Charles Dickens – Great Expectations
How does Dickens use the themes of isolation and imprisonment in the novel Great Expectations to convey how the main characters all feel trapped in their lives and, at the same time, reveal the oppressive nature of Victorian Society?
Charles Dickens was well known in the Victorian era for his great contribution to classical English literature. Dickens had a fascination with prisoners and convicts because his father, John Dickens, was imprisoned for bad debt. In the Victorian era Dickens attacked English institution with ferocity that had never been approached. Luckily he managed to do it without making people go against him. This is what the successfully did with Great Expectations. In this novel the characters that are imprisoned are characters such as Pip, Estella and Miss Havisham because all three are presented in an environment undesired by anyone. Dickens also uses settings to emphasise the theme of the novel and uses language and imagery to create a sense of imprisonment by describing how Pip and Estella were brought up. He also uses this technique to describe the environment the three characters live in and to express their feelings.
Pip as a child grew up in a theme of imprisonment and isolation because he was an orphan and was raised up by his older sister, Mrs Joe Gargery. The most important reason for him felling imprisoned and isolated was because he was an orphan; he didn’t even get a chance to meet his parents. “As I never saw my mother or my father, and never saw any likeness of either of them, my first fancies regarding what they were like, were unreasonably derived from their tombstones.” The other important reason was that he was raised up by his eldest sister by hand. “My sister... had established a great reputation with herself and the neighbours because she had brought me up by hand.” Pip was also abused by his sister, “tickler was a wax-ended piece of cane, worn smooth by collision with my tickled frame”, meaning that the cane was worn out just by being rubbed against his skin. She also admits that he was brought up by hand “if it warn’t for me you’d have been to the churchyard long ago, and stayed there. Who brought you up by hand?” she thinks that Pip should be thankful to her for bringing him up by hand. Dickens also chooses the name Pip for a reason, pip is a small hard seed of a fruit, symbolising growth and to make an image of a little defenceless boy. The name Dickens chose to name Pip is relevant to this situation because since he is a defenceless boy he has to put up with the conditions his sister makes he live in and he can’t do anything about it.
