Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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.
Chapter 2: What cliffhanger did we end on in Chapter 34?
Oh boy, we have another cliffhanger. We ended on a cliffhanger and I've been getting your letters and I know that everyone is freaking out about Miss Betsy because we love Miss Betsy. I love Miss Betsy and it turns out that Miss Betsy
is ruined and what does this mean so we are going to talk about that today and then we're going to keep reading it's kind of a long chapter so i will try not to talk too much here at the beginning but i will just remind you that we have two new items in the merch store we have barkis is willing merch And we have Janet Donkey's merch. I'm really excited about it.
I think I'm going to get the Janet Donkey's sweatshirt, I think. And we also have stickers now for a variety of designs. I know some of you asked for that. So I'm going to get just the Storytime for Grownups logo to put on my computer. I'm going to get the sticker to put on my computer. I'm really excited about that. And so please do check out the merch store. It's very easy to find.
You just scroll into the show notes. There's a link there. You can find all the designs that are there, plus the new ones. And you can see... all the different kinds of things that you can get these designs on. And I hope you'll pick something up and proudly wear or take your Storytime merch with you. And hopefully somebody will say, hey, what does that mean? Or what's Storytime for grownups?
Chapter 3: What new challenges does Miss Betsy face in Chapter 35?
And then you can tell them and we can get more people listening to this show, more people with whom we can talk about these great books because that
is wonderful the more the merrier I always say the more the merrier so please spread the word please subscribe to the show please tout the five stars if you're enjoying it please leave a positive review that's another way that you can help people to find this show because it does something magical in their podcast player and just starts popping up to people who didn't even ask for it but might want it so please do all of those things if you can and if you're able and if you would like to support the show financially I also have a tip jar so you can find that in the show notes there's a link there and
And you can sign up to be a member of our online community, which is called The Drawing Room. And that's another way that you can support the show. So I hope that you will do that. But even if you just are sitting here listening, that is a way that you are supporting the show. And I am so, so glad, so, so grateful that you are here. Seriously, I think about this all the time.
I was texting recently with a friend that I haven't talked to in a while, someone who lives somewhere else, not near me. And we were texting and she was asking me how the podcast is going. And I said, you know, it is ridiculous how much I love drawing. doing this podcast. I love doing it so, so much. And it's because of you guys. It's because I know you're out there listening.
I know that we're doing this together.
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Chapter 4: How does David express his feelings about Dora to Agnes?
I love getting your letters. I love introducing these books to you or sharing them with you in this new way. And if It's just, it means the world to me. So thank you so much. Always, always for being here. Thank you. I could not do this without you. This podcast is nothing without you. It's just me talking into the void if you're not there. And so it brings me so much joy. And so thank you.
Thank you for... bringing me the joy that you bring me and for being here and listening to this show. Okay, let's do the show. Let's get into this. So last time we read chapter 34, we ended on a cliffhanger. So today we're going to read chapter 35. So let's remind ourselves of what we read. We'll talk for a little bit.
There's a couple of things that we need to go over, and then we'll get into this chapter. But first, here is the recap. Okay, so where we left off, David writes to Agnes about his engagement to Dora and Agnes writes back and David feels so glad that he's got her in his life. He learns that he's had several visits from traddles while he's been away and Peggedy has been talking to him about David.
Mrs. Krupp refuses to work for David while Peggedy is there and David feels too scared of Mrs. Krupp to do anything about this, but of course continues to let Peggedy stay. Eventually, Traddles stops by while David is there, and he tells David that the McCaubers have had to take on an assumed name, and that he, Traddles, isn't living with them anymore.
But he did have to help them pay the bills he put his name on, and now his furniture that he was saving for his marriage to Sophie has been taken away. He tells David all about Sophie and her family, and he asks if Peggy will help him to buy the furniture back if he gives her the money, because the shopkeeper will charge Traddles too much if he sees him there.
Peggedy agrees, and they go and buy the things back for Traddles, who's very happy to have them. When Peggedy and David get back to his rooms, they find Miss Betsy and Mr. Dick there, and it comes out that Miss Betsy has somehow lost all her money, and the luggage she's brought with her is all she has in the world.
She asks to stay with David for the night, and says that they can work things out in the morning. All right, I'm going to read four comments today. The first one comes from Elizabeth. She says... I feel like David was trying to convince Agnes that Dora is going to make a good wife, as if maybe he feels like she won't, or as if he needs Agnes' approval before he can feel okay with this engagement.
But also, in trying to tell Agnes how serious he is about Dora, he comes across as kind of ridiculous. Is that the point here? Are we supposed to feel that way? Or are we supposed to be on board with Dora as David's chosen wife? The next one comes from John. He says, The third one comes from Meg Longley. She says, What? Aunt Betsy ruined? Oh my goodness, what next?
Dickens has plenty of plates spinning. And the last one comes from our online community, The Drawing Room, and this person goes by the handle at Ashley H. She says, Oh man, I want to be Miss Betsy when I grow up. We must meet reverses boldly? Who couldn't use her reminder at the end of the chapter? So curious what's going to happen here.
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Chapter 5: What financial troubles does Traddles encounter?
There were a few other things going on that I want to make sure that we talk about, and that's why I chose the other two letters, Elizabeth's and John's, as well, because they hit on the other aspects that I think it's worth discussing.
So this chapter comes right in the aftermath of David's official engagement to Dora, or I guess not exactly official because they're still keeping it a secret and Mr. Spenlow doesn't know, so they're still... essentially playing at being engaged, I guess. We talked about that last time, right?
But it comes right after Dora and David have professed their love to each other and made their relationship in some way official. They're like boyfriend and girlfriend, basically, if we want to put it into a modern context. But Elizabeth is right in trying to tell Agnes in a letter all about how wonderful Dora is.
David ends up sounding just as over the top and ridiculous as he always sounds when he talks about any girl that he's fallen madly in love with, of which there have been many, right? In other words, in trying to convince Agnes that this is not just another one of his silly passions, he makes his relationship with Dora sound a lot like one of his silly passions, right? Here's what he says.
I wrote to Agnes as soon as Dora and I were engaged. I wrote her a long letter in which I tried to make her comprehend how blessed I was and what a darling Dora was. I entreated Agnes not to regard this as a thoughtless passion which could ever yield to any other, or had the least resemblance to the boyish fancies that we used to joke about.
I assured her that its profundity was quite unfathomable, and expressed my belief that nothing like it had ever been known. I mean, that's ridiculous, right? That his love for silly, childish Dora is so profound that no one in the history of the whole world has ever loved someone as profoundly? I mean, come on. So David is still living very much in the world of kind of ardent romantic.
He's still... dreamy, foppish David, right, aspiring to be like a knight in shining armor or something with no sense at all of how ridiculous he seems to people and how he's done and said exactly these things or things very much like them before. To him, Dora is the only person he's ever loved even though the other girls were also the only people he had ever loved.
And the effect that writing to Agnes has on David is really interesting, I think, because in the heat of this kind of feverish passion that he feels for Dora and this sense of being sort of unable to express the magnitude of his love and this kind of frenzied sense that everything must be the most, the biggest, the best, the only, or whatever, writing to Agnes actually makes him feel calm.
And her influence, even just thinking about her, it brings him to a sense of something much calmer much more realistic much more healthy i would say here is what he says somehow as i wrote to agnes on a fine evening by my open window and the remembrance of her clear calm eyes and gentle face came stealing over me
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Chapter 6: What impact does Miss Betsy's financial ruin have on David?
And Traddles is still so trusting and so giving, which is sort of like how David used to be and sometimes still is. But it does kind of show us that even though David is still very innocent and quite silly with Dora, he has grown up a lot since we first met him. Trattles has done what David knows not to do here, right?
He says, Okay, so Trattles still doesn't really understand that the McCaubers will never have money to pay off their debts, even though David does see that. Trattles says, One thing I ought to mention, which I like very much in Mr. McCobber Copperfield, it refers to the second obligation, which is not yet due. He don't tell me that it is provided for, but he says it will be.
Now, I think there is something very fair and honest about that. Okay, but of course it won't be, right? Mr. McCobber won't be able to pay off that debt either, and now traddles is a guarantor on that as well. So David may be silly in love, but he might be learning a thing or two in terms of how to not be taken advantage of in the world.
And he's very pleased to be able to help his friend with Peggy's help, right, to get back the furniture and to caution him about the macabres again. So he says, I told him that my old nurse would be delighted to assist him and that we would all three take the field together, but on one condition.
That condition was that he should make a solemn resolution to grant no more loans of his name or anything else to Mr. Macabre. So it's interesting, I think, that this chapter goes from David's feelings about Dora and Agnes to Trattles' engagement with Sophie and his feelings about that to Trattles' money problems and David helping with that to Miss Betsy's money problems.
It's sort of like a game of connect the dots or something. One thing leads to a similar thing, which leads to something else, which leads to something that's similar to that. And which leaves us at this cliffhanger, which is that Miss Betsy has packed up everything she owns, which doesn't seem to be very much, and come to David because somehow she has lost all her money and is ruined.
Here's what it says. "'Then why, my love,' said my aunt, looking earnestly at me, "'why do you think I prefer to sit upon this property of mine tonight?' I shook my head, unable to guess. "'Because,' said my aunt, "'it's all I have. Because I'm ruined, my dear.'" And as Meg says in her letter, this is a total shock. It comes totally out of left field.
But of course, if we think about this from a narrative perspective, we might have guessed that some sort of wrench was about to get thrown into things, right? Because things were looking pretty good for David now that he's finally got Dora to agree to marry him. So narratively, something's got to go wrong. And so here we are.
But we don't actually really know where here is yet because we don't totally know what it will mean for Miss Betsy or Mr. Dick or for David himself. Because remember, Miss Betsy pays for David's rooms. She paid for his job at Doctors Commons. She pays for his clothes and food and everything. David doesn't make any money. Remember, he's essentially in an unpaid apprenticeship with Mr. Spenlow.
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Chapter 7: How does Agnes influence David's perspective on love?
But as Ashley says, Miss Betsy is handling this with her usual excellent character. Here's what she says. We must meet reverses boldly and not suffer them to frighten us, my dear. We must learn to act the play out. We must live misfortune down, trot. And I mean, that's really good advice, don't you think?
Like in any situation, I feel like I want to copy that down and stick it to my wall or something. I could certainly benefit from that advice. And I imagine a lot of people could. And like Ashley says, Miss Betsy is just awesome. I actually think she's one of my favorite characters, if not my actual favorite character in this book. I love her and I love what she's done for David.
And so it remains to be seen whether she can get out of this, whether David can help her and what it all means for all of our friends in the book. So... Let's not hang off this cliff any longer. Let's keep reading and see if we get any more information about all this. We might not, right? That's happened to us before, but let's see. It's a long chapter, so hopefully we get some more information.
But of course, don't forget to write to me. It's faithkmore.com and click on contact, or you can scroll into the show notes and click the link that's there. And I would love to hear from you. I really want to know what your reactions are to this chapter and what you're thinking and whatever questions you have. So please do get in touch.
All right, let's get started with Chapter 35 of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. It's story time! Chapter 35 Depression
as soon as i could recover my presence of mind which quite deserted me in the first overpowering shock of my aunt's intelligence i proposed to mr dick to come round to the chandler's shop and take possession of the bed which mr pagody had lately vacated the chandler's shop being in hungerford market and hungerford market being a very different place in those days there was a low wooden colonnade before the door
Not very unlike that before the house where the little man and woman used to live in the old weather glass, which pleased Mr. Dick mightily. Okay, so he's referencing here a sort of mechanical weather predictor shaped like a house with a little man and a little woman figurine inside, which would move in various ways depending on the weather. So the outside of this shop looks like that.
The glory of lodging over this structure would have compensated him, I dare say, for many inconveniences, but as there were really few to bear, beyond the compound of flavors I have already mentioned, and perhaps the want of a little more elbow room, he was perfectly charmed with his accommodation.
Mrs. Krupp had indignantly assured me that there wasn't room to swing a cat there, but as Mr. Digg justly observed to me, sitting down on the foot of the bed, nursing his leg, You know, Trotwood, I don't want to swing a cat. I never do swing a cat. Therefore, what does that signify to me?
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Chapter 8: What changes occur in Mr. Wickfield's character?
I know all about it. I don't know where these wretched girls expect to go, for my part. I wonder they don't knock out their brains againstāagainst mantelpieces,' said my aunt, an idea which was probably suggested to her by her contemplation of mine. "'Poor Emily,' said I. Oh, don't talk to me about poor, returned my aunt. She should have thought of that before she caused so much misery.
Give me a kiss, Trot. I am sorry for your early experience. Okay, so Peggedy told Miss Betsy about Emily running off with Steerforce, and Miss Betsy feels that girls going off with men is always bad, even when they get married, so she feels bad for everyone involved. As I bent forward, she put her tumbler on my knee to detain me and said, Oh, Trot, Trot, and so you fancy yourself in love, do you?
"'Fancy aunt!' I exclaimed, as red as I could be. "'I adore her with my whole soul.' "'Dora, indeed!' returned my aunt. "'And you mean to say the little thing is very fascinating, I suppose?' "'My dear aunt,' I replied. "'No one can form the least idea what she is.' "'Ah, and not silly?' said my aunt. "'Silly aunt?'
I seriously believe it had never once entered my head for a single moment to consider whether she was or not. I resented the idea, of course, but I was in a manner struck by it, as a new one altogether. "'Not light-headed?' said my aunt. "'Light-headed, aunt.' I could only repeat this daring speculation with the same kind of feeling with which I had repeated the preceding question.
"'Well, well,' said my aunt. "'I only ask. I don't appreciate her.' "'Poor little couple. "'And so you think you were formed for one another "'and are to go through a party-supper-table kind of life, "'like two pretty pieces of confectionery, do you, Trot?' "'She asked me this so kindly and with such a gentle air, "'half playful and half sorrowful, that I was quite touched.'
We are young and inexperienced, aunt, I know, I replied, and I dare say we think good deal that is rather foolish, but we love one another truly, I am sure. If I thought Dora could ever love anybody else, or cease to love me, or that I could ever love anybody else, or cease to love her, I don't know what I should do. Go out of my mind, I think.
Ah, trot, said my aunt, shaking her head and smiling gravely. Blind, blind, blind. Someone that I know, Trot, my aunt pursued after a pause, though of a very pliant disposition, has an earnestness of affection in him that reminds me of poor baby. Earnestness is what that somebody must look for to sustain him and improve him, Trot. Deep, downright faithful earnestness.
If you only knew the earnestness of Dora, aunt, I cried. Oh, Trot, she said again. Blind, blind. And without knowing why, I felt a vague, unhappy loss or want of something overshadow me like a cloud. However. said my aunt. I don't want to put two young creatures out of conceit with themselves, or to make them unhappy.
So, though it is a girl and boy attachment, and girl and boy attachments very often, mind I don't say always, come to nothing, still, we'll be serious about it, and hope for a prosperous issue one of these days. There's time enough for it to come to anything.
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