Editing David Copperfield (section)

====The exception of Rosa Dartle====
John O. Jordan devotes two pages to this woman, also "lost", though never having sinned.<ref>{{harvnb|Jordan|2001|pp=130–131}}</ref> The sanctification of the Victorian home, he says, depends on the opposition between two [[stereotypes]], the "angel" and the "whore". Dickens denounced this restrictive dichotomy by portraying women "in between". Such is Rosa Dartle, passionate being, with the inextinguishable resentment of having been betrayed by Steerforth, a wound that is symbolised by the vibrant scar on her lip. Never does she allow herself to be assimilated by the dominant morality, refusing tooth and nail to put on the habit of the ideal woman. Avenger to the end, she wants the death of Little Emily, both the new conquest and victim of the same predator, and has only contempt for the efforts of David to minimize the scope of his words. As virtuous as anyone else, she claims, especially that Emily, she does not recognize any ideal family, each being moulded in the manner of its social class, nor any affiliation as a woman: she is Rosa Dartle, in herself.<ref>{{harvnb|Jordan|2001|p=130}}</ref>

David's vision, on the other hand, is marked by class consciousness: for him, Rosa, emaciated and ardent at the same time, as if there were incompatibility (chapter 20), is a being apart, half human, half animal, like the lynx, with its inquisitive forehead, always on the look out (chapter 29), which consumes an inner fire reflected in the gaunt eyes of the dead of which only this flame remains (chapter 20). In reality, says Jordan, it is impossible for David to understand or even imagine any sexual tension, especially that which governs the relationship between Rosa and Steerforth, which, in a way, reassures his own innocence and protects what he calls his "candour" – frankness or [[angelism]]? – his story. Also, Rosa Dartle's irreducible and angry marginality represents a mysterious threat to his comfortable and reassuring domestic ideology.<ref>{{harvnb|Jordan|2001|p=131}}</ref>