girl be better than Rosa Dartle, who is a perfectly acceptable upper-class girl?
So again, here is the Steerforth family thinking only of themselves, only of what this means for them and their status and their feelings, and blaming Emily rather than Steerforth, and refusing to hear the pleas of Mr. Peggedy, who is trying to literally save his child from ruin, whereas they're just trying to save face and society.
here's the steerforth family compared to the peggotty family who are all without hesitation ready to accept emily back into the fold and who will love her until their dying days class is not what makes a person a good person it's fellow feeling it's love for your fellow man and forgiveness for those whom you love unconditionally because that's what it means to love unconditionally which like phil says
is I think what Miss Moucher is doing in this chapter. David, and therefore we, wrote off Miss Moucher as a sort of gossipy, fairly superficial kind of person who would probably have laughed about this situation with Steerforth and Emily and kind of stored it up as gossip to pass on to her next client or whatever. But in fact, she's not that at all.
And she feels terrible for the part she unknowingly played in Steerforth and Emily's running away. And we learn that because she's a dwarf and therefore seen as less than in the eyes of society,
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Chapter 3: How does Mr. Peggedy react to Emily's situation?
Which brings me to Mrs. Gummidge. Now, Paul and Debbie are right. I didn't talk about Mrs. Gummidge last time because I knew that I was going to talk about her today. Because here's the thing. When you're a man like Mr. Peggedy, who loves unconditionally and stands by his principles and acts on them, you attract people who are also good and loyal and true.
And while everything was going fine and Mr. Peggedy was perfectly happy and content, Mrs. Gummidge could moan and complain and whine in her corner and annoy everyone. But the moment that Mr. Peggedy is in trouble, the moment he needs a friend, up jumps Mrs. Gummidge and answers the call. Now, I don't know about you, but I actually know people a lot like this.
People who are excellent in an emergency, but kind of a mess otherwise. And that's Mrs. Gummidge. The minute something actually bad happens, she's like, I've been preparing for this all my life. I'm ready. I've been practicing having there be something bad. But since there wasn't anything bad, people thought I was annoying. But now there is something bad. And here I am. Put me in, coach. Right?
David says, here's a quote, we insensibly approached the old boat and entered. Mrs. Gummidge, Okay, and she's suddenly not willing to let her own distress show because she understands that Mr. Peggedy's distress is so much worse. It's like she's been waiting for a crisis, and when she didn't have one, she wasn't able to care for Mr. Peggedy the way that she wanted to.
She always felt he didn't need her. But now that there is a crisis, she doesn't need to be so lone and lorn. Here's what David says. I did not even observe her voice to falter or a tear to escape from her eyes the whole day through until twilight, when she and I and Mr. Peggedy, being alone together, and he having fallen asleep in perfect exhaustion,
she broke into a half-suppressed fit of sobbing and crying, and taking me to the door, said, Ever bless you, Master Davy. Be a friend to him, poor dear. Then she immediately ran out of the house to wash her face in order that she might sit quietly beside him and be found at work there when he should awake.
Okay, so because Mr. Peggedy has taken such good care of the people around him, when he is brought low, the people around him come to his aid. And so I want to end by talking about Mr. Peggedy, because I think that in this chapter, Mr. Peggedy becomes almost like a character out of mythology or out of a fairy tale or something.
He becomes somehow larger than life and filled with this otherworldly purpose. He says, my duty here, sir, is done. I'm going to seek my, and then it says he stopped and went on in a firmer voice. I'm going to seek her. That's my duty evermore. So it's almost like he's becoming an immortal being or something, searching the world over, never stopping, never resting until he finds her.
And he's arranged it so that the house, right, the boat where he lived with Emily, it will also never change. He says, my wishes is, sir, as it shall look day and night, winter and summer, as it has always looked since she first noticed.
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Chapter 4: What social commentary does Dickens make through Mr. Peggedy's character?
We all unpacked our baskets and employed ourselves in getting dinner ready. Red Whisker pretended he could make a salad, which I don't believe, and obtruded himself on public notice. Some of the young ladies washed the lettuces for him and sliced them under his directions. Dora was among these. I felt that fate had pitted me against this man, and one of us must fall. Red Whisker made his salad.
i wondered how they could eat it nothing should have induced me to touch it and voted himself into the charge of the wine-cellar which he constructed being an ingenious beast in the hollow trunk of a tree by and by i saw him with the majority of a lobster on his plate eating his dinner at the feet of dora
I have but an indistinct idea of what happened for some time after this baleful object presented itself to my view. I was very merry, I know, but it was hollow merriment. I attached myself to a young creature in pink with little eyes and flirted with her desperately. She received my attentions with favor, but whether on my account solely or because she had any designs on red whisker, I can't say.
Dora's health was drunk. When I drank it, I affected to interrupt my conversation for that purpose and to resume it immediately afterwards. I caught Dora's eye as I bowed to her, and I thought it looked appealing. But it looked at me over the head of Red Whisker, and I was adamant.
The young creature in pink had a mother in green, and I rather think the latter separated us from motives of policy.' Howbeit, there was a general breaking up of the party while the remnants of the dinner were being put away, and I strolled off by myself among the trees in a raging and remorseful state.
I was debating whether I should pretend that I was not well and fly, I don't know where, upon my gallant grey, when Dora and Miss Mills met me. "'Mr. Copperfield,' said Miss Mills, "'you are dull.' I begged her pardon, not at all. "'And Dora,' said Miss Mills, you are dull oh dear no not in the least mr copperfield and dora said miss mills with an almost venerable air Enough of this.
Do not allow a trivial misunderstanding to wither the blossoms of spring, which, once put forth and blighted, cannot be renewed. I speak, said Miss Mills, from experience of the past, the remote, irrevocable past. The gushing fountains which sparkle in the sun must not be stopped in mere caprice. The oasis in the desert of Sahara must not be plucked up idly. I hardly knew what I did.
I was burning all over to that extraordinary extent. But I took Dora's little hand and kissed it, and she let me. I kissed Miss Mills's hand, and we all seemed, to my thinking, to go straight up to the seventh heaven.
we did not come down again we stayed up there all the evening at first we strayed to and fro among the trees i with dora's shy arm drawn through mine and heaven knows folly as it all was it would have been a happy fate to have been struck immortal with those foolish feelings and have stayed among the trees forever
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Chapter 5: How does the interaction between Mr. Peggedy and Mrs. Steerforth highlight class differences?
I recollect it was a new song called Affection's Dirge. And Dora was painting flowers.
what were my feelings when i recognized my own flowers the identical covent garden market purchase i cannot say that they were very like or that they particularly resembled any flowers that have ever come under my observation but i knew from the paper round them which was accurately copied what the composition was
meaning Dora isn't actually very good at painting, Miss Mills was very glad to see me, and very sorry her papa was not at home, though I thought we all bore that with fortitude. Miss Mills was conversational for a few minutes, and then, laying down her pen upon Affection's dirge, got up and left the room.
I began to think I would put it off till tomorrow, meaning he's thinking maybe he'll declare his love tomorrow. I hope your poor horse was not tired when he got home at night, said Dora, lifting up her beautiful eyes. It was a long way for him. I began to think I would do it today. It was a long way for him, said I, for he had nothing to uphold him on the journey. Wasn't he fed, poor thing?
asked Dora. I began to think I would put it off till tomorrow. "'Yes,' I said. "'He was well taken care of. I mean, he had not the unutterable happiness that I had in being so near you.'
Dora bent her head over her drawing and said, after a little while, I had sat in the interval in a burning fever and with my legs in a very rigid state, "'You didn't seem to be sensible of that happiness yourself at one time of the day.' I saw now that I was in for it, and it must be done on the spot.
You didn't care for that happiness in the least, said Dora, slightly raising her eyebrows and shaking her head, when you were sitting by Miss Kit. Kit, I should observe, was the name of the creature in pink with the little eyes.
though certainly i don't know why you should said dora or why you should call it a happiness at all but of course you don't mean what you say and i am sure no one doubts your being at liberty to do what you like jip you naughty boy come here
i don't know how i did it i did it in a moment i intercepted jip i had dora in my arms i was full of eloquence i never stopped for a word i told her how i loved her i told her i should die without her i told her that i idolized and worshipped her Jip barked madly all the time. When Dora hung her head and cried and trembled, my eloquence increased so much the more.
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