Happy 200th Birthday, Charles Dickens!

Today (my half birthday) is Charles Dickens' bicentennial birthday! To honor that, I've finally finished my posting that I began while reading David Copperfield two weeks ago. I haven't read a lot of his novels, but many of my fondest childhood memories involve my mother reading A Christmas Carol  to me and the two of us watching Oliver Twist and other movie adaptations of his books. As I told my mother earlier today, for better or for worse, I'm attributing a good bit of my love for English literature (and consequent desire to study the same) to the fact that she used to read to me from Dickens, Poe, Nash, and Wordsworth (to name only a few). The jury is out on whether it's blame or praise she should receive for this. Today, I'll simply say, "Thanks, Mom. Without your encouragement, I wouldn't be racking up thousands of dollars in student loans."

Though I have often thought it might be fun to be Jane or Elizabeth Bennet, or some other other of Jane Austen's heroines, after reading Charles Dickens' David Copperfield, I have decided that the one thing I would not wish to be in the nineteenth century is a young orphaned boy (though I'm not sure it would be any better to be a young orphaned girl, likely she would end as a prostitute as Little Em'ly does). Poor Davy reminds me quite a bit of Henry Fielding's Tom Jones eponymous main character (whose life I read about last term). Both are orphans, both have self-righteous people telling lies to others about their supposedly irredeemable bad qualities, and both are naively innocent to a point that makes me want to cry out to them, "No, you should NOT trust all of your hard-earned pennies to that person of an obviously suspicious nature!" Dickens, like Fielding, chooses to tell nearly the entire life story of his main character, which while interesting makes both books long to the point of soporific tediousness. The twenty-first century reader in me is always going, "Okay, get on with it. Let's have done with it already." The main difference between the two books is that Fielding's had an amazingly intricate weaving of plot and action interspersed with essays, while Dickens wrote a much more character-centric novel (told in first person) that stops to wallow in character, emotions, and thoughts much more than Fielding did.

Copperfield's eccentric Aunt Betsey is possibly my favorite character in the whole novel (his nurse/maid Peggotty is a close second). In a twist on the usual obsession with male heirs, she shows up on the eve of his birth determined that his mother should give birth to a girl that she (the aunt) will help raise. She's so disappointed upon learning Copperfield's gender that she leaves immediately and isn't seen for about 10 years or so.

I've selected one of my favorite passages about her in honor of Dicken's birthday today and since I didn't end up reading it at our "Twopenny Reading" Birthday Party at school, I will post it here:

From David Copperfield, Chapter XIII

"To this hour I don’t know whether my aunt had any lawful right of way over that patch of green; but she had settled it in her own mind that she had, and it was all the same to her. The one great outrage of her life, demanding to be constantly avenged, was the passage of a donkey over that immaculate spot. In whatever occupation she was engaged, however interesting to her the conversation in which she was taking part, a donkey turned the current of her ideas in a moment, and she was upon him straight. Jugs of water, and watering pots, were kept in secret places ready to be discharged on the offending boys; sticks were laid in ambush behind the door; sallies were made at all hours; and incessant war prevailed. Perhaps this was an agreeable excitement to the donkey-boys; or perhaps the more sagacious of the donkeys, understanding how the case stood, delighted with constitutional obstinacy in coming that way. I only know that there were three alarms before the bath was ready.; and that on the occasion of the last and most desperate of all, I saw my aunt engage, single-handed, with a sandy-headed lad of fifteen, and bump his sandy head against her own gate, before he seemed to comprehend what was the matter. These interruptions were the more ridiculous to me, because she was giving me broth out of a table-spoon at the time (having firmly persuaded herself that I was actually starving, and must receive nourishment at first in very small quantities), and, while my mouth was yet open to receive the spoon, should would put it back in the basin, cry ‘Janet! Donkies!’ and go out to the assault."

I Love Her But Sometimes She Drives Me Crazy

Today's Song: "Mother, Mother" by Tracy Bonham

I want to preface this ramble with the following assurance: I love my mother, but as is often the case with family, that doesn't mean I always like her.

So I got dumped a few weeks ago, which was bad enough, but then my mother finds out (no, I didn't tell her, the reason for which will soon be clear) and calls me up to tell me that, perhaps, if I was less "vocal in my opinions," it wouldn't have happened (are we back in the '50s, Mom?). This is without asking me what happened. She never asks what happened. She simply assumes that if I'd been dumped, then it must be my fault. I would like to point out that as a somewhat insecure woman, I do not need my mother to tell me it is my fault. That is something that I automatically assume--reviewing every word and action from every date, text, and conversation for potential pitfalls. But aren't mothers supposed to be supportive? Because mine uses such occasions to inform me of every personality flaw she believes me to have and how if I would just correct these flaws, then I would be able to keep a man in my life (never pausing to wonder if the man is actually worth keeping).

This is not the first time she's given me such old fashioned advice. In 10th grade, she lectured me for asking a guy to homecoming, because "boys will say yes even if they don't want to go out with you because they feel bad saying no." In 11th grade, she told me I couldn't go to prom with only my girlfriends (a couple of whom were in 10th grade, so those of us in 11th were going to buy tickets for them) because everyone would think I was a lesbian.

My mother has always been happier when I've had a boyfriend. As if having a boyfriend validates my existence. People talk about movies and novels giving girls unrealistic expectations about life, but I think my mother has done more damage than any number of movies or novels ever could. And I know it's not intentional. I know she feels she has my best interests in mind when she suggests that I talk too loud, am too opinionated, or any number of other flaws. Her harping means she cares. But it also means leaves me feeling self conscious of every aspect of myself and as if there is some element of my personality that makes me unlovable. Because, according to her, if there wasn't something wrong with me, then I'd be married by now like so many of my relatives and friend.

So despite my love for my mother, there is a small part of me that is very angry with her for making me feel so inadequate at a time when I'm searching within myself. I'm not saying the blame should be put solely on the guy, but the larger part of me wants to find someone who likes me for me. And just once, I'd like to hear my mother say what all my other friends said, "He's an idiot for dumping you."