Key Themes In Charles DickensGreat Expectations

Great Expectations tells the ultimate rags to riches story of the Orphan Pip. Dickens takes his readers through life changing events that ultimately mold the identity of the main character. Dividing these events into sections will provide the basis for interpreting which events had the most profound effect on Pip’s identity towards the end of the novel. These life-changing events provide the catalyst for the development of Pip’s character from childhood, his adolescence, maturing into a social gentleman, and finally becoming a self-aware man of society.

This all begins when he is at Miss Havisham’s and her daughter Estella comments on his lifestyle. As soon as he sees her, Pip immediately adores Estella, he thinks she is so beautiful. When Miss havisham tells Estella to play cards with Pip, she responds in a way that is crushing to Pip; “With this boy! Why, he is a common labouring-boy!” (Dickens 61). They also comment on Pip’s hands and how they are so course from labouring. Pip never before thought of himself as common and he finds this very insulting. He knows he doesn't want to be classified like this again, especially by the one he admires. From then on, Pip desires to impress Estella. He doesn't live in the biggest house and he doesn't come from the wealthiest family and this upsets him. However, he doesn’t even see how good he has it living the life that he lives in the home that he lives in. This makes him ungrateful and unseeing to the things that once made him happy. Pip is ashamed of what he has: “ It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home” (Dickens Ch 14). Pip is so blinded by how he wants to be higher class for Estella that he doesn't see how good he does have it because he is so focused on what more he wants. Because of the way he wants to be seen by Estella, he dreams much of being a gentleman but he

“‘Take nothing on looks; take everything on evidence. There’s no better rule.’” (339) Do not make judgements based on appearances, because appearance is not all there is. Here Pip, the main protagonist of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, misses the important message that his guardian is trying to convey to him, and will only come to learn his lesson at the end of the story. Pip is the recipient of a great fortune from an anonymous benefactor and is left to wonder who this mysterious person is throughout the novel. He has an idea as to who his benefactor may be, but as he is sworn to secrecy, he cannot discuss the idea with his fellow acquaintances and is left to his own thoughts and assumptions. This later on leads him to create many ideas as to what his life will turn out to be, and only leads him to his own suffering. Pip’s suffering throughout the novel is a result of his self deception and falling victim to his love for a particular, cold-hearted lady, but ultimately learns through his suffering the value of one’s actions and character.

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.

In Dicken’s novel Great Expectations, which is set in the Victorian era, Dickens uses the social classes to reveal that change is often driven by societal expectations and can often cause sacrifices to be made which often lead to an unhappy life. In this era status was important. Those who were in lower classes strived to move up, and those in higher classes lived lavish lives of elegance. Dickens reveals these ideas though the actions of other characters as Pip receives his expectations. Uncle Pumblechook, who wanted nothing to do with Pip before he had received his expectations, says, “To think, that I

During the Victorian Era, the upper class would lounge in luxury and bask in glory while the lower class suffered and endured hardships throughout their lives. Charles Dickens reveals the power and the effects of Victorian social hierarchy in his writing. These privileges the upper class possessed, such as better living conditions and much more opulence, caused them to behave arrogantly with members of the lower class. Throughout his lifetime, members of the upper class demeaned and degraded Charles Dickens. A wealthy banker’s daughter rejected him solely because of his destitution and the upper class treated him cruelly in the factory where he worked.

“I took the opportunity of being alone in the courtyard, to look at my coarse hands and my common boots.” (Dickens 62). In this situation Pip becomes more self aware while he enters society attempting to change who he is. As the story continues on, Pips opinion changes. Towards the end of the novel he realizes that wealth and holding a high social ranking is not truly important to him nor does it create a life more fulfilled.

Pip’s dreams to become a gentleman come true. Through Pip’s eyes, his benefactor, who he believes to be Miss. Havisham, saves him from his ‘common’ life and, in that, launches him into a life of nobility. It is immediately shown that Pip’s new fortune has transformed him, almost instantly, into a snob. Not only does he describe those living alongside him in the village with words like ‘common’ and ‘coarse’, which had once been used by Estella to hurt him, but he also misinterprets Joe and Biddy’s sadness for that of jealousy rather than of love. If not enough, Pip even states, “As I passed the church, I felt (as I had felt during service in the morning) a sublime compassion for the poor creatures who were destined to go there, Sunday after Sunday, all their lives through, and to lie obscurely at last among the low green mounds,” (Dickens 185).

Wealth and its privileges are held in high light for some, but for many others, love and friendship is of greater value. Throughout the classic Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens, the links between wealth and happiness are illustrated through a number of characters from largely different backgrounds. Pip was raised by Joe Gargery and his wife, leading an early life of simplicity, and after a benefactor sends him to become a “gentleman” and learn the finer ways of life, Pip is thrown into the world of materialistic wealth and good manners. Dickens reveals through character development that money is merely an item just as wealth is a concept; while neither can buy happiness, both are temptations that have the ability to trap and lure people away from their true selves.

In Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens, wealth is a common theme that has varying effects on different characters and their attitudes. Pip and Drummle are both people whose experiences with money shape who they are, and how they act. Throughout the first part of the novel, Dickens’ writing shows that money does not always equal happiness.

Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens, represents the morality and ambition of self improvement in Victorian England. Dickens’s early life, which was during the Victorian era, has hidden connections with Pip’s situations and struggles. This paper will explore and be supported by the concepts of two literary criticisms, Himmet Umunç’s, “Class Mobility in Victorian England and the Social Rise of the Underprivileged” and Nicholas Shrimptons, “Dickens’s Muscular Novel”. Umunç’s and Shrimpton dive into the deeper meaning of Great Expectations and how it shows the triumph of morality over mobility.

Hailed by many as his greatest novel, Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations is a self-narrated story which tells the life of an orphan named Pip, raised by his abusive sister, who leaves behind a childhood of misery and poverty to embark on a journey to become a gentleman after an unnamed benefactor gives him a large amount of money. During his quest to become more educated and less “common”, Pip is engulfed by greed, guilt, snobbery, and pride, all of which leads to his final realization that wealth and status does not bring true

There are salient junctures in Pip’s upbringing that make him who the person he was; this is a tale that in which Pip was soliciting for awareness of himself, as well he realized that his life had major elements of obscurity; due to the fact, he was presented clearly, two radical different lifestyle choices; one, involving a life as a blacksmith and the other; involving the path as life as am affluent prosperous gentleman. Dickens carefully wrote in the periods of Pip’s life and how those set of circumstances; affected by choice, as well affected Pip’s later choices he had made. The temptation of class and wealth perverted the actions of Pip and other people around him; Pip is therefore contemplating on how he was saved by reminiscence of the stages of his life. In the first stage; Pip encounters Magwitch; by accident, this affects the outcome of later events of his life; Pip is than introduced to Miss Havishism and Estella, he fell in love with Estella, and was dramatically persuaded by the promises he made to himself, from his encounters with Miss Havhishism and Estella. Dramatically; Pip than learned the truth about his wealth and that Magwitch was Estella 's father; this collapsed Pip’s vision of reality and forced him to alter his exceptions concerning the truth; Pip than had to save himself from his own selfishness, as well as his malice actions, to the ones who were faithful to him; finally, at the end Pip is a full grown adult and had gain

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.

Charles Dickens wrote this story in the Victorian times. Hence we seem to think what ‘does he mean’ by “Great Expectations”. By us the readers, knowing and understanding what it means, we can get a rough idea of what the story is like. By Great Expectations we mean having high expectations for life, class and dreams for a better life.