Social Class in Great Expectations

1790 Words4 Pages

Social class has been a central theme in many famous literary works, that it is hardy a shock for anyone to read about it. Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”, Scott FitzGerald’s “The Great Gatsby”, Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina”, and Charles Dickens’s “Great Expectations” for instance are just some of the many novels centralizing social class.
However, the strong, yet subtle implications that Charles Dickens introduces to his novels, particularly “Great Expectations”, has made a strong impression during his time and even in the modern day. Dickens explores the wide gap among the “most wretched criminals (Magwitch), the poor (Joe and Biddy), the middle class (Pumblechook), and the very rich (Miss Havisham)” (Gupta, 18), a social hierarchy resulting from the Post-Industrial Revolution. “Great Expectations” demonstrates the role of social class in the society by emphasizing that social class does not define the character of the individual, the relationship with in the characters, and the value of the characters.
Perhaps the most important message that Dickens emphasizes in the book is that social standing has no correlation to a person’s inner character. Pip, the protagonist of the book, fails to see this until he has successfully shunned away the most important people in his life, and wasted most of time chasing his dreams of being a gentleman. Pip goes from living in the marshes of Kent, destined to be a blacksmith, to the busy streets of London, as a wealthy gentleman in a large home.
The low class people, Joe, Biddy, and Magwitch were good hearted while Miss Havisham and Estella were wealthy, but cold and heartless. Joe always had Pip’s best interest in mind; giving him advices and supporting his decisions, good or bad.
Geo...

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...re Resource Center. Detroit: Gale, 2014. Literature Resource Center. Web. 04 June 2014.
"Satire and Mr. Pumblechook." StudyMode. Studymode.com, 2006. Web. 05 June 2014.
Shores, Lucille P. "'The Character of Estella in Great Expectations." Massachusetts Studies in English (Fall 1972): 91-99. Rpt. in Novels for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski. Vol. 4. Detroit: Gale, 1998. Literature Resource Center. Web. 9 June 2014.
Stone, Harry. "Fire, Hand, and Gate: Dickens' Great Expectations." The Kenyon Review 24.4 (1962): 662-91. JSTOR. Web. 02 June 2014.
"Theme of Social Class in Great Expectations by Jotyftyhdesg." StudyMode. StudyMode.com, Nov. 2012. Web. 06 June 2014.
Wilson, William A. "The Magic Circle of Genius: Dickens' Translations of Shakespearean Drama in Great Expectations." Nineteenth-Century Fiction 40.2 (1985): 154-74. JSTOR. Web. 03 June 2014

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