Last month, while working on the David Copperfield kit, I posted about how I hoped David wouldn’t choose silly Dora as his wife…  Well, he did and my disappointment was soon tempered by watching David learn how to manage an incompatible marriage.  I was secretly thrilled that Dickens had put the hero in this unfortunate, yet realistic situation — David chose Dora because of youth and inexperience, not realizing how our heart’s desires change and mature over time. 

Then… all of a sudden…  (warning: spoiler alert!) Dora contracted a deadly disease and died!  David was then free to marry again, this time happily.  Last week, working on the Middlemarch kit, a similar situation occured with Dorothea.  So, I started to wonder…  when is death a cop out?  Just because writers can conveniently kill off an unlikeable or problematic — to the other characters or to the writer — character, should they?  Even contemporary writers fall into this trap – in Water for Elephants two hopeless — and therefore interesting — characters with few if any choices are conveniently disposed of. 

Wouldn’t it be more interesting to watch David or Dorothea grapple with the mistakes of their youth and learn to endure, even rise above a difficult situation they chose for themselves in their impetuous youth?  Maybe I’m too much of a realist, but it always feels a bit like a cop-out when a difficult situation is resolved neatly through death.  Now, honestly, who wants to read Pride and Prejudice and see Elizabeth Bennet shackled with Wickham?!  Not me…  He certainly finds his match in Lydia, but if Lizzie had indeed chosen Wickham, then I would have patiently endured with her — at least until he was smashed under the hooves of his horse in the next chapter…

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