Great Expectations by Charles Dickens is much more than a story about a boy who falls in love with the idea of a part of the being upper class, it is about the faults Dickens sees in upper class society. During the time this novel took place, (the 1800s), the behaviors of the upper class were much more strict and conservative than they are now. Men and women were expected to have thorough educations and behave appropriately in social situations. Throughout the novel, Dickens uses satire and his knowledge of social classes to emphasize his feelings of the upper, middle, and lower class. By portraying Pip as a young boy in the lower class who works with upper class people every day, the novel conveys the marxist lens of social classes that we see in our everyday life. With the elements of the class system and Pip’s development, Charles Dickens expresses how the ignorance of the upper class affects how people portray themselves and all that matters is the character of the person.
In the start of the novel, Pip is just a young boy in the lower class who does not know much about social classes. He lives with his sister, who is called Mrs. Joe, and her husband, Joe, in the town of Kent in London. This book is actually one of Dickens’s more autobiographical ones; he is essentially Pip in this case (Bloom). Dickens considered himself too good for his surroundings, worked at a job he hated, and lived in a marsh country just like Pip does in this novel (Bloom). With all the adventures and life lessons Pip goes through, his climb from a poor country boy to a gentleman helps him make the change from one social class to another while still following the “rules” of society in England. All he wants in life is to become a gentleman, mostly so ...
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...d have never become a real gentleman with the proper education and may never have become such a well-rounded individual; “It is not possible to know how far the influence of any amiable, honest-hearted duty-doing man flies out into the world, but it is very possible to know how it has touched one's self in going by”(514). Pip’s transformation is a really good one because he now understands how everything really works in society and that not everyone can get by with anything just because they are higher up in society.
Works Cited
Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. Novel.
Bloom, Harold. "Google Books". N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.
Friedman, Stanely.. "Estella's Parentage and Pip's Persistence." Studies In the Novel. Vol.19, No. 4, winter 1987.
Web. 18 Nov. 2013.
Shrimpton, Nicholas. "Dickens's Muscular Novel." Ebsco. N.p., June 2012. Web.
Often, people are influenced to change their behavior or personality in different settings and situations. Pip, the main character in Charles Dickens Great Expectations, was no exception.
Throughout the novel Great Expectations, Pip's character and personality goes through some transformations. He is somewhat similar at the beginning and end, but very different while growing up. He is influenced by many characters, but two in particular:Estella and Magwitch, the convict from the marshes. Some things that cause strength or growth in a person are responsibility, discipline, and surrounding oneself around people who are challenging and inspiring. He goes through many changes some good and some bad
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.
The settings of Great Expectations are Pip’s homes, one home that he lives in during his childhood in Kent, England, and the other that he lives in when he is grown in London, England. Social status was a big deal in the mid-nineteenth century. The rich were highly respected and liked by all, and the poor were treated unkindly and were sometimes made fun of. The rich could have any job that they liked, but the poor would almost always take over the job that their father had. The narrator of Great Expectations is Pip. If the novel were narrated from any other point of view, it would not have the same effect as it does now.
influenced by various people. Pip experiences tough times as a boy and a young man, but at the end he has
In the novel, Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens the principal character, Pip, undergoes a tremendous change in character. I would like to explore with you the major incidents in Pip’s childhood that contribute to his change from an innocent child to someone consumed by false values and snobbery.
Great Expectations is essentially a novel of the education of a young man in the lesson of life. Pip is analyzing himself through his memories and from the point of view of maturity (“Charles Dickens” 1).
Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens is a fascinating tale of love and fortune. The main character, Pip, is a dynamic character who undergoes many changes through the course of the book. Throughout this analysis the character, Pip will be identified and his gradual change through the story will be surveyed.
Significantly Pip's life as a gentleman is no more satisfying--and certainly no more moral--than his previous life as a blacksmith's apprentice. Pip's desires for educational improvement have deep connections to his social ambition and longing to marry Estella: a full education is a requirement of being a gentleman so he thinks. As long as he is an ignorant country boy, he has no hope of social advancement. Pip understands this fact as a child, when he learns to read at Mr.
...ntation of the distinctions between the social classes. Dickens uses Pip’s relationships with Estella, Joe, and Magwitch to show how the lower class is judged by social status or appearances, instead of morals and values. The lower class is looked down upon and taken advantage of the upper class, and this is prevalent in the novel Great Expectations.
“I suppose I really seemed mad, then; but it was only through the awfulness of having said nothing but the truth, and being thought to be deluded.” ―Sarah Waters, Fingers. In the novel, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Dickens portrays Pip as a poor boy who, as the novel progresses, aspires to become a gentleman, but as Pip starts to obtain “great expectations” he realizes that almost everything he once had starts to disappear. Furthermore, Dickens explores how having great expectations can lead to disillusions and manipulations.
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:
In a lot of ways, the nineteenth Century depicted in Great Expectations is epitomic of the particular period. A lot of societal aspects correlate with the events in the book and especially the dynamical structure of the society. And even though the picture most people have of a Victorian society is set up in different compartments and highly contrasted one, the actualities of the time speak of an England adapting to industry and the ideals of the Enlightenment period. Dickens’ treatment of England at the time “is based on the post-Industrial Revolution model of Victorian England” (Google Scholar). He ignores the aristocratic air associated with it and instead pursues a standpoint focused on commerce. Still and all, we get the sense of how pivotal, or rather, central, this notion of compartments is to the plot of the story, especially with regard to social class. And this leads to the point; the class system of the nineteenth century. Unlike modern England and the modern world, generally, the earlier 19th century version had more defined social classes because values and beliefs about what made people who they were had, just like the physical structures, been morphing in comparison.
At the start of the novel, Pip is a poor uneducated orphan boy unaware of social classes, or even the existence of such things. As a result, he is content with what he has and who he knows. Moving on in life, he comes across new people from all spectrums of social classes, and his content turns to shame and greed, as he longs to be “better”. All of a sudden Pip becomes ashamed of both his family and his social class. As Pip begins to understand the true meaning of life, his childish attitude does however change. “Pip learns as he grows older, however, that having money and power and being of a higher social class is not necessarily better than having true friends that care about him - even if they are of a lower social class” (Bloom, “Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations” 236). As the aforementioned quote suggests, in the final stages of the story Pip’s mindset changes for the better and Pip is able to give up having the “money and the power” and focuses ...
The Following essay will examine how class is represented in the novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. Both in this novel and many others, which are based around the time of the 1800’s, class is a major part of life which in turn made your life’s path completely dependent on what class or background you were brought up in. This was majorly the case in Great Expectations and especially in the life of Pip. After reading Great Expectations there are many arguments