The Upper Class

            The primary characters making up the upper class in David Copperfield include his school friend James Steerforth, and his mother, Mrs. Steerforth.  Both characters live off old money, never actually having to work a day in their lives.  As the novel progresses, we see both characters behave with contempt and cruelty when dealing with middle and lower class characters. 

The scene that stuck out most with James, is his argument with Professor Mell during class.  Even though Mr. Mell is his teacher, and superior, because David let slip that Mell’s mother lives in a shelter, James feels superior to him.  In response to chastisement from Mr. Mell, Steerforth says:  When you take the liberty of calling me mean or base, or anything of that sort, you are an impudent beggar.  You are always a beggar, you know; but when you do that, you are an impudent beggar” (David Copperfield, 107).  In this scene, Steerforth is using his higher class status as a motivator to get out of respecting his teacher, which is only made worse when the headmaster, Mr. Creakle, fires Mr. Mell for being poor.  By doing this, Mr. Creakle reinforces Steerforth’s belief that he is better than Mr. Mell, simply because he was born with money. 

This isn’t an outside viewpoint in the world of David Copperfield.  Even David, who always liked Mr. Mell, couldn’t be angry with Steerforth, because he looked up to him for his social class.  Before and after this scene, we experience Steerforth talking down to David, and still receiving nothing but praise and worship in return.  Steerforth considers David, who is a middle class character, to be worth keeping around, but still beneath him.  While he doesn’t straight out belittle David the way he did Mr. Mell, he does nickname him “daisy,” which denotes him as feminine, or beneath Steerforth. 

Another example of Steerforth’s entitlement and callousness occurs when he speaks to David and Miss Dartle about the Peggotty’s:  “’Why, there’s a pretty wide separation between them and us,’ said Steerforth, with indifference. ‘They are not to be expected to be as sensitive as we are.  Their delicacy is not to be shocked, or hurt very easily…’” (303).  Essentially, Steerforth is telling them that the Peggotty’s, being lower class, are so base, that they don’t feel emotional pain like an upper class or middle class person would.  They are like animals to him, it means nothing to him when he speaks down to or about them, because he has convinced himself it doesn’t really hurt them. 

As for his mother, Mrs. Steerforth, she shows her disdain for the lower class when she finds out that Steerforth has run away with little Emily.  After reading Emily’s letter, she says that Steerforth could never be with Emily, even if she was not a virgin when she returned.  Mrs. Steerforth insults Emily, and after a short argument with Mr. Peggotty, says that “Since you oblige me to speak more plainly, which I am very unwilling to do, her humble connexions would render such a thing impossible, if nothing else did” (David Copperfield, 474).  Because she is upper class, her son is also upper class, and Mrs. Steerforth fears that association with Emily would tarnish her son’s reputation.  In revealing why she picked the broken down school she did for Steerforth’s education [Salem House] because she wanted her son to be treated with reverence:  “’It was not a fit school generally for my son,’ she said; ‘far from it; but there were particular circumstances to be considered at the time, of more importance even than that selection.  My son’s high spirit made it desirable that he should be placed with some man who felt its superiority, and would be content to bow himself before it; and we found such a man there’” (305).  Mrs. Steerforth is obsessed with her son, and his status as an upper class man, that she would send him to a less worthy school with bad employees and conditions, because there, her son would be treated like royalty.  The characters in this novel that represent the upper class are clearly lacking in moral compass, considering themselves to be above everyone else.

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