Essay On Unnamed Characters

Copperfield is the title of one of the most famous books authored by Charles Dickens. David Copperfield was published in 1850 at the time when industrialization was at its zenith in the United Kingdom. Many analysts argue that David Copperfield is a semi biography of Charles Dickens and the events in the novel are intertwined with real events in Dickens’s life. This novel explores the journey of a young boy called David Copperfield from his boyhood to adulthood. For the purposes of this essay, we examine the unnamed character waiter. We study how he reinforces themes and motifs of the novel.
In the novel, Charles Dickens documents everything the modern audience needs to know about human nature and about Dickens’s ability to capture the essence of humanity in this classic fiction. In my view, one of the most outstanding themes in the book is that the strength of character is the most essential requirement for a healthy and purposeful life. This key theme unfolds not through the telling of a story alone, and mostly, by using characters that are unnamed. Dickens achieves this fete by avoiding the use of sophisticated language but by using simple and straightforward language. The waiter is presented as a greedy and cunning individual. In the first instance, he challenges David for contest of who will eat the most food, first the chops and then the batter pudding. Dickems writes that: “The waiter certainly got most. He entreated me more than once to come in and win, but what with his tablespoon to my teaspoon, his dispatch to my dispatch, and his appetite to my appetite, I was left for behind at the first mouthful and had no chance with him” (p. 64).
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield is the presentation of the characters in a manner that personifies and humanizes them. Dickens’s provides a contrast between good and evil. In the novel, many of the characters have failures, in essence eliminating the argument that Charles Dickens’s would be a moralist. A good number of characters in the novel have faults, a good number also have outstanding moral courage. While Dickens uses some of the main characters in the novel to illustrate the difference between good and evil, Dickens also uses the minor characters to demonstrate the strength of character that is absent in some of the most known characters in the novel. One example is the distinction between the woman at the couch in Yarmoth and the waiter in the couch. The woman exemplifies a character with formidable love for the family and a strong embodiment of work ethics. On the other hand, the waiter comes out as untrustworthy and greedy. The effects of their actions influence, in a great deal the eventual ending of the novel.
While there is limited physical description of the two characters, the woman at the coach and the waiter, Dickens’s tells us a lot more of their behaviors that makes it almost realistic to humanize them. The greedy waiter serves the purpose of presenting the reality of the life for many poor adults in industrializing England. The waiter is greedy not because he wants to, but because he hardly have enough food to eat. After failing to eat his food to completion, the waiter offers to assist David with his food. He said this to David:
“Why? You see our people don’t like things being ordered and left.It offends em’. But I’ll drink it, if you like” (p. 63).
The waiter goes ahead to eat the entire food with an amazing appetite that surprises David. Dickens’s uses the waiter to portray the realness of life. Characters such as the waiter appear in life on daily life. It only correct that a character that does what would be called crazy, but turns out to be a nice person when he helps David completes the letter to his step dad.
Later, the waiter turns to an awkward relation of a boy who had his ribs broken at the same school that David was going. This creates a bad feeling on the part of David, but it also prepares him for the eventuality of the boarding life. In a way, the waiter foretells the future of David at school. At this time, David hates this conversation because he is unaware of what comes. In general, the other nameless characters in the novel to influence the general motifs of the themes. Still, the nameless characters like the waiter at the bus stop serves the purpose of making the book sound like a childhood memoir.