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Miss Murdstone
Daniel Peggotty is Peggotty’s brother and little Em'ly and Ham Peggotty’s uncle. He works as a fisherman in Yarmouth, where he lives in a beached boat that he has converted into a house. Mr. Peggotty's defining trait is his generosity; he provides a home not only for his orphaned niece and nephew, but also for Mrs. Gummidge—his former business partner’s grumpy widow. Mr. Peggotty's patient and forgiving nature become important in the aftermath of little Em’ly's elopement with James Steerforth. In the Victorian era, women who engaged in premarital sex were subject to extreme social censure, but Mr. Peggotty's sole concern when he learns of Emily's "sin" is to find her and bring her home. He is ultimately successful, and then moves to Australia for the sake of his niece, who will be able to start a new life there.
Mr. Peggotty Quotes in David Copperfield
The David Copperfield quotes below are all either spoken by Mr. Peggotty or refer to Mr. Peggotty . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 47 Quotes
"What shall I ever do!" she said, fighting thus with her despair. "How can I go on as I am, a solitary curse to myself, a living disgrace to every one I come near!" Suddenly she turned to my companion. "Stamp upon me, kill me! When she was you pride, you would have thought I had done her harm if I brushed against her in the street. You can't believe—why should you?—a syllable that comes out of my lips. It would be a burning shame upon you, even now, if she and I exchanged a word."
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When David and Mr. Peggotty approach Martha Endell in the hopes that she will help them find little Em'ly, they first have to overcome her deeply rooted sense of shame and despair. Her self-recriminations in this passage (and throughout the scene) make sense in the context of nineteenth-century beliefs about "fallen" women—that is, women who have had sex outside of marriage. Because purity was so central to the Victorian idea of womanhood, the prevailing belief was that a fallen woman was morally ruined forever. At best, then, she was caught in a downward spiral that would result in her own Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Acc
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