Betsey Trotwood
David's fierce great-aunt at Dover. She walks out on his birth because he is a boy, and takes him in ten years later.
She wants to protect the people she has decided are hers, and to keep donkeys off her grass.
The book
David Copperfield
Charles Dickens
Who they are in the book
Spoiler-freeBetsey Trotwood is abrupt, generous and at war with donkeys. She is also the adult in the book who does the most to rescue David.
How Betsey Trotwood Is Portrayed
- Expecting a girlIn Chapter 1 she arrives on the night of David's birth, announces the baby will be a girl called Betsey Trotwood Copperfield, and leaves when she is told it is a boy.
- Janet! Donkeys!In Chapter 13 she keeps rushing out of the house at Dover, shouting for her servant Janet, to drive donkey riders off the patch of grass in front of her cottage.
- Asking Mr DickIn Chapter 13 she asks her lodger Mr Dick what she should do with the ragged boy on her sofa. He considers, and says he should wash him.
- Facing the MurdstonesIn Chapter 14 she refuses to hand David back to the Murdstones and tells them exactly what she thinks of them. Then she renames him Trotwood Copperfield.
- RuinedIn Chapter 34 she turns up at David's London rooms surrounded by luggage, with her two birds and her cat, and tells him she is ruined.
- My property!In Chapter 52, when Micawber exposes Heep, she seizes Uriah by the collar with both hands and demands her property back.
Betsey Trotwood quotes
Janet! Donkeys!
In the last chapter she is godmother to a real, living Betsey Trotwood, David and Agnes's daughter.
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