How Does Charles Dickens Present Social Injustice

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Caroline Black Social Injustice in Great Expectations
Period 6 AP English IV
Princeton High School

Focus Question: How does Charles Dickens employ the concepts of appearance, income, and education to highlight social injustice during the Victorian era?

Dating back to Britain’s early history, social disparities have been appallingly obvious. Eighteenth-century Great Britain was characterized by social and economic change, which elevated a small minority and relegated many more. Charles Dickens, a prolific novelist and social critic, used his works to comment moral, social, and economic offenses of Victorian England. As a child, Dickens experienced the disillusionment of being a second-rate citizen. Arrestor as a
Magwitch’s appearance had a “savage air that no dress could tame” (Dickens, 336). His visage was sharp and dark. Compeyson is propped up in the eyes of the court because of his softer appearance and more clean-cut look before the jury. Despite the two committing the same crime, Compeyson receives a lesser prison sentence than Magwitch. Nicolas C. Mills, who wrote the paper, “Social and Moral Vision in Great Expectations and Huckleberry Finn,” argued that “Rather than being considered the victim of society, he is punished for his unsavoury background and poor appearance.” He categorized this as a classic case of “open class prejudice” (Mills, 68). Likewise, ““An important element at the root of Magwitch's [portrayal] is great social evil: the evil of poverty, and the evil of a corruptible judicial system” (Hagan, 171). Magwitch may be guilty of his crimes and deserving of punishment, but the injustice of his impoverished circumstances undoubtedly led him to a life of crime. The judicial system, in its imbalance of treatment, cannot be deemed valid in this scenario. Because of social preferences of outward appearance, members of a superior class of society tream both Pip and Magwitch
As an orphaned child, Pip receives almost no formal schooling. It is not until his “great expectation” of wealth, that he begins to train for his status as a “gentleman,” through schooling, with the Pockets. The ability to read, alone, distinguishes the literate into a higher social class. Author of the paper ”‘Reading’ in Great Expectations” examines that in Great Expectations, “the dimensions of education are reduced to a single theme, that of learning to read” (Byrd). Byrd argues that literacy and gentlemanhood go hand-in-hand with one another. For example, Jagger’s proposal for Pip to be his guardian and for Pip to become a gentleman is conditional on his schooling. “ It is considered that you must be better educated, in accordance with your altered position,” Jaggers said to Pip during their first encounter at the ‘Jolly Bargeman’. “You will be alive to the importance and necessity of at once entering on that advantage” (Dickens, 139). Here, Jaggers acknowledges that knowledge is an aspect of higher society. Until now, Pip has been poorly schooled by Mrs. Wopsle and from spending time with a learned young woman, Biddy. Like Joe, Pip had been put to work far too young and is hardly literate, an ability which was not necessary for his trade. Dickens calls attention to the injustice of the circumstance that the working class is undereducated

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