The patterns of love in David Copperfield thought theTriangle of Love1.IntroductionCharles Dickens (1812-1870) was the most popular English novelist of the Victorian era and one of the most popular of all time. Dickens is a prolific writer and created a large number of classical works by his hard work and talent. He is a key representative of 19th century British literary realism. In 1849, Dickens began to write David Copperfield, a novel based on his early life experiences. Dickens called David Copperfield his ―favourite child,‖ and many critics consider the novel to be one of his best depictions of childhood. David Copperfield is set in early Victorian England against a backdrop of great social change. The Industrial Revolution of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries had transformed the social landscape and enabled capitalists and manufacturers to amass huge fortunes. Although the Industrial Revolution increased social mobility, the gap between rich and poor remained wide. London, a teeming mass of humanity lit by gas lamps at night and darkened by sooty clouds from smokestacks during the day, rose in dark contrast to Britain‘s sparsely populated rural areas. More and more people moved from the country to the city in search of the opportunities that technological innovation promised. But this migration overpopulated the already crowded cities, and poverty, disease, hazardous factory conditions, and ramshackle housing became widespread. Dickens acutely observed these phenomena of the Industrial Revolution and used them as the canvas on which he painted David Copperfield and his other urban novels.Since David Copperfield was written in19th century, many critics have been fascinated by this novel. Many researchers from home and abroad analyze this work from different aspects: some from the aspect of social environment description in the novel, some study the character ‗s personality characteristics, some research of the theme of the undisciplined heart to the novel's power. Also some researchers do comparative studies, they compareSome researchers also study the David Copperfield through its love. For example, Ceng Zhi put forward that David and Dora love each other like boys and girls in love and the love of David and Alice is a mature love between a men and a women. Dora and Alice are like the red roses and white roses in the life of David. David‘s love to Dora is filled with passion, obsession while David‘s love to Alice is filled with sincerity. Bai Anyang hold the idea that Charles Dickens hope to have a perfect wife who has the merits of both Dora‘ and Alice‘. It is the ideal soul mate of men.Nevertheless, less specialized study of the love patterns in David Copperfield through American psychologist Sternberg‘s Triangular Theory of Love. This theory believes that love consists of three components: intimacy, passion, and commitment, each component is important in love relationship. So my thesis is to investigate the love patterns in this novel through the Triangular Theory of Love, analyze the love patterns between David and Emily, David and Dora, David and Alice.2 The Triangular Theory of Love2.1 Composition of the triangleLove, according to Sternberg‘s Triangular Theory, consists of three components: intimacy, passion, and commitment.The intimacy component. In the context of the triangular theory, the intimacy component refers to those feelings in a relationship that promote closeness, and connectedness. It includes those feelings that give rise to the experience of warmth in a loving relationship. Sternberg‘s research indicates that it includes, among other things, (a) feelings of desire to promote the welfare of the love one, (b) experienced happiness with the love one, (c) high regard for the love one, (d) being able to count on the love one in times of need, (e) mutual understanding with the love one, (f) sharing oneself and one‘s possessions with the love one, (g) obtaining emotional support from the love one, (h) giving emotional support to the love one, (i) intimate communication with the love one, and (j) valuing the loved one in one‘s life.The passion component. The passion component refers to the drives that lead to romance, physical attraction, sexual consummation, and related phenomena in loving relationships. The passion component thus includes those motivational sources and other forms of arousal that lead to the experience of passion in a loving relationship. It includes what Hatfield and Falster (1981) refer to as ―a state of intense longing for union with the other‖. In a loving relationship, sexual needs may well predominate in this experience. However, other needs, such as those for self-esteem, nurturance, affiliation, dominance, submission, and self-actualization, may also contribute to passion experience. The strengths of those various needs will almost certainly vary across persons, situations, and kinds of loving relationships.The decision/commitment component. The decision/commitment component of love consists of two aspects, a short-term one and a long-term one. The short-term one is the decision that one loves a certain other. The long-term aspects is the commitment to(Passion alone) (Passion + Commitment) (Commitment alone)Nonlove. Nonlove refers simply to the absence of all three components of love. Nonlove characterizes the large majority of our personal relationship, which are simply casual interactions that do not partake love at all.Liking. Linking involves only one component --- intimacy. Intimacy liking characterizes true friendships, where we feel warmth and closeness but no passion or long term commitment.Infatuated love. Infatuated love involves only one component ---passion, and it is ―love at first sight‖, characterized as strong physical attraction, sexual arousal, without intimacy and commitment. This can flare up suddenly and die just as fast or given certain circumstances, can sometimes last for a long time.Empty love. Empty love consists of the commitment component without intimacy or passion. Sometimes a strong love deteriorates into empty love---the commitment remains, but the intimacy and passion have die. In cultures where marriage is arranged, relationships often begin as empty.Romantic love. Romantic love is a combination of intimacy and passion. Romantic loves are bonded emotionally (as in liking) and physically through passionate arousal.Fatuous love. Fatuous love has the passion and commitment components but not intimacy. This type of love is often found in whirlwind courtship and marriage where commitment is motivated by passion without he stabilizing influence of intimacy. This kind of love usually does not last, despite the initial intent to commit.Companionate love. Companionate love consists of intimacy and commitment. This is a long-term, committed friendship, often occurred in marriages in which physical attraction has died down but in which the partners feel close to each other and have made the decision to stay together.Consummate love. Consummate love is the only type that has all three components –intimacy, passion and commitment. Consummate love is the most complete form of love and it represents the love relationship for which many people strive but few achieve. Sternberg cautious that maintaining a consummate love may be harder than achieving it.According to this theory, the type and strength of a couple‘s love is determined by both the individual strength of and the interaction between the tree components. Romantic love is the combination of intimacy and passion, companionate love is the combination of intimacy and commitment, fatuous love a combination of passion and commitment, and consummate love involves all three areas relatively equally.2.3 The multiple triangles of loveLove does not involve only a single triangle. Rather, it involves a great number of triangle, only some of which are major theoretical and practical interest. The main triangles will be discussed here.Real versus ideal triangles. One not only has the te3 Love Patterns in David Copperfield through the Basic Triangle of Love3.1 Love pattern of David and Emily: likingEmily is the first love of David. The love between David and Emily represents the type of love.—feeling warmth and closeness but no passion and no long term commitment. Although their love has one component —intimacy, the love will not last long. It looks more like friendship. Lacking passion would have no drives that lead to romance, physical attraction, sexual consummation, and related phenomena in loving relationship. No commitment means that they don‘t have the desire to maintain a long-term love.David is the protagonist and narrator of the novel. He relays the impressions he had from a youthful point of view. We see how David‘s perception of the world deepens as he comes of age. He is innocent, trusting, and naive even though he suffers abuse as a child. He is idealistic and impulsive and remains honest and loving. Though David‘s troubled childhood renders him sympathetic, he is not perfect. He often exhibits chauvinistic attitudes toward the lower classes. In some instances, foolhardy decisions mar David‘s good intentions.David‘s complex character allows for contradiction and development over the course of the novel. Though David is trusting and kind, he also has moments of cruelty, like the scene in which he intentionally distresses Mr. Dick by explaining Miss Betsey‘s dire situation to him. David also displays great tenderness, as in the moment when he realizes his love for Agnes for the first time. David, especially as a young man in love, can be foolish and romantic. As he grows up, however, he develops a more mature point of view and searches for a lover who will challenge him and help himgrow. David fully matures as an adult when he expresses the sentiment that he values Agnes‘s calm tranquility over all else i n his life. Emily is Peggotty‘s unfaithful niece, who is sweet but also coy and vain. Little Emi ly‘s desire to be a lady causes her to disgrace herself by running away from her family.When David met Emily, they were both young children and even didn‘t not what is love. In that time, they had the same life experience which they both lose their fathers and never see them. They are fascinated by each other for mutual understanding, emotion support. David though he was in love with little Emily and was sure he loved that baby quite as truly, quite as tenderly, with pretty purity and more disinterestedness. But as to any sense of inequality, or youthfulness, or other difficulty in their love way, they had no such trouble, because they had no future. When David‘s mother died, he become a orphan and met Emily again. He took that occasion to spend a happy day with his little Emily. He has a short-term one of commitment component, and decides that he love Emily. Little Emily is sweet but also coy and vain and desire to be a lady so that she and her Uncle Dan could live a rich life. So David is not her ideal husband. They are the closed friends of the opposite sex.This kind of love causes David and Emily not love each other when they grow up. They are friends and have different life. David asked his aunt Miss Betsey for help to go to school and become a trainee in a law firm while Emily was engaged in running away from home to elope with Steerforth before the eve of marriage. And David fell in love with Dora and they marriage.3.2 Love pattern of David and Dora: fatuous loveThe love between David and Dora represents another type of love – uncaring about social decorum and indulgence in sexual desire. And their love have two components—passion, and commitment. David and Dore attract each other by Physical characteristics and sexual consummation. But their marriage is motivated by passion without the stabilizing influence of intimacy. David and Dora could not understand each in some way, and Dora can not help David to work. Dora is foolish and giddy, more interested in playing with her dog, Jip, than in keeping house with David. Because David cannot bear to displease Dora, he permits her to retain the pouty habits of a spoiled child.So the love not last long, despite David’s initial intend to commit.David falls in love at the first sight of Dora without any communication. In the eyes of David, she was more than human, she was a Fairy. And he becomes a captive anda slave of love. T he main reason of this love is that David totally is attracted by Dora charming appearance, delightful voice, gay laugh. He loves Dora with passion and senses and a romantic heart. The image of Dora is filled of his eyes. This is a romantic and passionate love. David sees Dora as his myth idol. She is so attractive that becomes the center of the David’s love fantasy. In the whole stage of love, David has been living in the myth of his idea in the world. He was sensible of "a mist of love and beautifty about Dora".David is attracted by the “captivating, girlish, bright-eyed Doar” and he loves her form, her face and her graceful, variable, enchanting manner. His love is a symbol of beauty, rather than a true existence. These belong to passion component which lead to romance, physical attraction, sexual consummation.David proposed of marriage to Dora, and then they got married. It is the long-term aspects of the commitment to maintain that love. The decision precedes commitment both temporally and logically. Indeed, the institution of marriage represents a legalization of the commitment to the decision to love another throughout one‘s life. This commitment component can be essential for getting through hard times or returning to better ones. But in the marriage of David and Dora, it failed to do that because of they lack enough intimacy component and could not understand each other well. David finally got the Dora the "fairy". This makes David get a great psychologically satisfaction. It is a kind of satisifaction that man who obtains a cute and pretty female.I did feel, sometimes, for a little while, that I could have wished my wife had been my counselor; had had more character and purpose, to sustain me and improve me by; had been endowed with power to fill up the void which somewhere seemed to be about me; but I felt as if this were an unearthly consummation of my happiness, that never had been meant to be, and never could have been. (552)David wants to promote the welfare of the Dora. He experienced happiness with Dora, but that happiness all comes from love itself. He asked Dora to help do housework, but she did not well. What she can do well is playing with her dog Jip and playing the piano and singing.She was a inexperienced child who lives in a vacuum which is away from the real world. She didn't understand life, also don't understand the work. David can not obtain emotional support from her when his aunt bankrupt and he had to go out to work. In the opposite, Dora feels frightened and confused and need comfort from David. They love each other, but they could not communicate intimately. David felt that she was a bit unrealistic, but he was captivated by her curls and lovely appearance. In the end he accepted her unrealistic. They never solve this problem in their marriage untill Dora died.David admitted he sometimes regarded Dora as a plaything, a beautiful and lovely toys. Men tend to be proud for having such a plaything, though they also are no lack of true feelings intheir heart. Compared with Alice, the beautiful Doar has a so naive, even stupid heart under the charming appearance. Even Doar herself felt the gap between her and Daivd, and hopes to become more Smarter. but David don't feel like，he only sees the beautiful of Doar.As to David, married is like a nightmare. In an atmosphere of psychedelic and not real, David is in confusion about whether he really likes her The wedding of them is a illusory and unreal fairy wedding. In some instence, this did not put love into the reality of marriage, but a man after hard thought, desire and work finally got a beautiful, delicate and very temptation treasure which meets his love for beautiful things and possess. When love is finally to the real life, Doar is still deeply in love with David, but it is more like a kind of childish love worship.As Dora herself said, therefore, she is just a " chidr wife". She is far from growing up, living in her own innocence, "or make life as her imagination, or simply turn a blind eye to life. It is ignorance, headstrong, and no mind of Dora which makes David disappointed again and again. But he was helpless to blame her. After all, she is a tender flowers which only gently caress. David, even give up these plans to make her learn housekeeping, and accepted her true nature. David feel dizzy, and can't suit the life after marriage. Their life is not happy, to be more precise, is incomplete, although he still love Doar, but from her there, David only feel the woman's beautify and true but didn't get the kind of happiness.He finally realized their marriage is the combination of wayward first mistake in inner impulse.This kind of love causes David wants to change Dora and Doar does not suit to the marriage life. Because of the kind of love lacks mutual understanding. On the one hand, Dora loves David and wants to do something for him, on the other hand, she could not suit this life as she is a “child wife”. Dora lived carefree life which her father gives, one of her close friends is the Miss Murdstone,the environment she lives make her could not have good contact with real life. Dora is sincere good, simple and stupid and she makes problems and errors in the life by careless. At the same time, David makes beautiful appearance instead of heart communication to satisficided himselt, and chose one who does not belong to the real world. Dora still needs someone to take care of her,but after marrage she had to go to play the role of a wife. Although Dora is ridiculous, but she also is the same she is the victim of the bad marriage. Dora has already found they are not suitable for each other and has repeatedly asked David if he likes her. Every time, David answered yes. It is he who put Dora and himself into the pain marriage step by step. Although we see from here that love based on passion and commitment is not last long, the intimacy component is really important in keeping the marriage relationship going, and enables them to get througt the hard times as well as the easy ones.3.3Love pattern of David and Agnes: companionate loveAgnes is Dav id‘s true love and second wife who is the daughter of Mr. Wickfield. The love between David and Emily represents the type of love –the partners feel close toeach other and supported each other. This kind of love consists of intimacy and commitment. It is a long-term, committed friendship, often occurred in marriages in which physical attraction has died down. The calm and gentle Agnes admires her father and David. She suffers patiently t hrough David‘s other romances, and although she loves David, she is not overcome by jealousy. Agnes always comforts David with kind words or advice when he needs support. David only to satisfed the desire for the female charm from Dora, and he also needs a mature auxiliary and adviser to live a happly life. Anges who is the childhood friend of David filled the vacancy in this field.Anges is on behalf of another kind of woman which men want to marriage: intelligent, gentle, housekeeper, full of rationality. When they were young kids, Anges would always help David when he meets problems and put forward the most beneficial advice to give the most useful help. When David fight with other people, she would came to help heal, and when David encounters difficulties, she would give the support to help overcome the diffuculties. Even when David fall in love with Dora, she was listening to him and shared his happiness. When David began to become abortion for the first time, she pointed out "evil". After David marriage, she blessed for him. She is one friend of Dora, and help her to look after their family. David often feels that there is "she... hanging in the body2.3.一种宁静的气息, 在她身上—一种安宁的, 善良的,4. A peaceful and tranquil atmosphere, on her body, a peaceful, kind,5.6.平静的神气。
