The use of present-tense narration in Dicken's David Copperfield

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2, http://www.uni-jena.de/ (Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik), course: Time and Temporal Order, 8 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: 'David Copperfield, happily married to Agnes for ten years, sits down at about age 37 to write his autobiography.' 1 Charles Dickens lets him look at his past life with nearly no loss of memory 2 . It starts with the birth of his hero and his recreation of past events: '[...] the re-creation of past events in the present of narration ('I see her again as I write of her') [...]' 3 . Besides showing the development of David, the reader is faced with some observations mostly narrated in the present-tense, besides the normal pastnarration. I want to explore why there is a variance in the used narrative method. Did Dickens do this on purpose and if so why? The essay will show the most important occurrences of present-tense narration and list detailed examples of them. Other remarks in association to this will be highlighted as well, so the repeated use of certain verbs or phrazes. Also we turn our attention to the question if the memories shown here are good or bad for our hero David. In connection to this, it is going to be investigated in what extent the use of the narration method plays a role and what the results are for the reader. To achieve this it is important to have a detailed look at the theoretical aspects of narration methods in novels and there connection to time and temporal order. Also it must be looked at how important it is that: 'The first-person narrator of David Copperfield defines himself as someone who brings his full knowledge to bear on past events.' 4 [...]

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