The Dickens Universe 2009

David Copperfield Reading Schedule and Discussion Topics

MONDAY
Chapter 1 “I am Born” through Chapter 12 “Liking Life on my own Account no better, I form a great Resolution”

TUESDAY
Chapter 13 “The Sequel of my Resolution” through Chapter 22 “Some old Scenes, and some new People”

WEDNESDAY
Chapter 23 “I corroborate Mr. Dick, and choose a Profession” through Chapter 35 “Depression”

THURSDAY
Chapter 36 “Enthusiasm” through Chapter 49 “I am Involved in Mystery”

FRIDAY
Chapter 50 “Mr. Peggoty’s Dream comes true” through Chapter 64 “A Last Retrospect”

DISCUSSION TOPICS (also suggestions for student papers)
Emigration
Betrayal
Housekeeping
Cauls
Australia
Phiz and the visualization of fiction
The hero of my own story
The blacking warehouse
The influence of Woman
Fear of failure
Cookery
Fractured families
The tanticular
Childhood trauma
Memory
Retrospective narration
Child labor
Mourning
Spinsterhood
Fear of the feminine
Authorship
From rookery to being rooked
Love triangles
Surrogacy and doubling
Marriages weak and the Strong
Preying parents
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery
Usury
Undisciplined hearts
Mealy potatoes
Domestic abuse
Loss of innocence
Shame
Manliness
The girl next door
Fallen woman
Temperance
Heeping on hypocrisy; or, eating umble pie with an appetite
Trifles make the sum of life

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