# XI: I Begin Life on My Own Account, and Don’t Like It explained — David Copperfield

> Chapter companion for David Copperfield by Charles Dickens.

## What happens

David Copperfield, at ten years old, is sent to work at Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse, washing bottles and performing menial labor. He experiences profound shame and despair, feeling his hopes of becoming a learned man crushed. He befriends the Micawber family, who are imprisoned for debt, and observes their struggles. David lives a lonely, self-reliant life, working in degrading conditions while visiting the Micawbers in the King's Bench Prison.

## Themes in this chapter

### Orphanhood and Self-Formation

David is effectively abandoned by his family and forced to form his own identity through menial labor and isolation.

### Cruelty and Abuse of Power

David is thrown into degrading work by Mr. Murdstone, with no one intervening on his behalf, highlighting the abuse of adult authority over a child.

### Debt and Financial Instability

The Micawbers' imprisonment for debt and Mr. Micawber's petition against debt laws underscore the pervasive theme of financial hardship.

## Character check-ins

### David Copperfield

Begins work at Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse at age ten, feeling deep shame and hopelessness.

### Wilkins Micawber

Imprisoned for debt in the King's Bench Prison; composes a petition to Parliament and borrows a shilling from David.

### Mrs. Micawber

Lives in the prison with her husband; makes egg-hot for David and discusses family affairs.

### Mr. Quinion

Supervises David at the warehouse, watching him from a countinghouse window.

### Mr. Murdstone

Implied as the one who placed David at Murdstone and Grinby's; David is uncertain if Murdstone knows his whereabouts.

## Key lines

> No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship; compared these henceforth everyday associates with those of my happier childhood—not to say with Steerforth, Traddles, and the rest of those boys; and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man, crushed in my bosom.

David feels profound inner torment as he joins these lowly companions, contrasting them with his former schoolmates, and despairs of ever becoming educated or respected.

_David's emotional devastation at his fall in social status and lost aspirations._

> He solemnly conjured me, I remember, to take warning by his fate; and to observe that if a man had twenty pounds a-year for his income, and spent nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would be happy, but that if he spent twenty pounds one he would be miserable.

Mr. Micawber advises David to live within his means, warning that even a small overspend leads to misery.

_Mr. Micawber's famous financial wisdom, born from his own debt experience._

## Links

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