Great Expectations Literary Analysis

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Ryan Chavez Ms. Gardner Honors English 10 1° 4 March 2014

From Marshes to Marshes: The Significance of Social Class in Great Expectations The desolate marshes of Kent resemble the bare, s imple life that the working class inhabitants of the marshes lead. However, these w orking people often strive to become a part of a higher social class, and they work wo rk hard to achieve a greater social status. Beginning with the absolute lowest class, the convict Magwitch, to the upper class characters of Jaggers and Miss Havisham, Dickens shows the importance of social classes in the Industrial Revolution in his coming of age novel, Great Expectations. Through the perspective of Pip, a boy who dreams to become a gentleman, Dickens exemplifies the power of wealth over lower social classes, Pip’s importance of wealth through an ambition to become a gentleman, and the ability to uncover true identity in moments of social instability. In the exposition of the novel, Pip is seen as an innocent, young boy who is naïve to the world outside of the marshes. His understanding of social status and society quickly broadens: Pip meets Estella during his first encounter with an aristocratic social class at the Satis House. Estella’s beauty contrasts with the dark, long passages of the S atis House, and while Pip sees her as a star of “human perfection” (Dickens, 233 ), she views him as a “common labouringlabouring- boy” boy” (58) with “coarse hands” and “thick boots” (59). Estella’s predominant image is the beginning o f social class discrimination in the novel, as well as the start of Pip’s realization that higher social classes have superiority over him. Estella forms Pip’s understanding of a higher social class, and

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using her beauty and wealth as a method of control and power, Pip is immediately “disgusted with [his] calling and with [his] life” (128). When Pip returns to the S atis House and asks Miss Havisham where Estella is, she says Estella Estella is “educating for a lady” lad y” and she is “far out of reach” (116). Higher social classes are elevated to an exclusive distance from the rest of society, and this causes Pip to feel immediately “dissatisfied with [his] home and with [his] trade and with everything” everything” (116). The upper class’s distance from lower classes shows dominance and power, which is further signified through Miss Havisham’s power of wealth and Jaggers’ importance in criminal law. Through wealth and education, Estella is elevated to a nearly unreachable place, and Pip, who feels inferior with his background at the forge and his common disposition, “want[s] to be a gentleman on her account” (129). With Estella’s love as his ambition, with wealth at his assistance, and with h ope for the future, future, Pip, now a “young fellow of great expectations” (139) was determined to be “removed from his present sphere of life” (138) and “be brought up as a gentleman”(139). Before gentleman”(139). Before meeting Estella, he “had believed in the forge as the glowing road to manhood and independence” (106), but Pip’s new road to adulthood had nothing to do with the forge, it focused on the importance wealth and social status. Beginning with his benefactor’s gratuitous sharing of wealth, Pip is absorbed by an affluent lifestyle, and when Joe comes to visit him, it is clear that Pip has distanced himself to the best of his ability from the forge. Joe, however, notes that one's lifestyle and belongings do not construct co nstruct the identity of a person, and he explains to Pip that he (Joe) is “wrong in these clothes. [He’s] wrong out of the forge, the kitchen, or off th’ marshes” (223). This is also true with Magwitch, because “the more [Pip] dressed him, and the better [Pip]



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clothes will not hide one's preexisting identity. In fact, when defining a “true gentleman”, g entleman”, Matthew Pocket said that “no varnish can hide the the grain of the wood, and that the more varnish you put on, the more the th e grain will express itself” (179). The “grain” of the wood symbolize Pip’s past on the marshes, while the “varnish” represents his newfound wealth and abundant lifestyle. The grain of Pip’s common upbringing and Magwitch’s Ma gwitch’s criminal past still expresses itself through behavior and identity, however, the more wealth Pip tries to obtain to become a gentleman, the more the identity of the “rough common boy” (364) is covered up. This proves to Pip, who at this moment is blinded by his recent wealth and expectations, exp ectations, that becoming a gentleman is ultimately based on what is on the “inside -- morals and values-- rather than wealth and importance. During his upward mobility, Pip’s identity traveled from a bo y who was in “mortal terror of [himself]” (12) after helping a convict, to a young man whose values are based on social status. But after realizing Magwitch was his benefactor, Pip loses fixedness in his social standing and experiences his first first moment of social instability. When Pip realizes that “the truth of [his] position” (320) was a man who was being paid by a criminal to become a “gentleman”, rather than an aspiring aristocrat being supported by th e wealthy upper class (Miss Havisham), an element of false identity rushes into his body along with thoughts of “disappointments, dangers, disgraces, [and] consequences of all kinds”(320). Through Magwitch, Pip is once again exposed to a lower social class, and his expectations and dreams of becoming a gentleman for Estella are quickly shattered and diminished. Pip discovers d iscovers the clear reality of the situation, but Magwitch is still a “dreadful mystery” (337) to him. Pip, d isgusted at his relations with a convict, exposes his



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moment of vulnerability unveils his true feelings towards his expectations, and proves that his identity is corrupted by his newfound wealth and social class. Dickens begins the story with a “common labouring boy” (58), and through the prominent theme of social class, slowly reveals the superiority superiority of people of wealth over lower class people, people, Pip’s dependence and importance of wealth to become a gentleman, and the exposure of identity and reality over expectations ex pectations in a moment of vulnerability. Pip’s upward mobility exemplifies the significance of wealth and power in Dicken s’s time, as well as the common desire to rise to higher social class. Dicken s’s coming of age novel is founded on o n the idea of social classes, and through Pip’s journe y to achieve the title of “gentleman”, Dickens offers a story of a young boy bo y who is blinded by the significance significanc e of social status, only to uncover that his true identity was, and always will be, in the marshes he came from.

Great Expectations Literary Analysis

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