Social Class In Charles Dickens Great Expectations And Untouchable

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Recommended: Characterisation in Great Expectations

Charles Dickens and Mulk Raj Anand both base their novels, Great Expectations and Untouchable, around the central theme of social class. The characters, Pip and Pundit, personalities go through some transformations as they are influenced by a range of characters they meet throughout the text. The authors use a range of literary techniques to convey the character’s values, beliefs and ideas throughout their novels. These literary techniques reveal to the readers that the characters’ attitudes towards high social class and wealth is what ultimately leads them to compromise their family for their own selfish values. This is suggested through the characters, various literary techniques and the use of narration/ dialogue.
At the start of the novel, the protagonists of Great Expectations and Untouchable are both uneducated and unaware of their social class, or even in the case of Pundit, that he belongs to a type of social class. Due to the fact that neither of the characters’ knows any better lifestyle, they are content with who they are and the life they know. Pundit “love[s] playing with the other street sweepers, [he] look[s] forward to it every day after his round” (page 12), through this use of dialogue Anand is suggesting that Pundit is content with his life and is happy even with the simplicity of being able to play with friends. Like Anand, Dickens uses dialogue to draw his reader’s attention to Pip’s delight when Mr Joe takes him to the beach to read. The authors intention was to highlight how happy Pip is in this moment as even though it is a simple thing to do it was always ”[Pip’s] favourite time of the week” (page 199). As the lives of the protagonists continue, they meet characters from both more sophisticated and subordi...

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.... [he] ha[s] disgrace[d] [himself]” (Anand, Page 177). These literary techniques cast a light upon how wealth can cause a person to change; in both novels, the authors convey that the wealthy should not be envied as their lives are no what they appear.
Great Expectations and Untouchable both reveal the authors dark attitudes towards social class. Through the use of literary techniques, the authors suggest that a high social class should not be valued over being content and happy. In Great Expectations, Pip eventually is able to perceive how his selfishness was affecting not only him, but his loved ones, causing him to understand what should be valued in life. Readers believe that Dickens overall message was that one cannot truly be happy unless one has a loving family to share experiences and opportunities with. Unlike Dickens, Anand’s ultimate message is that....

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