Great Expectations

Charles Dickens' novel "Great Expectations" is a critique of Victorian culture, rather than an affirmation Victorian Britain social culture. Dickens carefully includes all the social classes in his novel, and shows how important it is to most people to maintain their class or become wealthy to join the upper classes. Pip desires success, but he comes to the important realization that class and wealth are not as important as loyalty, self-worth, and the affection of others. Dickens also shows that character is not connected to the upper classes. A literary critic notes, "Edgar Johnson emphasizes Dickens's depiction of a triumph of hardworking integrity over corrupt worldly values" (Newlin 5). Pip indeed does become a successful merchant and gentleman. He does not gain all his "expectations," but he has a decent life. Dickens shows that happiness and contentment does not come from social class and society, but from inside oneself, and this is in direct opposition to what much of Victorian society thought at the time.

Dickens creates characters around Pip that indicate this novel is not an affirmation of Victorian culture, but rather a commentary on it. For example, he creates Miss Havisham and the convict as so class conscious that they cannot turn away from the very thing (society) that destroyed their lives. Howard Bloom, a literary critic notes, "That is, Dickens portrays Havisham and the convict as social products who self-defeatingly embrace the ideology of the class that has unjustly destroyed their innocence and happiness" (Bloom 258). Estella is another example. She is a member of the upper class, a ward of Miss Havisham, but she is really the child of a convict and a cold, calculating woman who only manipulates Pip. She represents all that was wrong with Victorian British society and culture, and it takes Pip nearly the entire novel to see her and society for what they really are. Biddy is the exact opposite of Estella, but because she is "lower class," Pip never sees her for what she is. Indeed, she represents the best of a person, while Estella, the untouchable, represents the worst of British society and culture.

References

Bloom, Harold, ed. Charles Dickens Great Expectations. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2000.

Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. Ed. Margaret Cardwell. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Newlin, George. Understanding Great Expectations a Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000.