Overcoming self-deception


The novel “David Copperfield” reflected those qualitative changes in the worldview of Charles Dickens, which became characteristic of the third period of the writer’s work. The desire for an in-depth, philosophical and psychological comprehension of life caused Dickens to treat his favorite topics in a slightly different way. First of all, this concerns the topic of “big hopes”.

If, at the beginning of David Copperfield’s life, “great hopes” are directly related to a simplified understanding of the hero of life, with the hope that all problems will be resolved by themselves, that a miracle will happen, then at the time of the collapse of “high hopes”, their complete illusory, self – the selfish blindness of David. No wonder XXXV chapter of the novel ends with the accusation thrown into David’s face: “Blind! Blind! Blind!” David is really blind to Agnes, who loves him. He does not want, and can

not, because he is still in captivity of illusions, to see the truth of her feelings and selfishly makes a childhood friend trusted in her relations with Dora.

In the novel “David Copperfield”, perhaps for the first time “great hopes” Charles Dickens associates with the insight of his characters. And the first who was not frightened and embarked on the path of insight, abandoning the illusions of self-deception, was David Copperfield, the closest writer to the spirit of the hero.

The path chosen by David Copperfield has its own stages. And the first step in the life of the hero to true happiness is the moment of insight, overcoming self-deception, illusions of “great hopes”, which, not knowing about their destructive power, live even the brightest characters of the writer. For David, the moment of truth – moral insight – becomes Dora’s death, which reveals to him the meaning of their relationship, explains the reasons for the cooling that has begun. But the truth – the illusory “high hopes” – David does not comprehend at once. Dora’s death only brings his feelings and thoughts into motion, makes him “wake up.” And only the “road” helps him to fully understand what happened. Dora’s death is the sad experience that remains forever with David as a life lesson in the perniciousness of self-deception.


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Overcoming self-deception