Kyle Lim
Daniel
English 4 AS
4/8/14
Discovering a Gentleman
The famous American comedian, Groucho Marx once said, “While money cannot buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own form of misery.” Marx believes that money will be the downfall of society because it is corrupt and creates individuals’ own different forms of misery. Throughout the book Great Expectations, Dickens repeatedly shows characters not pleased with their life because money has taken over them and has ‘chosen’ their own misery. Furthermore, Dickens uses Miss Havisham, Pip, and Joe Gargery to show how he develops his characters to define what a true gentleman is which proves how wealth that one inherits oftentimes leads to corruption and discontent in life.
When Ms. Havisham inherited money at a young age, she did not have to work anymore; therefore, she could do whatever she wanted, but it lead to a very sad and corrupted life. At a young age, Pip sees Ms. Havisham, “as an immensely rich and grim lady who lived in a large and dismal house barricaded against robbers, and who led a life of seclusion (53)." A mansion conveys that the owner is ‘immensely rich’ and usually contains all the materials a person may want in life, which can lead to happiness. Ms. Havisham inherited her wealth from her father, and has spent her days ‘barricaded’ inside the Satis House, ‘secluded’ from the outside world, showing that she is isolating herself from reality, leading to corruption. Her house, Satis House, which means enough house, implies that Ms. Havisham should be happy and completely content with her life, but she is not. Therefore, material and inherited money do not completely satisfy an individual or account for contentment. When Pip enters Ms. Havisham’s r...
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...This is why Joe pays the debt because he cares about the ones who make his life special. He uses his own money he has because money means nothing to him, and he rather have Pip in his forge.
In conclusion, Charles Dickens develops different characters to create an image of a true gentleman that proves how inherited money usually leads to corruption and discontent in life. All of the characters: Miss Havisham, Pip, and Joe Gargery finally learned what a gentleman is, even if they all had different events happen to them. People often use their money to buy clothes or toys at stores, but there is never a store that sells happiness. Happiness cannot be bought, but it is created by reliable and friendly people who have always been loyal and trustworthy to their friends. Money cannot create happiness; only the individual can determine their contentment with their lives.
As a young child living in England’s marshes, Pip was a humble, kind, and gentle character. He lived an impoverished life with his sister, Mrs. Joe, and her husband, Joe Gargery, the neighborhood blacksmith. Pip was grateful for everything he had, including his few possessions and his family’s care. When he was offered the chance to play at The Satis House, the home of the wealthy Miss Havisham, Pip went in order to make his family happy.
eyes of a child so it will be memorable to him as he will never forget
(Dickens 47). This displays how Havisham does not appear that she could even smile if she tried to, proving her sorrow. This is significant because it shows despite being a wealthy elite, Havisham is still depressed. This proves that material things, such as money do not bring happiness. A second example of this theme could be shown by Joe.
Here, Dickens focuses on the word “suffering”, to reinforce the idea that being wealthy, which is related to being better than other, a materialistic view of society is not what gives happiness, but the surroundings and
Charles Dickens utilizes his life for inspiration for the protagonist Pip in his novel Great Expectations. They both struggle with their social standing. Dickens loved plays and theatre and therefore incorporated them into Pip’s life. Dickens died happy in the middle class and Pip died happy in the middle class. The connection Dickens makes with his life to Pip’s life is undeniable. If readers understand Dickens and his upbringing then readers can understand how and why he created Pip’s upbringing. Charles Dickens’ life, full of highs and lows, mirrors that of Pip’s life. Their lives began the same and ended the same. To understand the difficulty of Dickens’ childhood is to understand why his writing focuses on the English social structure. Dickens’ life revolved around social standing. He was born in the lower class but wasn’t miserable. After his father fell into tremendous debt he was forced into work at a young age. He had to work his way to a higher social standing. Because of Dicken’s constant fighting of class the English social structure is buried beneath the surface in nearly all of his writings. In Great Expectations Pip’s life mirrors Dickens’ in the start of low class and the rise to a comfortable life. Fortunately for Dickens, he does not fall again as Pip does. However, Pip and Dickens both end up in a stable social standing.
Our Mutual Friend, Dickens' last novel, exposes the reality Dickens is surrounded by in his life in Victorian England. The novel heavily displays the corruption of society through multiple examples. These examples, that are planted within the novel, relate to both the society in Dickens' writing and his reality. In order to properly portray the fraud taking place within his novels, Dickens' uses morality in his universe to compare to the reality of society. He repetitively references to the change of mind and soul for both the better and the worst. He speaks of the change of heart when poisoned by wealth, and he connects this disease to the balance of the rich and the poor. This is another major factor to novel, where the plot is surrounded by a social hierarchy that condemns the poor to a life of misery, and yet, condones any action that would normally be seen as immoral when it occurs in the aristocracy. It expands on the idea that only an education and inheritance will bring success in society, with few exceptions. Lastly, Dickens expands his opinions of society through his mockery of ...
The novel, Great Expectations, presents the story of a young boy growing up and becoming a
In the novel Great Expectations, Charles Dickens conveys that wealth leads to isolation. The charecterization suggests that money causes people to isolate themselves from the people and places before they had money. When Pip went to visit Miss Havisham and Estella he begins to realize that his apprenticeship is not as great as he thought it was. He begins to hate being brought up in the forge and wishes that “Joe had been rather more genteelly brought up, and then I should have been so too”(Dickins 74). Over the course of some time Pip grows further and further away from the reality of his life at the forge.
In his numerous literary works, Dickens strong sense of right and wrong, and his recognition of the many injustices present in Victorian Society are clearly displayed. There is no better an example of these strong set of ideals then those portrayed in his novel, Great Expectations, which tells the story of Pip, a young boy who is initially fooled into believing that material wealth is a substitute for the real moral values a gentleman should posses. However, through the many trials and tribulations he is forced to go through, he is finally able to identify what it means to be a "true gentleman", one that has acquired true wealth and value. It is only then that he is able to see the real meaning behind Matthew Pocket’s wise words, that:
The Forge was a place of harmony and safety, and had the loving mood for Pip. However, as he became a gentleman, he made the decision of abandoning Biddy and Joe. This transformed the Forge into a place with a heavy atmosphere that represents guilt and shame for Pip and reminds him of his selfish decisions. When he goes there, he feels guilt, and Biddy’s attitude towards him changed, in that he calls him Mr. Pip and is less personal with him. Pip’s mentality also changed with London’s mood and influence as he now thinks money is the solution to most problems.
Charles Dickens’ aptly titled novel Great Expectations focuses on the journey of the stories chief protagonist, Pip, to fulfill the expectations of his life that have been set for him by external forces. The fusing of the seemingly unattainable aspects of high society and upper class, coupled with Pip’s insatiable desire to reach such status, drives him to realize these expectations that have been prescribed for him. The encompassing desire that he feels stems from his experiences with Mrs. Havisham and the unbridled passion that he feels for Estella. Pip realizes that due to the society-imposed caste system that he is trapped in, he will never be able to acquire Estella’s love working as a lowly blacksmith at the forge. The gloomy realizations that Pip is undergoing cause him to categorically despise everything about himself, feeling ashamed for the life he is living when illuminated by the throngs of the upper class.
“We spent as much money as we could, and got as little for it as people could make up their minds to give us. We were always more or less miserable... There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did ” (Dickens 291). Many people believe that having money automatically gives happiness. However, reality has proven that money only ever allows people to choose a form of misery. Flawlessly, Dickens creates a novel that utterly captures this theme. Great Expectations expresses the theme “money does not bring happiness”; Dickens perfectly demonstrates this idea through the eccentric Miss Havisham and the self-centered Mr. Jaggers.
Starting out straight from the beginning of Pip's life he is already in pain from losing his parents. He then must live with his older sister Ms.Joe who puts him through a great deal of torture during his childhood. Such as when he went to the graveyard without her approval, she filled his mouth with tarred water just to prove a point to him. Not only was it Ms.Joe though, but the convict as well who put the dark image in his head of the certain someone who would come to kill him if he didn't bring him what he wanted which Pip eventually could not stop being concerned about after he came back from the graveyard. Once Pip starts to visit Miss Havisham though it is obvious the way she has designed the Satis House is in such a low, dark, depressing emotion because of the experiences she's had to suffer during her past. Miss Havisham's suffering has defined her character though. "Miss Havisham herself, of course, is the big victim of the novel, abandoned on her wedding day ...
In contrast to Pip, Salinger showed Holden’s family as fairly well off; “My father’s quite wealthy, though. I don’t know how much he makes- he’s never discussed that stuff with me- but I imagine quite a lot” (Salinger 107). Through the usage of an indifferent tone, Salinger illustrated how many youths seemed reluctant to care about money in his own society. Holden continuously spent a fortune on petty things instead of using it for important matters. His indifference towards wealth showed the mindset of many teens during the time and also how easily one spent his or her life away. In contrast to Holden, who lived in a well-off society, Pip came from a fairly low class area. After the introduction to wealth, Dickens expressed the lust many people held for the higher social classes and also for the material “property” they held: “I felt more than ever dissatisfied with my home and with my trade and with everything” (Dickens 110). Pip easily forgot his first happiness with Joe and began to mourn for the wealth and beauty Miss Havisham and Estella held. Dickens used the relationship between Pip and Estella to show how easily people forgot their ideals and love in the face of wealth. Even children became enraptured in the lust for material wealth in society. Both
Throughout the novel, the author explores the class system of Victorian England, ranging from the criminal Magwitch, to the poor peasants Joes and Biddy, to the middle class of Pumblechook, and finally to the rich Miss Havisham. This theme, being the procedure that people where categorized into classes, is essential throughout the story, since Pip realizes that wealth and class are less significant than affection, loyalty, and inner worth. The most important fact to be remembered about the post-industrial revolution class system is that Dickens ignores the nobility and aristocracy in favor of the main theme of this novel: ambition.