A buried childhood in Charles Dickens’s 'David Copperfield'

Abstract

Charles Dickens’s autobiographical novel David Copperfield devotes much space to the protagonist’s childhood. By analyzing structural relationships of spatial elements in the artistic world of Dickens’s novel the article focuses on the motif of childhood home in relation to such spatial images as churchyard, elm-trees, garden, rookery and Never-never land. Childhood in David Copperfield is associated with death only on the plot level through the motifs of David’s early trauma of loss, but also owing to numerous metaphors constructed through language expressions as well as through imagery and motifs. Moreover, the motif of childhood home indicates the heavenly home (or nest) where we go – in the sense of homecoming – after death.