In Great Expectations, Pip changed his social class immensely. Pip did not understand how a poor family could be happy. Pip thought that social class was everything in life. He also thought that money was very important. In reality, it turns out that money and social rank do not matter in life. What really matters is being connected and having relationships with family and friends. Pip finds that out the hard way. In Great Expectations, Pip is exposed to many different social classes, he acts very differently, he finds out how lonely he becomes, and how family and friends mean everything in life.
Early in life, Pip grew up in a poor and kind of lower class family. As a young child, Pip did not understand how poor people could be so happy without a lot of money. He did not understand how his family was not content with the social class his family is positioned in. When Pip travels to London in the novel, he finds out what a higher class rank is like. Pip wants something enhanced for him in the story than just being Joe’s trainee. That is the whole rationale of why Pip goes to London in the Novel. Pip wants a lot of money and a high rank in social class. Pip has greater expectations for himself; he believes that if he can make a living by escaping the bottom level social caste system he will find prosperity, happiness, and the love of the beautiful Estella. When he leaves Biddy and Joe in the novel, he was sad because Joe and he are really great friends in the novel.
Pip becomes cold-hearted and reserved from his true family once he is exposed to his new life in London. When Joe visits Pip in the novel, Pip is very unkind toward Joe, hurting his feelings. Joe realizes how insolent Pip has become and, although Pip is disres...
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...he novel. When he finds out what he wants, it is too late because Biddy is getting married to Joe. Social class and money made Pip a very lonely man by the end of the novel. He accomplishes everything he works for in London, but everything that he had hoped with Estella did not work out. Life is not just about social class and money. It is about having a loving family and loving friends who support what you do in anything you want to do in life.
Works Cited
Dickens, Charles. “Chapter 8.” Great Expectations. New York: Bantam Books, 1986. 64. Print.
Dickens, Charles. “Chapter 27.” Great Expectations. New York: Bantam Books, 1986. 229. Print.
Dickens, Charles. “Chapter 22.” Great Expectations. New York: Bantam Books, 1986. 186. Print.
Dickens, Charles. “Chapter 58.” Great Expectations. New York: Bantam Books, 1986. 509. Print.
At the start of the novel, Pip is very low educated and unaware of his social class , or even that he belongs to a social class. Because he does not know of any "better" lifestyle, Pip is content with what he has and who he knows. As life goes on, he meets new people from both higher and lower social classes and his content turns to greed and shame, as he immediately longs to be better educated. He is suddenly ashamed of his family and origins. Pip learns as he grows older, however, that having mone...
Pip and Joe had a close personal relationship, possibly because they were said to be both “Brought up by hand” (Dickens, 6). Pip’s guardians brought him up to know the difference between right and wrong. After doing wrong Pip often feels guilty and shameful which is a trait of Pip’s throughout the novel. Pip first felt shameful after stealing food for Wheatley-3 The escaped convict.
As Pip grows throughout the novel, he develops and matures from a young boy that doesn’t know what to do to a young man who has a great outlook on life. In the first stage of Pip's life he is young and does not understand what it means to be a gentleman and how it can affect his life. During the first stage of Pips life, he only wants 3 things. He wants education, wealth, and social advancement. These three wishes are mostly so he can impress Estella, who is the symbol of this first stage. Pip does not want to be just a blacksmith like Joe. He wants to be intelligent and considered a person of high importance. At the end of this stage he moves to London and begins to have a different outlook on his future.
First, Pip has great expectations Joe. At the beginning of the novel, Pip expects Joe to be a fatherly figure, and protect him from Mrs. Joe and Pip "looking up to Joe in [his] heart" (Dickens 86). Joe and Pip are friends and rely on one another to survive their home life by warning one another when Mrs. Joe "went on the rampage" [173]. However, after Pip receives his benefactor and money, he expects Joe to be a different person than himself. He expects Joe, like himself, overnight, to go from "being co...
In the opening of the novel, Pip encounters the convict who was in dire need of help. Pip, innocent and unexposed at the time, did the right thing and helped the dangerous stranger. As he scales the steep cliffs towards gentility, however, his innocence and rectitude fades. The hustle and bustle of London transforms Pip into conceited, shameful, snob. "Let me confess exactly with what feelings I looked forward to Joe’s coming.
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 ...
influenced by various people. Pip experiences tough times as a boy and a young man, but at the end he has
Not only does Pip treat Joe differently, Joe also treats Pip differently because of their differences in social class. He begins to call Pip "sir" which bothered him because "sir" was the title given to people of higher class. Pip felt that they were still good friends and that they should treat each other as equals. Joe soon leaves and explains his early parting, "Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings welded together, as I may say, and one man's a blacksmith, and one's a whitesmith, and one's a goldsmith, and one's a coppersmith. Disciples among such must come.."
Overall, Pip transforms morally throughout the book by realizing the limitations to fortune, the truly transcendental nature of social class, and understanding the balance of self-interest and consideration essential to a good life. Some may argue that this is no longer relevant, as the world has come to transcend social class. However, the reality is that money is still a symbol of worthiness. It is not until wealth and nobility are separated that true progress can take place in the world.
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
The main character, Pip, is a gentle character. His traits include humbleness, kindness, and lovingness. These traits are most likely the cause of his childhood poverty. In the beginning of the story, Pip is a mild mannered little boy who goes on with his own humble life. That, though, will change as he meets Magwich, a thief and future benefactor. Pip’s kindness goes out to help the convict, Magwich when he gives food and clothing to him. Magwich tells Pip that he’ll never forget his kindness and will remember Pip always and forever. This is the beginning of Pip’s dynamic change. Throughout the novel, Great Expectations, the character, Pip gradually changes from a kind and humble character to a character that is bitter, then snobbish and finally evolves into the kind and loving character which he was at the beginning of the story.
While living in the Satis Mansion, Pip begins to realize how different he is from the people living inside of it. Pip reflects, "I took the opportunity of being alone in the court-yard to look at my coarse hands and my common boots. My opinion of those accessories was not favourable. They had never troubled me before, but they troubled me now, as vulgar appendages" (102). This quote specifically proves that Pip is ashamed of appearance. He had not once thought about himself as common but looking at himself and seeing his "common boots" impacted him. Pip seems almost angry at himself for the way he dresses. He compares his boots to "vulgar appendages" that he is embarrassed of. Pip 's image does not meet the standards of the higher class. When Pip receives news that Joe, his former best friend, is coming into town he is not excited. As he is becoming accustomed to the high society he is living, Pip only thinks of himself. Pip thinks, “Not with pleasure, though I was bound to him by so many ties; no; with considerable disturbance, some mortification, and a keen sense of incongruity. If I could have kept him away by paying money, I certainly would have paid money” (285). Pip 's thoughts depict how his great expectations made him superficial. Rather than spending time with someone who raised him, Pip worries about Joe 's commonality staining his upperclass image. Pip 's "mortification" of Joe was so strong he "would have paid money" to keep him from coming to London. This verfies that Pip 's social class is more important than family, whom he once loved and cared so deeply for. Towards the end of the novel, Pip 's ambition to be an upperclassmen becomes less important to him when he it is revealed that Magwitch, the convict, is his benefactor. Pip
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.
Pip encounters all of the influential people in his life during his childhood. The first and most obvious are his family. Mrs. Joe and Joe Gargery, Pip’s sister and brother-in-law, are the only family that Pip has ever known. Mrs. Joe Gargery is Joe’s wife and Pip’s only living relative. She is a very domineering woman who is always punishing Pip for something. Joe is like a father to Pip, who goes to Joe with all of his problems and worries. They are always truthful with each other and protect each other from Mrs. Joe when she is on the rampage. Despite the fact that Joe is an adult, he is also Pip’s only real friend during his childhood. Joe is the most loyal person in Pip’s life.
The most important theme throughout the book can be said to be ambition and self-improvement. Pip at heart is an idealist; whenever he is convinced that something is superior to what he has, he immediately desires to obtain that improvement. This is best illustrated when he sees Satis house, which puts him into a state of mind of desiring to be a wealthy gentleman. In this novel, Pip’s ambition and self-improvement takes three forms: moral, social, and educational. Firstly, he desires moral self-improvement and is very hard on himself when he feels that he acts immorally, by trying to act better in the future. This can be noticed when Pip leaves for London and is disappointed with his behavior towards Biddy and Joe. Secondly he desires social self-improvement, after having fallen in love with Estella, who demands Pip to act according to high society. His fantasies of becoming a gentleman are further fueled by Mrs. Joe and Pumblechook. These fantasies prove to be very significant throughout the plot, since the author uses these ideas of social class to explore the class system of his period. Thirdly, Pip desires educational improvement, which is deeply connected to his social ambition and dream of marrying Estella. Ultimately, through the examples of Joe, Biddy and Magwitch, Pip learns that social and educational improvement are irrelevant to one’s real worth and that conscience and affection are to be valued above social ranking.