Multiple Moral Dilemmas In Great Expectations By Charles Dickens

It is said that there has never been a perfect writer and no one has ever written a perfect novel, except for Charles Dickens. Throughout his life, Charles Dickens built a strong reputation as a writer due to the careful and diligent care he pays to his characters. Dicken’s created caricatures of the people he saw in society. Many of these caricatures are still visible in modern society due to sharing similar circumstances. As a master novelist, Dickens seemingly created one of his greatest novels “Great Expectations” as a philosophical study.

Charles Dickens published the novel Great Expectations in weekly volumes of his All the Year Round weekly throughout 1860 and 1861. The novel features an individual named Phillip Pirrip (Pip). The author follows the life of the protagonist from his early childhood years throughout his life.

Through Great Expectations, Dickens illustrates multiple moral dilemmas faced by his protagonist Pip. It seems that Dickens alludes to the fact that some solutions illustrated in the novel was not correct or could’ve been better and opens up the

Pip wants to be a member of the rural working world with his sister and brother-in-law but can’t accept it because it essentially ignores the modern world. Additionally, Pip wants to stay with his family but also wants to pursue “higher goals” and believes that he is destined for greater. He also wants to be part of the aristocracy like Miss Havisham and Estella but finds that he is incapable of replicating their emotional coldness. His understanding and compassion prevents him from becoming a capitalist exploiting the working class and he doesn’t want to be thrown into the chaotic realm of the urban lower class because they have little say in their status and what they do. Pip also feels guilty for pursuing his dream of becoming a gentleman and leaving his family and friends in the working class