– The extract is taken from chapter
39. It is one of the tensest moments in the novel: Dickens creates suspense by
creating opposite forces: David should tell Agnes about Uriah’s plot, yet he
doesn’t want to tell her in order to protect her; time is against him as
Uriah’s trap is closing. This is the classical method to create suspense.
– Elements to be explained: “what
Uriah Heep had told me in London” “my confidence when I poured out the fulness
of my art” “I am engaged to another young lady”
Uriah:
You may show the nature of his character by
– referring to his description
(adjectives, similes),
– referring to his speech and
behaviour, showing his “stratagem”,
– comparing him to David: Uriah:
hypocritical / David: candid, Uriah: calculating / David: spontaneous.
–
comparing
him to the Peggotties:
o
same
low class linguistic features: drop their h’s (“my art”for “my heart”),
ill-use tenses and persons (“you was” for “you were”), use ‘as’ for a
relative (“them as isn’t umble” for “those who are not humble”).
o
Same
aspiration to social climbing as Emily. Whereas Emily is seen as a victim of
the upper-class Steerforth, Uriah is seen as unworthy of Agnes.
The making of Uriah:
This passage sheds light on the causes (the
“seed”) of Uriah’s personality. Dickens revisits a favorite subject of his: the
school system, already tackled (and criticized) in Nicholas Nickleby and
David Copperfield. Victorian schools reflect and perpetuate the values
and ethos of Victorian society.
David:
The tension present in this passage is not just
a result of its suspense and dramatic nature: it is also interior to David.
–
Tension
inside David the character:
o
Although
he is repulsed by Uriah and does his best to be his exact opposite, Uriah seems
to have the power to bring out inconsistencies in David. ‘“The most unlikely person I could think of,” – though
his own face had suggested the allusion quite as a natural sequence. David tries to be as candid as Uriah
is hypocritical, but here he practically admits his hypocrisy. David is
indignant when Uriah insinuates he may be a rival… but David will indeed end up
marrying Agnes.
o
His
behaviour is deliberately open almost to the point of aggression, although
Uriah is shown to be the villain and David Agnes’s defender.
o
Moreover,
there is an undeniable affinity between them. ‘To tell you the truth (at which you will not be
offended) almost sounds like Uriah. When David is tied
physically to Uriah, maybe he is not uncomfortable merely because he hates him
but also because he is a bit like him in some ways.
–
Tension
inside David the narrator.
o
David
the character does not know yet that he will marry Agnes, but the narrator
does.
o
The
narrator (and the writer?) explains that Uriah is a product of society, but it
does not change his condemnation of him in the least. He exposes a social
mechanism that might change his view of people, but he does not accept its
consequences. His judgment on Uriah is moral, which shows that he too is a
product of that society.