Moral Spectrum and Setting in Great Expectations It was Dickens thirteenth novel called Great Expectations written in 1860. At that time, he was already a national hero. Great Expectations is probably Dickenss most complete and mature work. Pip in the novel is the most autobiographical of all of Dickenss thousands of characters. Dickens had come from humble life start-ups, working as a child in a shoe polish factory, meanwhile his family was set into the debtor’s prison. Such a difficult childhood played a significant role in writing the novel. Dickens himself is found to be the one who achieved greater expectations than any clerk’s boy could hope for.
Though it is said that he had not found happiness. But the idea that one must search beyond material wealth, social frames and look inside themselves for happiness becomes the major theme in Great Expectations. Great Expectations is the story of Pip, an orphan boy adopted by a blacksmith’s family. Pip has good luck and great expectations, and then loses them both. But in this rise and fall, he learns how to be happy. He also learns the meaning of friendship and the meaning of love and, of course, becomes a better person.
Dickens describes the class division and the differences in point of view between the characters. To make sure that the reader understands the difference between the various classes, Pip is introduced to Satis House along with Mrs. Havisham and Estella. There he is man aware of his condition and the differences between those who have and those who do not. During a visit he is told by Estella that he is a common boy because of his coarse hands and thick boots. He becomes aware for the first time of his position. While in the garden, Estella treats him like an animal because of his rank.
The Essay on Great Expectations part 1
Great Expectations Outline Biography. Introduction. Early years. Occupations and marriage. Death. Introduction to Great Expectations. An Individual is shaped by the worlds and personal experiences.The shaping of Pips character. Joe the blacksmith and his influence on Pip. Miss Havisham and Estella. Satis House. Women manipulate Pips attitudes. The true Benefactor.Shattered dreams. The moment of ...
She feeds him bread and meat: “looking at him, as insolently as if he were a dog in disgrace”. Pip’s reply to this dehumanization is, “I was so humiliated, hurt, spurned, offended, angry This incident makes Pip become ashamed of who he is and where he comes from. It is through the reactions of Estella and Mrs. Havisham that Pip will begin to turn away from his origins. In the beginning of the story, Pip meets a girl about his age, Estella, “who was very pretty and seemed very proud.” Pip falls in love with her, and this love will remain till the end of the story. He then meets Miss Havisham, a willowy, yellowed old woman dressed in an old wedding gown.
In some places of the novel, Miss Havisham appears to be a mean person, and in one occasion, she becomes very glad when Estella insults Pip’s coarse hands and his thick boots as they play. But in the end, the situation changes, and Miss Havisham expresses concern. She gives Pip nine hundred pounds to help Herbert to solve problems. She then asks Pip for forgiveness. Pip tells her she is already forgiven and that he needs too much forgiving himself not to be able to forgive others. In these situation we encounter mutually incompatible value systems.
The ability of the characters to express positive emotions, sympathy and willingness to forgive gives the basis for the discussion of the moral spectrum in the novel. 1 While reading the book, I felt sympathy with Pip. The story makes you overlook the moral subtleties of his tale. Reading this novel gives an opportunity to experience what it was like to fall in love with someone who treats you with cruelty and contempt, as Estella does Pip. But later it becomes understandable that this was about a young person’s education and origin. Pip hopes he has been selected by the rich and crazy Miss Havisham to be elevated above his birth and to marry Estella, the spoilt and beautiful girl who, as she warns him, cannot love. This seems perfectly proper to a young reader, who, just like Pip, has yet to learn that he or she is not necessarily the hero of his own life.
The Term Paper on Miss Havisham Pip Jane Estella
An Examination Of Class In Jane Eyre An Examination Of Class In Jane Eyre And Great Expectations. An Examination of Class in Jane Eyre and Great Expectations. The idea of class and keeping up appearances are very important in many novels of the Victorian Era. Two such novels include Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. Associated with class, the idea of gender ...
In the end, Pip becomes a gentleman, and saves Estella from becoming a second Miss Havisham. Pip has lost the great fortune he expected, has had to work hard, and has suffered much. Estella has been “bent and broken”. The good have died, and so have the wicked. From the very beginning, it looks like it was obvious he was a pip – the seed of the man he’ll grow into. The most fascinating and interesting thing of all subjects in moral spectrum appears to be the question how people become fully human.
It is said that Dickens was a philanthropist but also a profoundly flawed human being, and he knew it more than most of the people. Pip also knows that he has sinned, and at every point in his story Dickens points it out. (1).
Pip prepares to go to London, where he believes he will achieve his proper place in society. His wish to leave behind his origins, which he believes are not good enough, manifest themselves in his dreams. Of the dream he says: All night there were coaches in my broken sleep, going to wrong places instead of London, and having in the traces, now dogs, now cats, now pigs, now men-never horses. Fantastic failures of journeys occupied me until the day dawned and the birds were singing.
Pip became so bounded to his ‘expectations’ that he would prefer to act as though he has always been part of the middle class. His “expectation” isn’t from Mrs. Havisham, who wishes to make him an equal in her world. Pip feel the need to overthrow his limitations. The need to rise above his position proves to be a false one. Dickens shows that reaching too high above one’s self only leads to a sense of loss and pain.
One can never transform oneself into something else without leaving a visible trace behind. It is only when one comes to terms with one’s position and cultural background that one can find peace.2 Pip, you will recall aspires to be a gentleman – to make his way in the world, and like thousands of youngsters every day, finds very little guidance and much frustration. For youngsters like Pip, progress in a hostile world derived from either managing to get a good education and building on that, or through the operation of fate and chance. But the first person to use the word “gentleman” is Magwitch, and he uses it to describe his mortal enemy, a fellow convict. Magwitch understands a gentleman to possess money and the things money can buy, such as clothes, fine manners. Pip is taught by Herbert Pocket not to put his knife in his mouth, and so despises Joe’s looks and manners in turn.
The Term Paper on True Gentleman Pip Dickens Wealth
... will lead to his eventually becoming a gentleman. Dickens leaves the reader with no doubt that position and rank were major contributory factors ... long ambition, to become a true gentleman. The reunion between Pip and Estella is an indication that Pip has been freed from all false ... life change for the better. Defying all the rules of class and status, he compassionately holds hands with the "hunted, ...
He is taught, as we have been taught, to value form rather than content. Presentation, charm and manners are indeed worth learning, but the gentleness, courtesy, truthfulness and courage that should constitute the true “gentleman” belong to Joe, the uneducated blacksmith.3 The final chapter of Great Expectations stays a controversy with critics. In the first version, Dickens had written a different ending in which Pip runs into Estella on a London street. But she has not changed at all and he feels none of the old feelings for her. No matter how pessimistic it appears to be , many critics consider the first ending more true to the story’s themes. Their main dilemma, in some cases, is that the entire point of the book was that Pip must come to realize happiness through his own internal process of suffering and continual work and not through some external factors like a social position and money, or person, like Estella.
But finally, we can say there is justice in Estella and Pip finding love in each other. Because of their hardships, they seem together to have come to a realization of what it means to be happy. This situation points on their readiness for a healthy relationship with each other. Chapter Nineteen demonstrated that Pip had been living a righteous life for eleven years when he finally runs into Estella again. Estella might be seen as the final reward for a true and sincere gentleman. And, although we are not witness to Estella’s transformation from ice queen to sensitive lady, we, as readers, must in the end forgive her for her treatment of Pip.
4 During the nineteenth century, British society was dominated and ruled by a tightly woven system of class distinctions. Social relations and acceptance were based upon position. Charles Dickens utilizes Great Expectations as a commentary on the system of class and each person’s place within it. In the character of Pip, Dickens shows the working class’ obsession to overthrow their limitations. Dickens also uses Pip and other characters to show that escape from one’s origins is never possible, and attempting to do so only creates confusion and suffering. Dickens shows that trying to overthrow one’s social rank is never possible, only through acceptance of one’s position brings peace and harmony into life.
The Essay on Miss Havisham Imprisonment Pip Dickens
n Charles Dickens' novel Great Expectations there are many forms of "imprisonment", which the central characters encounter. Dickens' focuses on the theme of showing society their false values and imperfections. Imprisonment throughout the novel includes; imprisonment of the mind and of the heart. Dickens' is judgemental of the brutality of the justice system, penal system, Newgate prison and the ...
Bibliography: Gold, Joseph. Charles Dickens: Radical Moralist. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1972. http://www.classicnote.com/ClassicNotes/Titles/gre atexpectations/about.html http://www.outremer.com/~sharad/agreg/dickens.html http://www.victorianweb.org.
