preview

Charles Dickens ' Great Expectations

Decent Essays

Once there was a middle class boy living in England. However, his father was not responsible with his money, so he was imprisoned. His entire family went to live with his imprisoned father while he lived alone and worked in a Blacking Factory. This change transitioned him from his previous experience of middle class life. This boy was Charles Dickens, one of the most well known writers of all time. Throughout his life, he experienced both the middle and working class, therefore, most of his pieces of literature include characters from both of those social classes and how they view Victorian England society. His haunting childhood experience also allowed him to incorporate the themes of alienation and betrayal in Great Expectations (Cody). Throughout Great Expectations, Dickens explores the specific social classes by categorizing characters of different social standings with certain personalities and lifestyles.
The working class, although it usually does not have a positive connotation, it is one of Dickens’ favored classes because it was one of the classes that Dickens was a part of during his life. Therefore, he seems to connect with these characters and make them more complex and moral in the book. Some characters that are part of the working class during Great Expectations include Pip, Magwitch, Joe Gargery, Biddy, Orlick, Mrs. Joe, Compeyson, and Molly. The working class represented a great portion of Victorian England society, so the types of jobs, income, and morality

Get Access