How 'bout that Miss Dartle, huh?

I’ve been slowly working my way through Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield over the last month and a half or so. I’ve laughed, I’ve nearly cried, it been the best of times, it’s been the worst of times. While reading I have come to a greater appreciation of Dicken’s ability to one, paint characters and two, to totally transport you to the scene. His skills of describing are truly impressive.

While I am much amused with some of the characters (Hamlet’s aunt being a favorite!), some are perhaps a little too…too…perhaps a little too well written. I say that only because they have evoked more emotion from myself then I would care to credit them with if they were real. Take for instance Dora. The lovely, petted child-wife of our hero. To put it plainly, she drives me nuts. Her inability to face reality, to truly support and encourage her husband, and most of all, her consciousness of her silliness annoy me to no end (well it does end, but I shan’t tell you how). However, the character that has stuck out to me the most, as of yet, is Miss Rosa Dartle.

How strange she is. Dickens’ brings her on so gradually that at first you think she’s just another silly woman or another ‘umble side-character. Nothing much to be reckoned with really. But my goodness! She simply explodes later on! Which, come to think of it, is precisely her character. You can’t make her out at first, but that she’s wound very tight. Then BAM! She turns out to be completely heartless. But why? Ahhh, of course. A woman scorned. (What was it that Shakespeare said about a woman scorned?) Miss Dartle’s words seem to just jump off the page and slap you in the face. And you sincerely hope that such a person with not an iota of compassion and deep-seeded bitterness does not, can not, exist in reality.

I’m about 60 pages from the end, so who knows what more Miss Dartle will do or say. I expect that she’ll melt away in the same way she came in with a, "Isn’t it true now?” and “But I want to know.” Dickens’ does seem to be full of surprises in this novel (though I have rightly predicted one or two things). At this point I could hardly be surprised by anything.