In Chapter 31, immediately on the heels of Mr. Barkis's death, the Peggotty family suffers another tragedy when little Em'ly runs away with Steerforth. As he describes Ham's reaction to the news, David personifies the sky:
The face he turned up to the troubled sky, the quivering of his clasped hands, the agony of his figure, remain associated with that lonely waste, in my remembrance, to this hour. It is always night there, and he is the only object in the scene.
The sky is simply a reflection of the weather, which is not influenced by the interpersonal affairs of the Peggotty family. Nonetheless, in this scene, the sky is "troubled." It mirrors Ham's own face and feelings. The idea that the natural world is in tune with Ham and his feelings foreshadows the way Ham will eventually die, swallowed up by the sea while he is trying to save Steerforth.
Even more importantly, David personifies the sky to comment once again on the intense and all-encompassing impact emotion has on memory. David's memory is laid over the entire scene, so that it becomes impossible to tease them apart. David has described this physical place before, in the context of other memories, but now he says that, "It is always night there, and he is the only object in the scene." Given the way David's memory of Ham here takes over the physical landscape, the "lonely waste" David refers to could be the outdoor space just outside the Peggottys' house, or it could be this particular piece of the landscape of David's own remembrance. He is admitting that his mind is playing tricks on him, such that he can't even remember the sky as anything other than a full participant in the emotional scene. This brief moment is a reminder that the entire novel takes place on the stage of David's memory. He is never trying to trick the reader, but he is self-conscious of his inability to recount anything objectively.
In Chapter 57, the Micawbers discuss their imminent departure for Australia. They personify Britain as a being with whom Mr. Micawber has a strained relationship:
‘My dear,’ said Mr Micawber, ‘Britannia must take her chance. I am bound to say that she has never done much for me, and that I have no particular wish upon the subject.’
‘Micawber,’ returned Mrs Micawber, ‘there, you are wrong. You are going out, Micawber, to this distant clime, to strengthen, not to weaken, the connexion between yourself and Albion.’
Britannia and Albion are both alternative names for Great Britain. Both names also refer to human representations of the country in art and poetry. These representations became especially common when the tiny island of England began to pursue widespread colonization and rebranded itself as the British Empire. Colonization spurred an identity crisis for Great Britain because more and more places around the world were becoming "British." Britannia and Albion were both personifications of national identity (heavily coded as white) that could remain more stable than the geographic borders, particularly in white British people's imaginations.
Notice that Mr. Micawber uses the name "Britannia" and calls Britain "she." Mr. Micawber thinks of his home country as something like a disloyal wife or a mother who has abandoned him. He hasn't been able to make it in England, so he is leaving her behind. Mrs. Micawber, on the other hand, adopts the masculine name "Albion" for the country. This name, which literally means "white," probably has to do with the white cliffs of Dover as a symbol for the island country. Mrs. Micawber is suggesting that they are going away from the cliffs, to one of the colonies, not to repudiate but rather to have a better relationship with the father country.
Australia was a penal colony, where English prisoners were sent to work, so the Micawbers imagine that there will be less upper-class competition for wealth there. Mrs. Micawber reminds her husband that expatriate life there, too, is a creation of "Albion," and that success there still involves loyalty to the British empire. Note that the Micawbers are white, and Mrs. Micawber is reluctant to leave behind "Albion." Dickens does not explore it fully, but whiteness is implicitly part of what allows poor characters in his novels to become rich in Australia. Mrs. Micawber is nervously reminding her husband and herself that although Australia is far away from England, and although many of its inhabitants are people of color, going there will not threaten their connection to white "Albion." In fact, their whiteness will put them at an immediate advantage in the colony.
