Death with Father in David Copperfield

Abstract

Remember this fantasy: the boy returns from school earlier than he was expected to find the father away, and the mother, infant brother and babysitter home alone:

I had never hoped for this. I had never thought it possible that we... could be together undisturbed... there was no one to come between us:¹

[S]eeing me, she called me her dear Davy, her own boy! and coming half across the room to meet me, kneeled down upon the ground and kissed me, and laid my head down on her bosom near the little creature that was nestling there, and put its hand to my lips...

‘He is your brother’, said my mother, fondling me. ‘Davy, my pretty boy! My poor child!’ Then she kissed me more and more, and clasped me round the neck. This she was doing when Pegotty came running in, and bounced down on the ground beside us, and went mad about us both for a quarter of an hour. (P. 162)