Ladies and GentlemenGreat Expectations Ch. 37-40

What does it mean to be a gentleman or a lady?

Is it possible for anyone to become one?

• Modern definition: any man of good, courteous conduct.

• Original meaning: a man of the lowest rank of the English gentry (hereditary ruling class), standing below an esquire and above a yeoman.

Gentleman

By the 19th century, a gentleman is:• any well-educated man

of good family and distinction• a man with an income

derived from property, a legacy or some other source• one who is

independently wealthy and does not need to work.

A man of morals: Joe

• A “mild, good-natured, sweet-tempered, easy-going, foolish, dear fellow – a sort of Hercules in strength, and also in weakness.”

“Which this to you the true friend say. If you can’t get to be oncommon through going straight, you’ll never get to do it through going crooked. So don’t tell no more on ’em, Pip, and live well and die happy.”

A man of manners: Herbert Pocket

“Herbert Pocket had a frank and easy way with him that was very taking. I had never seen any one then, and I have never seen any one since, who more strongly expressed to me, in every look and tone, a natural incapacity to do anything secret and mean. There was something wonderfully hopeful about his general air.”

A professional man: Mr. Jaggers“The magistrates shivered under a single bite of his finger. Thieves and thieftakers hung in dread rapture on his words, and shrank when a hair of his eyebrows turned in their direction. Which side he was on, I couldn’t make out, for he seemed to me to be grinding the whole place in a mill.”

A man of letters: Matthew Pocket“He was always so zealous and honourable in fulfilling his compact with me, that he made me zealous and honourable in fulfilling mine with him. If he had shown indifference as a master, I have no doubt I should have returned the compliment as a pupil; he gave me no such excuse, and each of us did the other justice. Nor did I ever regard him as having anything ludicrous about him – or anything but was what was serious, honest and good – in his tutor communication with me.”

A self-made man: Abel Magwitch

“I’ve done wonderfully well. There’s others went out alonger me as has done well too, but no man has done nigh as well as me. I’m famous for it.”

Lady: a civil term of respect for a woman, specifically the female equivalent to gentleman or lord.

Once confined to usage when specifically addressing women of high social class or status.

A well-mannered lady: Miss Skiffins

“Miss Skiffins – in the absence of the little servant who, it seemed, retired to the bosom of her family on Sunday afternoon – washed up the tea-things, in a trifling lady-like amateur manner that compromised none of us.”

A lady of wealth and power: Miss Havisham

“An immensely rich and grim lady who lived in a large and dismal house barricaded against robbers, and who led a life of seclusion.”

A lady of grace and beauty: Estella

“Proud and wilful as of old, she had brought these qualities into such subjection to her beauty that it was impossible and out of nature – or I thought so – to separate them from her beauty.”

A self-made lady: Biddy

“How am I going to live? I’ll tell you, Mr. Pip. I am going to try to get the place of mistress in the new school nearly finished here. I can be well recommended by all the neighbours, and I hope I can be industrious and patient, and teach myself while I teach others.”

Which category of lady (manners, wealth and power, beauty, self-made) or gentleman (moral, manners, professional, intellectual, self-made) does this person fall into? Be prepared to discuss this character and the qualities that make him or her a gentleman or lady on Tuesday.

Your assignment:Choose a well-known person whom you think is a gentleman or lady.

Describe this person. What makes this person a lady or gentleman?