The love for her father continues to grow, and her level of maturity remains high, as she risks marrying the despising antagonist, Uriah Heep. Uriah is left with much of Mr. Wickfield’s business due to his drinking problem, and David is aware of the evil behind Uriah Heep, but Agnes solicits him not to interfere: “Don’t repel him. Don’t resent (as I think you have a general disposition to do) what may be uncongenial to you in him. He may not deserve it, for we know no certain ill of him. In any case, think first of papa and me!” (Dickens 378). Once again, Agnes puts others before herself, in order to avoid risking any loss of her father’s reputation. Agnes shows how self-sacrificing she is by being willing to allow Uriah to continue forcing …show more content…
Regardless if deep down she is jealous of David and his relationship with Em’ly or Dora, she has a great way of bottling up these feelings and keeping them to herself. Once again, this goes to show readers how strong of a woman and how mature Agnes is over Dora.
Agnes remains self-sacrificing throughout the novel as she has loved David this entire time. Soon after the death of Dora, David admits his love for Agnes:
Dearest Agnes! Whom I so respect and honor—whom I so devotedly love! When I came here to-day, I thought that nothing could have wrested this confession from me. I thought I could have kept it in my bosom all over lives, till we were old. But, Agnes, if I have indeed any new-born hope that I may ever call you something more than Sister, widely different from Sister!—” (Dickens 866-7)
David describes Agnes as his “guide and best support” and continues to profess his love even more by stating: “I went away, dear Agnes, loving you. I stayed away, loving you. I returned home, loving you!” (Dickens 867). Agnes then confesses her secret that she has kept all these years from David: “I have loved you all my life!” (Dickens 868). Agnes was given the opportunity to express her true and utmost emotions to David and she finally opened herself up to him when the timing was …show more content…
Dora remains kindhearted and speaks highly of Agnes; she views Agnes as an adult and woman. Within their “love triangle,” Agnes continues to illustrate her maturity by sympathizing with Dora, as his fiancée: “And how she spoke to me of Dora, sitting at the window in the dark; listened to my praises of her; praised again; and round the little fairy-figure shed some glimpses of her own pure light, that made it yet more precious and more innocent to me! Oh, Agnes, sister of my boyhood, if I had known then, what I knew long afterwards!—” (Dickens 525). It appears that Agnes sheds light from her own “Angel-halo” onto Dora while Dora is on her deathbed at the moment of David’s most intense love for Agnes: “And O, Agnes, even out of thy true eyes, in that same time, the spirit of my child-wife looked upon me, saying it was well; and winning me, through thee, to tenderest recollections of the Blossom that had withered in its bloom!” (Dickens 867). The light that Agnes sheds on Dora is returned back to Agnes, as she continues to be David’s “good Angel” in