A
moment of confusion
The narrator uses the present tense instead of
the past, as he does in various parts of the narrative. The narrative is made
more vivid; the reader is placed in the same time and place as the characters;
the line between the reader’s world and the narrative is abolished.
On the contrary, Dora speaks of
herself in the past: ‘I was too young’. She understands she is doomed, her fate
is sealed. The impression produced is that the dead Dora’s ghost is speaking
instead of the living Dora. On the other hand, David the character speaks in
the present perfect: We have been very happy. For him, his life with Dora is
still part of the present. This exemplifies his assertion that “I am far from
sure that I have taken that truth to heart” and “what I cannot firmly settle in
my mind is, that the end will absolutely come”.
Conclusion: The narrator uses the
tense normally used by characters
because he empathizes with one of them (namely, his younger self) whereas a
character (Dora) uses the tense which usually is the narrator’s, which is a
sign that she speaks from the narrator’s point of view (her ideas about her
marriage to David are obviously similar to those of the older David). The
narrator is torn between characters and times. This complex situation is a sign
of the confusion and deeply shaking psychological significance of the scene.
A moment haunted by ghosts from the past
Dora says: ‘I am afraid it would
have been better, if we had only loved each other as a boy and girl, and
forgotten it.’ This declaration conjures up the memory of the lost Little
Em’ly.
Dora’s death conjures up Clara’s
(David’s mother). When she tells David ‘Oh, how my poor boy cries!’ we hear a
mother’s words as much as a wife’s.
As already mentioned, Dora appears
as a ghost of herself.
On the whole, this death is that of
David’s youth: it is the end of his first marriage, of his immature years, as
Dora points out. Dora’s death marks the end of a period of David’s life but in
so doing it paves the way for another one.
A moment that sows the seeds of future happiness
As the reader will learn later, when Dora is alone with Agnes in this passage, they agree that Agnes will marry David. (Once again they are closer to the narrator than David the character is.) There is a sort of handing over of Dora’s marriage to Agnes, as there was one of Clara’s motherhood to Peggotty when David’s mother died.
Dora points out that if her marriage to David had lasted, it would have proved unfulfilling for him, so she concludes ‘It is better as it is’. (Once again, she is expressing the narrator’s point of view.) Her frequent use of hypothetic sentences paints a picture of an unhappy future for David. It will not happen thanks to Dora’s death.
The passage ends with Agnes, who embodies David’s future. The episode is a tragic one but it contains the seeds of David’s future happiness.
The passage is rather complex in that it focuses on David the character’s emotions whereas deep down it is controlled by the narrator’s knowledge of the future and his narrative plan. Of the three characters present, David is the farthest from the narrator in terms of opinions (about Dora and David’s marriage to her) and knowledge (of David’s future) whereas he is the closest to him in terms of feeling.