David’s Views on Class
As the novel progresses, the readers are given a window into all aspects
of David’s life. We see what he
sees, feel what he feels, and think what he thinks.
This is important to the class structure concept, because David offers us
a personal view of how people saw others around them based upon their class.
His view allows readers to better understand the differences in social
class, because for American citizens, it’s difficult to compare the British
class systems rigidity. For David,
life was a struggle to maintain the middle class lifestyle that was, in the eyes
of the 1800’s British class system, his birth right.
This is an important thing to understand because it influences why he
looks at people of different classes the way that he does.
After Mr. Murdstone sends David away for school, James Steerforth becomes
David’s best friend, and mentor.
Instantly, David notices his standing as a member of the upper class, and
becomes enamored with him, and everything he stands for.
We see David giving Steerforth his money, trusting him with its care and
usage, and even making excuses for Steerforth when he behaves so disrespectfully
to Mr. Mell. Even when Steerforth
and Emily run away, David never truly comes to the point of hating him.
In the time David’s character lived, people idolized the upper class, it
can be said the hope of achieving this status is the reason people migrated to
the Americas in the first place.
This deep rooted fantasy was so sought after, and in Britain, so impossible to
obtain, that it sparked a revolutionary migration to a new world.
That, if nothing else, should explain the way people felt about the upper
class.
The middle class: the doctor, lawyer, accountant, author, was the average
well to do person. Someone who
didn’t make enough money to do whatever they wanted, but never had a need for a
breadline either. To David, the
middle class is his destiny or birthright.
He grew up neglected by Mr. Murdstone and his sister, and throughout the
novel, we watch him struggle with the fear that he won’t live up to his
potential. When working at
Murdstone and Grinby, David says that he needs to be the best, in order to keep
himself from being like the other kids that work there:
“I suffered in secret, and that I suffered exquisitely, no one ever knew but I.
How much I suffered, it is, as I have said already, utterly beyond my
power to tell. But I kept my own
counsel, and I did my work. I knew
from the first, that, if I could not do my work as well as any of the rest, I
could not hold myself above slight and contempt.
I soon became at least as expeditious and as skilful as either of the
other boys. Though perfectly
familiar with them, my conduct and manner were different enough from theirs to
place a space between us.” (172)
David never thought about the situation that brought these other boys to work at
Murdstone and Grinby. As far as he
is concerned, he is too superior to even socialize with them, because they are
in a position more natural to their station, in his opinion.