David Copperfield: Unreliable Narrator 2 key examples

Mr. Dick was not alive for the execution of King Charles I, which happened in 1649. Still, he keeps filtering the events of his own life through that historical event. Try as he might to stick to the history for which he was alive, his self-narration somehow always takes him back two centuries.

Mr. Dick takes his work a little too seriously, and he seems a bit ridiculous for not being able to just complete his Memorial. Nonetheless, the narrator has some of the same problems with unreliability. He often talks about his memory getting the best of him and taking him down rabbit holes, and even away from real facts. Like Mr. Dick, he has trouble controlling what his memory and his pen produce together. For instance, in Chapter 43, he describes stepping out of the way for a parade of ghostly memories to go by. At the end of the chapter, he writes,

I have stood aside to see the phantoms of those days go by me. They are gone, and I resume the journey of my story.

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An autobiographer ought to be in control of what he writes about his own life, but here he describes getting out of the way so that "the phantoms of those days" can take hold of the narrative without any guidance at all from him. By parodying autobiography with Mr. Dick's Memorial, the narrator sheds light on some of the problems of narrating one's own story, and some of the pitfalls to be avoided. Mr. Dick eventually finds that he can write coherently if he keeps a separate set of pages he can move to when Charles I takes over his pen. This silly solution is also surprisingly effective. Like David surrendering to the parade of "phantoms" so that he might then "resume the journey of my story," Mr. Dick too discovers that sometimes it is best to let his pen have a life of its own for a time.

Given that this novel is the most autobiographical one Dickens himself wrote, the parody also raises questions about what it means to write an autobiography that is explicitly fictionalized. Faulty memory and the craft of the author both threaten the integrity of the account, but only if the reader is most interested in objective reality. If the reader is instead interested in the internal experience of the narrator, an unreliable narrator might be one who sticks too closely to the facts. For example, given Mr. Dick's obsession with Charles I, his Memorial might not truly capture his life if it did not include any material on Charles I.

The passage repeatedly emphasizes that everything is filtered through David's observations and feelings: "I thought," "I knew," "I saw," and "I ceased to be afraid" complicate the idea that the narrator is simply recounting facts. These phrases bring a sense of uncertainty or second-guessing to the narrator's declarations about what happened. His description, he is letting the reader know, is only as good as his perception and memory. Perspective changes these things. For instance, as he describes Steerforth, the adult narrator distinguishes between what he thinks of Steerforth now (his influence over Rosa is an "art" that he consciously performs) and what he thought of Steerforth when he was younger (that his influence over others was an accident of his nature).

After explicitly indicating that perspective has changed the way he thinks of and describes Steerforth, the narrator goes on to make clear that his description of Rosa is also heavily dependent on perspective. He tentatively trusts his mind. Still, he deliberately reminds the reader that believing him requires that they either trust him or give up trying to know objective facts.  A different narrator, even an older version of the same narrator, can have a vastly different take on events and people. This narrative is centered on David's own experience of it, so objective reality may be beside the point after all.

Mr. Dick was not alive for the execution of King Charles I, which happened in 1649. Still, he keeps filtering the events of his own life through that historical event. Try as he might to stick to the history for which he was alive, his self-narration somehow always takes him back two centuries.

Mr. Dick takes his work a little too seriously, and he seems a bit ridiculous for not being able to just complete his Memorial. Nonetheless, the narrator has some of the same problems with unreliability. He often talks about his memory getting the best of him and taking him down rabbit holes, and even away from real facts. Like Mr. Dick, he has trouble controlling what his memory and his pen produce together. For instance, in Chapter 43, he describes stepping out of the way for a parade of ghostly memories to go by. At the end of the chapter, he writes,

I have stood aside to see the phantoms of those days go by me. They are gone, and I resume the journey of my story.

Cite this Quote

An autobiographer ought to be in control of what he writes about his own life, but here he describes getting out of the way so that "the phantoms of those days" can take hold of the narrative without any guidance at all from him. By parodying autobiography with Mr. Dick's Memorial, the narrator sheds light on some of the problems of narrating one's own story, and some of the pitfalls to be avoided. Mr. Dick eventually finds that he can write coherently if he keeps a separate set of pages he can move to when Charles I takes over his pen. This silly solution is also surprisingly effective. Like David surrendering to the parade of "phantoms" so that he might then "resume the journey of my story," Mr. Dick too discovers that sometimes it is best to let his pen have a life of its own for a time.

Given that this novel is the most autobiographical one Dickens himself wrote, the parody also raises questions about what it means to write an autobiography that is explicitly fictionalized. Faulty memory and the craft of the author both threaten the integrity of the account, but only if the reader is most interested in objective reality. If the reader is instead interested in the internal experience of the narrator, an unreliable narrator might be one who sticks too closely to the facts. For example, given Mr. Dick's obsession with Charles I, his Memorial might not truly capture his life if it did not include any material on Charles I.