Mrs. Creakle, The Creakle Children and Sophy Crawler - Characters, David Copperfield | David Copperfield - Summary, Themes & Characters - Novels PDF Download

MRS. CREAKLE

Mr. Creakle's abusive sadism isn't limited to the boys in his school. He is also an absolute tyrant in his home life. Mrs. Creakle is terrified of him, which further emphasizes Mr. Creakle's vicious character. Although Mrs. Creakle barely appears in the novel, she does have one major role: she is the one who tells David that his mother as passed away. Mrs. Creakle lets David stay with her to cope with the shock until they can arrange for him to travel back home to Blunderstone for the funeral.

THE CREAKLE CHILDREN

Miss Creakle is Mr. Creakle's daughter, and like Mrs. Creakle, she appears to be terrified of the man. There are rumors that she is in love with Steerforth (though this may well be invented because the boys admire Steerforth so much). There are also rumors that she has a brother who Mr. Creakle booted out of the house for protesting Mr. Creakle's abuse of his wife, but we never actually see this son. Still, Mr. Creakle does at one point mention someone who has been hanging around the school – perhaps the now-disowned son of Mr. Creakle.

SOPHY CREWLER

Sophy is Traddles's beloved fiancée. She is so patient, caring, and hard-working that her family cannot bear to part with her. They seem positively to resent Traddles for getting engaged to their Sophy and, eventually, taking her away. Like Agnes, Sophy Crewler is a fabulous homemaker. When she and Traddles eventually marry, she bears him children and makes their house happy and comfortable. She also supports him in his work: she copies out his law documents with a firm hand. (We can compare this kind of professional support with Dora's well-meaning but rather pathetic self-appointed task of holding David's pens for him while he writes.)