Essentially, these chapters appear to exist outside of linear time and use this vantage point to better contextualise and segment the rest of the narrative. They make frequent references to earlier chapters, reflect on the past using the historical present tense, eliding the distance in time between events and their recording, while setting the stage for the next phase in David’s life and pointing toward future developments. These transitional chapters, marking important milestones and giving structure to David’s life, further set themselves apart through their relationship to time: merging past, present, and future. They are perhaps the most crucial chapters in terms of the novel’s structure, as they effectively segment the novel into four distinct sections, in a manner not unlike how many novels are formally divided into several “books,” “parts,” or “phases.” The four resulting sections of David Copperfield are each extremely well defined, dealing with childhood, young adulthood, marriage, and finally widowhood, grief, and acceptance. These are the four “Retrospect” chapters. Out of the many chapters of David Copperfield, four stand out as peculiar in name, content, and function. Eventually he has the satisfaction of seeing the conniving Uriah Heep (Nicholas Lyndhurst) sent to a penal colony.“A Retrospective”: Time, Structure, and the Informal Segmentation of David Copperfield

Life's challenges continue to confront him but with help from friends and family, he overcomes adversity including his wife's death and his aunt's loss of savings. As he grows, older David (Ciarán McMenamin) is apprenticed to a law firm where he meets the senior partner's daughter Dora (Joanna Page). Wickfield (Oliver Ford Davies) and his daughter Agnes (Antonia Corrigan). She sends him to fine school and he lodges with Mr. Micawber (Bob Hoskins) and moves in with the man and his loving family, but as the Micawbers are forced by circumstance to relocate, he seeks out his aunt Betsey Trotwood (Dame Maggie Smith). David is soon sent to a strict boarding school, but when his mother dies, his stepfather sends him to London to work in a foul-smelling factory. Murdstone (Trevor Eve) is a no-nonsense businessman and a strict disciplinarian who believes in corporal punishment. His life changes forever when his mother re-marries. David Copperfield (Daniel Radcliffe) lives a nearly-idyllic existence with his beautiful mother Clara (Emilia Fox) and their housekeeper Peggotty (Pauline Quirke).

David copperfield story