Blood and Choice: Reconstructing the Marriage Plot in David Copperfield and Iola Leroy

Using the exemplary pair of Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield from a recent Dickens Universe conference, and Frances E.W. Harper’s Iola Leroy, this article explores what it might mean to read two novels from different traditions “together.” After identifying models of “togetherness” from comparison to what she calls “defamiliarization,” Michie looks at how both novels defamiliarize the traditional (white, female-centered) marriage plot. While David Copperfield challenges the neat binary structure of the white female marriage plot, Iola Leroy, with its representation of the violence of slavery, offers a counter-structure that questions the plot’s dependence on virginity, individuality, and choice.