Barkis is willin’

“Barkis is willin’” is Mr. Barkis’s distinctive formula for declaring his desire to marry Clara Peggotty. Its significance develops through repetition: what first sounds like an oblique remark becomes a request for an answer, a phrase David Copperfield is enlisted to carry, and finally a last utterance before Mr. Barkis dies. The words make courtship indirect and almost comic, yet their return at the end gives them a weight beyond the practical message they first convey.

Meaning and First Explanation

Mr. Barkis explains the phrase to David when he complains that nothing has come of his message and that there has been no answer. David realizes that a reply was expected, and Mr. Barkis spells out the meaning: when a man says he is willing, he is waiting for an answer. The phrase therefore does more than announce a general readiness. In this conversation, it is a veiled proposal to Clara Peggotty, whose response Mr. Barkis hopes to receive.

The wording keeps the declaration at a distance. Mr. Barkis does not directly ask Clara to marry him; instead, he turns the statement into a kind of code and makes David the intermediary. That indirection gives the expression its humor, but also marks how carefully the request depends on a reply. Mr. Barkis’s repeated explanation that he has been waiting makes the silence itself part of the episode: the phrase has been spoken, but its intended exchange is not complete until Clara answers.

David as Messenger and the Courtship Signal

Mr. Barkis elaborates the tactic by imagining how David might explain it to Clara. David is to say that Barkis is waiting for an answer, and, if asked what the answer concerns, repeat the original formula. Mr. Barkis accompanies this “extremely artful suggestion” with an elbow nudge that gives David a stitch in his side. The physical nudge makes the scene’s teasing tone concrete: David is not merely hearing a proposition but being recruited, rather awkwardly, to help deliver it.

The phrase thus works as a portable message between the two adults, with David caught between its literal wording and its intended meaning. His response, “Well, Mr. Barkis?”, prompts the carrier to continue, while his earlier recognition that an answer was expected shows how the conversation changes his understanding. What had been a puzzling remark becomes legible as courtship. Mr. Barkis then writes “Clara Peggotty” in chalk inside the tilt of his cart, apparently as a private memorandum. The name turns the spoken hint into a written reminder, though he makes no further reference to the subject at that point.

Confirmation and Retrospective Echo

Later, Mr. Barkis confirms the proposal’s meaning by insisting that the willing party was “Barkis, and Barkis only.” He tells David that David helped make matters right in the first place and describes himself as David’s friend. This later clarification connects the earlier coded declaration to its outcome: the expression was not a vague catchphrase but Mr. Barkis’s own persistent offer, conveyed with David’s help.

The expression returns at a very different moment when Mr. Barkis is dying. After opening his eyes and seeing David, he tries to stretch out his arm and says distinctly, with a pleasant smile, “Barkis is willin'!” The phrase that once sought Clara Peggotty’s answer is now spoken at the end of his life. Its recurrence carries the earlier courtship scene into the deathbed scene without changing its words; context supplies the change in force. It recalls his marriage and affection even as the narration records that, at low water, he went out with the tide.

Narrative Function

Across these appearances, the phrase joins comic indirection to a more tender pattern of remembrance. At first, its repeated explanation and David’s role as messenger make it a small social puzzle: what is Mr. Barkis asking, and what answer does he want? Later confirmation resolves that uncertainty, while the chalked name preserves the connection between his private thought and Clara Peggotty. The final repetition gives the expression a closing function, recalling the proposal at the moment of death.

The phrase’s force depends on this contrast between stable wording and altered circumstances. It remains Mr. Barkis’s declaration of willingness, but its first use looks forward to a reply and marriage, while its last is followed by his death. By returning to the same words rather than introducing a new farewell, the narrative makes a modest courtship signal serve as a compact recollection of a relationship and a final marker of its loss.