- Bentley Drummle: wealthy, but a lazy lout?
- Miss Havisham: wealthy, but mad and manipulative?
- Pip: having money and manners, but being vain and shallow?
- Mrs Pocket: from a 'good' family, but an incompetent mother?
- Magwitch: a terrifying criminal who devoted his life to helping a young boy?
- Dickens' message is that 'character' is not about money or manners, but what is in your heart. The heroes of Great Expectations are:
- Biddy: wise, gentle and kind.
- Joe: strong, patient and loving.
Ambition and illusions versus fitting in and accepting your lot
Victorians believed it was right to try to improve your lot, and Great Expectations explores the issue through its events and characters:
- Pip's yearning to be a 'gentleman' only makes him unhappy.
- Magwitch makes a fortune as a sheep herder, and puts it to good effect, helping Pip in his ambition to be a gentleman.
- Miss Havisham is the opposite of ambitious. She has stopped the clocks and done nothing more with her life – failing even to put on her second shoe.
- Estella lives a privileged life, and cares for nothing but inheriting Miss Havisham's jewels. She has a meaningless life, is obviously bored and – although besieged by suitors – has no real friends.
- Joe Gargery has no ambition beyond his forge, but is a good and noble man.
- Biddy is happy with her lot. She cheerfully does the drudge's jobs, yet she catches education "like a cold" and becomes the village schoolteacher.
- Herbert Pocket longs to make money in commerce, but is unable to do so until Pip buys him a job at Clarriker's. Having got the job, he goes out to Cairo, works hard, and makes a decent living.
- Bentley Drummle is at the top of the social heap, but wastes his position and talents, and dies without accomplishing anything.
- Mr Wopsle longs to act on the stage, pursues his dream and succeeds. Although he only has small parts in second-rate vaudeville, he is happy and fulfilled.
- Wemmick strictly divides his working life from his personal life. Although his letterbox mouth betrays his unhappiness in his job, at home he is relaxed and happy.
From the above, what do you make of Dickens' attitude to ambition versus accepting your lot?
One conclusion is that Dickens felt illusions make you unhappy, and ambition does not bring success. What matters to Dickens is not what you achieve, but what kind of person you are.
Love and loyalty
Dickens explores love and loyalty in Great Expectations. He makes it clear that they underlie happiness (when things go well) and misery (when things go wrong).
- Pip's unrequited love for Estella is the main story of the book, and brings him only misery.
- Miss Havisham's life is ruined when the man she loves jilts her on her wedding day.
- Estella marries Bentley Drummle without loving him, and suffers for it.
- Joe marries Biddy for love, and they are happy, despite the age gap between them.
- Herbert Pocket marries Clara Barley for love, and they are happy, despite the social gap between them.
In addition, Dickens explores other kinds of 'love':
- Magwitch loves Pip through gratitude; Pip comes to love Magwitch through admiration.
- Joe has a familial love for Pip. Biddy has a caring love for Pip.
- A loveless mother, however – such as Mrs Joe or Miss Havisham – can ruin a person's life.
Social class
Dickens also explores social class in Victorian England.
- Pip starts off as a blacksmith's apprentice (honest working class), rises to be a gentleman, but ends up middle class – a partner in a trading company.
- Magwitch is a career criminal – a member of the lowest underclass – but makes a fortune in Australia.
- Miss Havisham is rich, but her father made his money as a businessman, brewing beer.
- Joe is a skilled craftsman (honest upper working class).
- Orlick works in the forge. He is a member of the lower working class, surly and dangerous.
- Herbert Pocket longs to be a middle class 'capitalist'.
- Bentley Drummle is rich upper class.
- Belinda Pocket is 'out of her class'. She married beneath herself and is incompetent in her new role as mistress of a schoolteacher's house.
- Uncle Pumblechook is a tradesman.
Pip sees that many of the people of 'high' social class have significant character flaws, and that people from other social classes are 'better' human beings. On the other hand, violent and surly lower working class people are to be feared and distrusted.
Dickens' message is that the middle class values of godliness, hard work, temperance and the gentleness of a 'gentleman' are - with sufficient income - the way to happiness. This message would appeal to his middle class/upper working class readership.
Crime and the law
Dickens had a social conscience and was deeply critical of the existing system of law and justice. (Remember that his father was imprisoned for debt.) Issues relating to crime and the law run throughout Great Expectations.
- The story starts with Pip meeting a 'fearful' criminal in a cemetery, who makes him steal a file and food.
- Compeyson's crime destroys Miss Havisham psychologically.
- Because Compeyson looks a 'gentleman', he manages to blame Magwitch, and receives a lighter sentence.
- Orlick is a murderer.
- Jaggers continually washes his hands with soap. Dickens makes it clear he is as guilty as the criminals he protects.
- In Chapter 32, Wemmick and Pip visit Newgate prison. Pip finds it "much neglected".
- Magwitch is transported to Australia. But although he has been "in jail and out of jail", he is a good and noble man.
- It is Magwitch, not the law, who delivers justice to Compeyson.
Dickens' shocking conclusion is that, in Victorian England, some criminals were good men trapped by an unfair system, that punishment missed the guilty, that lawyers were rotters, and that prison was an inhuman place – in short, that England's system of justice was wholly unjust.
