great expectations (1)

8/4/2019 Great Expectations (1)

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Great ExpectationsBy Charles Dickens


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Charles Dickens

Dickens was born in Portsmouth,Hampshire to John Dickens, a navalpay clerk, and his wife ElizabethDickens.

When he was five, the family movedto Chatham, Kent.

When he was ten, the familyrelocated to Camden Town inLondon.

His early years were an idyllic time.He thought himself then as a "verysmall and not-over-particularly-

taken-care-of boy".

February 7, 1812 June 9, 1870


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He talked later in life of his extremely strong

memories of childhood and his continuingphotographic memory of people and events

that helped bring his fiction to life.

His family was moderately well-off, and hereceived some education at a private school

but all that changed when his father, after

spending too much money entertaining and

retaining his social position, was imprisoned

for debt.


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At the age of twelve, Dickens was deemed

old enough to work and began working forten hours a day in Warren's boot-blacking

factory, located near the present Charing

Cross railway station.

He spent his time pasting labels on the jars

of thick polish and earned six shillings a

week. With this money, he had to pay for

his lodging and help to support his family,which was incarcerated in the nearby

Marshalsea debtors' prison.


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Dickens began work as a law clerk, a junior office

position with potential to become a lawyer.

He did not like the law as a profession and after a

short time as a court stenographer he became a

journalist, reporting parliamentary debate and

traveling Britain by stagecoach to cover electioncampaigns.

His journalism formed his first collection of pieces

Sketches by Boz and he continued to contribute to

and edit journals for much of his life. In his early twenties he made a name for himself

with his first novel, The Pickwick Papers.


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Great Expectations Dickens wrote and published Great Expectations

in 1860-1861, and though the novel looks back to

an earlier time (1812-1840), the period ofcomposition itself is noteworthy.

Great Expectations looks back upon a period of

pre-Victorian development that had become, by

1860, thoroughly historical. However, as a

Victorian novel, Great Expectations is itself the

product of a dynamic moment in history.


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Themes of Great Expectations

Ambition and

Self-Improvement

Social Class Crime, Guilt,

and Innocence


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Ambition and Self-

Improvement Affection, loyalty, and conscience

are more important than socialadvancement, wealth, and class.

Dickens establishes the theme andshows Pip learning this lesson,largely by exploring ideas ofambition and self-improvement

ideas that quickly become both thethematic center of the novel andthe psychological mechanism thatencourages much of Pips

development.


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At heart, Pip is an idealist; whenever he can

conceive of something that is better than

what he already has, he immediately desiresto obtain the improvement.

When he sees Satis House, he longs to be a

wealthy gentleman;

when he thinks of his moral shortcomings, he

longs to be good;

when he realizes that he cannot read, he longs to

learn how. Pips desire for self-improvement is the main

source of the novels title: because he believes in

the possibility of advancement in life, he has

great expectations about his future.


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Social Class Throughout Great Expectations, Dickens explores

the class system of Victorian England, ranging

from the most wretched criminals (Magwitch) tothe poor peasants of the marsh country (Joe andBiddy) to the middle class (Pumblechook) to thevery rich (Miss Havisham).

The theme of social class is central to the novelsplot and to the ultimate moral theme of the bookthe inadequacy of material social advancment tobring true happiness.


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Pip achieves this realization when he is finally

able to understand that, despite the esteem in

which he holds Estella, ones social status is in noway connected to ones real character.

Drummle, for instance, is an upper-class lout,

while Magwitch, a persecuted convict, has a deep

inner worth.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember

about the novels treatment of social class is that

the class system it portrays is based on the post-

Industrial Revolution model of Victorian England.

Dickens generally ignores the nobility and the

hereditary aristocracy in favor of characters whose

fortunes have been earned through commerce.


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The theme of crime, guilt, and innocence isexplored throughout the novel largely through the

characters of the convicts and the criminal lawyerJaggers.

From the handcuffs Joe mends at the smithy to thegallows at the prison in London, the imagery ofcrime and criminal justice pervades the book,

becoming an important symbol of Pips innerstruggle to reconcile his own inner moralconscience with the institutional justice system.

In general, just as social class becomes asuperficial standard of value that Pip must learn to

look beyond in finding a better way to live his life,the external trappings of the criminal justicesystem (police, courts, jails, etc.) become asuperficial standard of morality that Pip must learnto look beyond to trust his inner conscience.


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Crime, Guilt, and Innocence Magwitch, for instance, frightens Pip at first

simply because he is a convict, and Pip feels guiltyfor helping him because he is afraid of the police.By the end of the book, however, Pip hasdiscovered Magwitchs inner nobility, and is ableto disregard his external status as a criminal.Prompted by his conscience, he helps Magwitch toevade the law and the police.

As Pip has learned to trust his conscience and tovalue Magwitchs inner character, he has replacedan external standard of value with an internal one.


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The original ending

Dickens chose to change the ending of GreatExpectations, because according to one of hisfriends, Bulwer-Lytton (who himself was anauthor), the ending he had conceived originally

was too unhappy for the public to react favourablyto his book. The ending you read goes like this:

I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruinedplace; and, as the morning mists had risen long agowhen I first left the forge, so, the evening mists were

rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil lightthey showed to me, I saw no shadow of another partingfrom her.

Heres the original, what do you think?


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It was four years more, before I saw herself. I hadheard of her as leading a most unhappy life, and as

being separated from her husband who had usedher with great cruelty, and who had become quiterenowned as a compound of pride, brutality, andmeanness. I had heard of the death of her husband(from an accident consequent on ill-treating a

horse), and of her being married again to aShropshire doctor, who, against his interest, hadonce very manfully interposed, on an occasionwhen he was in professional attendance on Mr.

Drummle, and had witnessed some outrageoustreatment of her. I had heard that the Shropshiredoctor was not rich, and that they lived on her ownpersonal fortune.


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I was in England again -- in London, and walkingalong Piccadilly with little Pip -- when a servant

came running after me to ask would I step back toa lady in a carriage who wished to speak to me. Itwas a little pony carriage, which the lady wasdriving; and the lady and I looked sadly enough onone another. "I am greatly changed, I know; but I

thought you would like to shake hands withEstella, too, Pip. Lift up that pretty child and letme kiss it!" (She supposed the child, I think, to bemy child.) I was very glad afterwards to have hadthe interview; for, in her face and in her voice, and

in her touch, she gave me the assurance, thatsuffering had been stronger than Miss Havisham'steaching, and had given her a heart to understandwhat my heart used to be.


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Was Charles Dickens a Christian? Because of the Scriptural reference at Magwitch's

death as well as other Biblical nods in Great

Expectations, students often ask if CharlesDickens was a Christianespecially in light of the

breakup of his marriage.

The short answer is Godonly knows.

However Dickens would have definedhimselfas a

Christian and many others have pronounced him a

Christian.


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He Actually Wrote an Account of Jesus Life

which he forbade to be sold.

In a letter described in the introductionto his The Life of Our Lord, as "perhapsthe last words written by Dickens" he

describes his own tendency toincorporate but not preach his beliefs inhis writings in a time when many usedtheir faith as a way to political andeconomic advantage:

Ihave alwaysstriven in my writings

to express veneration forthe life andlessonsof Our Savior, because I feelit... ButIhave never made

proclamation


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Thus this is not a Simple Question to Answer: One, we scholars know that he was far from perfect.

Late in his life Dickens marriage floundered. This is

common enough, but he placed the blame for the

breakuppublicly, in the magazine or which he was the

editor, entirely upon her. Even among his closest

friends, the opinion was held that he behaved badlytowards Elizabeth who in spite of this remained

respectful of him and later of his memory throughout

their separate lives. On the other hand, claims that

Dickens had an affair with the young (the age of hisdaughter) actress Lawless, is more the product of a

sexualized modern mindset than a Victorian one. Also

one terrible event should not define an individuals faith

not for King David and not for Charles Dickens.


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Second, he was a Unitarian, which for many conservativebelievers means a belief system without any overt claimsof Christs divinity. However, his friend Foster maintains

that he was drawn to the movement because of its activeinterest in the poor and that he, in fact, remained orthodoxin his belief throughout his life. It is true that especially inthe Victorian period there were many Unitarians whoremained orthodox and in fact evangelical in theirChristian beliefs. As for evangelicals, especiallyMethodists, Dickens had formed a very low opinion ofthem early in his life for their tendency to allow anyonewho claimed to spirit to be a minister. Meanwhile he did

not trust the high church tendencies within the veryformal elements of the Church of England. His friendFoster while maintaining the safety of Dickens' belief,rather ambiguously refers to it as being characterized by a"depth of sentiment rather than clearness of faith" (ii,

147).


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Third in a time when faith was often used as a way toraise oneself up socially, Dickens refusedto make

public pronouncements abouthis beliefsystem. In fact

not long before he died he was queried by a clergymanabout the ideas of Christianity within his novels. Inresponse he wrote: I have always striven in mywritings to express veneration for the life and lessons ofOur Savior, because I feel it. . . But I have never made

proclamation of this from the housetops (Qtd. in theForward toLife of Our Lord4). Yet in spite of thesequestions Dickens seems to have held to the last areliance upon faith When Dickens bade farewell to hissixteen-year-old son Plorn, who was off to Australia, he

wrote: "I put a New Testament among your books, forthe very same reasons, and with the very same hopesthat made me write an easy account of it for you, whenyou were a little child...." (Qtd in Johnson, ii: 1100).


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In spite of this vagueness of orthodoxy there

is no debate among scholars that Christian

principles and Christian images of at thecenter of Dickens attitudes towards the

poor and towards the reclamation of

individuals.

Steven Marcus, the famous Dickens scholar,

says forthrightly that of course Dickens was aChristian.

The English writer George Orwell said of

Charles Dickens: he believed undoubtedly.

great expectations (1)

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