Feminist Criticism Of Great Expectations

As C. Sykes examines Victorian literature in his essay, he recognizes that many authors reveal gender issues. While some define characters by his or “her marital status,” others reveal inequality through “female capabilities” (Sykes). Victorian literature, like Bronte’s Jane Eyre, reveal gender

Charles Dickens’ aptly titled novel Great Expectations focuses on the journey of the stories chief protagonist, Pip, to fulfill the expectations of his life that have been set for him by external forces. The fusing of the seemingly unattainable aspects of high society and upper class, coupled with Pip’s insatiable desire to reach such status, drives him to realize these expectations that have been prescribed for him. The encompassing desire that he feels stems from his experiences with Mrs. Havisham and the unbridled passion that he feels for Estella. Pip realizes that due to the society-imposed caste system that he is trapped in, he will never be able to acquire

In the novel “Great Expectations”, the author, Charles Dickens, shows the views of the people of different social classes. The main character, known as Pip, shows these many views throughout his own life. Pip’s misguided interpretation of what it is to be a gentleman leads him to push people away that matter most to him, follow deceptive dreams, and reject the love that is continually shown to him.

This subsequently allows audiences to understand the role of gender inequality in society and how it has historically permeated into literature. However, Atwood later acknowledges the restricting role feminism also played in the depiction of female characters in more modern literature. Atwood uses hypophora in order to direct the audience, “is it not today - well somehow unfeminist - to depict a woman behaving so badly? Isn’t bad behaviour supposed to be the monopoly of men?”, “Were women to be condemned to virtue for life, slaves in the salt-mines of goodness?”. This continued use of questioning catalyses a reflection upon the ironic idea that feminism, a movement created to equal the sexes, has supported a similar one-dimensional view of women as being solely good. In doing so Atwood ultimately challenges the audience’s view upon how female characters should be represented within literature, ultimately arguing for a barrierless approach which enables writers to explore the complex nature of female

Charles Dickens, author of Great Expectations, provides a perfect example of the hope of class mobility. The novel portrays very diverse and varied social classes which spread from a diligent, hardworking peasant (Joe) to a good-natured middle class man (Mr. Wemmick) to a rich, beautiful young girl (Estella). Pip, in particular, elevates in the social pyramid from a common boy to a gentleman with great expectations. With his rise in society, he also alters his attitude, from being a caring child to an apathetic gentleman. During this process, Pip learns how he should act and how to become a real gentleman. Social mobility and wealth, furthermore, carves a disposition and how a character is looked upon.

    One may infer that Dickens may have been attempting to acknowledge the birth of female freedom, due to the industrial revolution, by way of the female characters' actions within Great Expectations. Considering that he creates such verbal execution performed by many of the female characters within the novel suggests that women were usually treated as equals, this not being the case. By allowing these women to be verbally and physically abusive, Dickens may have been presenting the distorted idea toward female criminals and violent women.

Through the Victorian Age, male dominance deprived women from a certain freedom. In Charlotte Brontë’s novel, Jane Eyre, Jane Eyre repeatedly struggles to become an independent young lady due to the troublesome men in the story. John Reed controls Jane, Mr. Brocklehurst humiliates Jane, and Mr. Rochester sees women, in general, as objects. The author manages to depict patriarchal dominance through the characterization of John Reed, Mr. Brocklehurst, and Mr. Rochester.

Feminity is different from this novel to reality with the old ways changing of women and how they work. Women have always been considered to be seen as weak but superior. There are many main characters who are women such as Mrs. Joe, Ms. Havisham, Biddy, Estella, and others. These four play major roles with Pip and how they influence him throughout the novel. The women are shown through this novel to be housewife’s while the men go to work. They are seen as women who are supposed to be cooking and taking care of the children. The women are portrayed in this book as women who don’t move from where they live or how they are confined to their homes or the role they play in the households. The men seem to have more freedom in going place to place as they see fit, while the women stay in the home to be housewives.

Since it was first published over 150 years ago, Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations has come to be known as a timeless and remarkably moving work of literature. It is considered to be one of Dickens’ most recognizable works, and is celebrated for its meaningful, universally-believed themes. In order for this novel to be properly understood, a thoughtful analysis of its major themes must be given.

In Charles Dickens’ novel, Great Expectations, the main character named Pip suffers through a conflict of confusing good and bad people. He repeatedly disregards the people that love and care for him and instead chooses to care for people who do not care for him. When making these choices, Pip senses that he is making the wrong decisions and therefore confuses good and bad and also confuses himself.

One stormy night, Pip is home alone and is visited by a man who seems

“Little Girls with dreams become women with vision” (unknown). This quote expresses Jane’s entire life in the novel Jane Eyre written by the author Charlotte Brontë. The main character that is discussed in this book is Jane Eyre and she is trying to find herself despite being recognized as less than everyone else solely based on her gender and her poor place in nineteenth-century’s social class. Gender inequality is world wide problem with no end, dating back to the civil rights period to the present day. Mrs. Reed, John Reed, Mr Brocklehurst and Ms. Blanche Ingram, as well as many others are a prime example for this issue. For the reason being that they allow others’ mainly her son to not only treat her with disrespect but also torment Jane as well.

Charles Dickens, Great Expectation is a novel about personal development and growth, that portrays in words a process of self-discovery and maturation through experience as a protagonist Pip moves from childhood to adulthood .The novel begins with Pip as a young orphan who is living with his sister and her husband in the marshes of Kent , in the west side of England. Pip is romantic , passionate and has unrealistic expectation of life. He is likely to expect more for himself than he is reasonable.He desires to become a gentleman of higher class . He also wants to improve himself ,both socially and morally. He develops unrealistic hopes and expectations after being introduced to Estella and Miss Havisham. The purpose of this essay is to discuss Pip’s obsession with gentility and class in Great expectation ,analyze the given extract in detail ,the changes in Pip’s character over the course of the novel and the role of his narration in signaling his Moral development.

In Great Expectations, Dickens depicts men and women with different social roles just like the Victorian age would have separated women and men by their roles. However, Dickens deviates from the gender norms of the time and makes the men take on more feminine roles and the women take on more masculine roles. Pip is exposed to this growing up in the Gargery household and internalizes all that he experiences. Dickens agreed with the Victorian bourgeois family ideal, that men and women have different, yet complementary, natures. Great Expectations strikingly lacks the characters that represent the Victorian gender roles. The family atmosphere that Pip lives in fails to represent the Victorian bourgeois family ideal. Pip’s life decisions in Great Expectations were driven by the switched Victorian gender roles.

The literary criticism “Patterns of Communication in Great Expectations” is an effective literary criticism, it proves there is evidently more communication between characters in the novel than most critics let onto. Ruth M. Vande Kieft, who is the author of this piece, suggests that the majority of the characters in Dickens novels have a substantial amount of communication among themselves. But, the dialogue in the novel depicted is not what we typically observe in the majority Victorian novels. Vande Kieft uses evidence in her writing from Dorothy Van Ghent, who suggests there is little interaction and the majority of the main characters attempts fail when they do try and communicate amongst each other. This article is effective in showing examples of certain patterns between the many characters in the novel. The article was also effective because it showed a different way of looking at communication in the way writers aim for when writing stories. This literary criticism was an interesting because it made me think about other novels that I have read and how Vande Kieft would have depicted them. In Great Expectations, we saw a different pattern in how characters communicate. Most family communication patterns are usually easy to follow. Although this novel was easy to read, I understand where critics state the contrary. I valued this work because of the examples stated throughout, and I will analyze some of the examples stated in my paper.