Joe Gargery In Charles Dickens 'Great Expectations'

It feels great to be respected because you are wealthy and can treating others poorly because they are in the lower social class. In Charles Dickens’ book, Great Expectation, he expresses that those with money are respected better than those who are poor. Dickens shows this with some of the characters in the story and based on your social standing, it is how you are treated. One of the characters that shows this well is Joe Gargery. He is a blacksmith, which in the Victorian Era, was in the lower social class. He is treated unfairly and is not treated like “one to have money,” meaning he is treated differently because he is not wealthy. Those who were wealthy, earned their respect because of their money, and without money Joe is not naturally

Joe is treated poorly and unfairly because he is not wealthy. Joe’s wife, Mrs. Gargery, who is violent and criticized Joe for being a blacksmith and lower class. She complains about how she is married to a blacksmith and feels the need to make herself feel worthy, “She made it a powerful merit in herself, and a strong approach against Joe, that she wore the apron so much” (Dickens 9). “Perhaps if i warn’t a blacksmith’s wife and (what’s the same thing) a slave with her apron never off, I should have been able to hear the Carols,’ said Mrs Joe (Dickens 26). These two quotes go along together well. They show that Joe’s wife treats him poorly because he is a blacksmith. She wears an apron to impress Joe and feel like she is worth it. She says how she could have heard the carols if she was not a blacksmith’s wife. Throughout the book she continues to criticize that Joe is a blacksmith and the fact that he is in the lower class, “It’s bad enough to be a blacksmith’s wife (and him a Gargery) without being your mother,” (Dickens 11). Mrs. Gargery keeps coming at Joe for being a blacksmith. Joe is a blacksmith and gets treated unfairly because of it and not being wealthy he does not get