Density

The density of meaning in Dickens and Chekhov make it difficult to figure out what to focus on if I'm going to pursue it, there are many threads weaving through: which do you pull to follow to the center? To find a singular meaning?

In just reading it, it doesn't matter so much, but in trying to write about it, or perform it, it does.  Dickens writes tomes perhaps, but none of the words are superfluous.  Still a bit in awe that he wrote these as serials.

As far as David goes, he has returned to Blunderstone for the holidays, dreading the thought of encountering the Murdstones, but his cart gets him home early, and he finds only his mother, along with the new baby brother.  He comments that he wishes he could have died then, to that love and comfort being the last moment of his life.  He spends the evening with his mother, Peggotty, and the baby, as things had been, in hopes that the Murdstones were only a bad dream and might never return.

They do return, of course, David and Peggotty slink out before the Murdstones walk through the door.  A month of mistreatment ensues.  David tries to keep to himself, if only because he sees how his mother is punished for showing kindness to him, and finds solace in reading in his room, or sitting in the kitchen with Peggotty.  (They wish to break Clara even more so than David, though the "why?" of that is beyond me.)  Murdstone eventually reprimands him for this "sullen" behavior and he is forced to keep company with them, never moving, or showing emotion for fear of displeasing them, and bringing more pain to his mother.  At last the day arrives for him to depart, he has his last memory of his mother running out to watch him leave in the cart, he turns when she cries out, she stands motionless holding up the baby to him.  His angel, burned in his mind.  He never sees her alive again.