What does Dickens reveal about social class in 'Great Expectations'?

Now Pip is no longer rich, and he returns home to marry Biddy only to find her marrying Joe. Wemmick sets him up a partnership with Herbert in a counting house, and he makes his money by honest work. Pip returns to Stasis Manor, and finds a little girl there that looks like Estella. Estella has returned to the ruins of her childhood with her young daughter, Estella also. Drummle has beaten and ill-used her and was kicked by a horse that he had treated badly and killed. Pip and Estella marry.

In another version, Pip is walking down the street one day with little Pip, his nephew by Joe and Biddy (nephew in law, maybe?). He meets Estella in a carriage, and she is very sad. She has married a doctor and they live off her fortune.

In the first stage, Pip meets Magwitch and is scared, and meets and visits with Miss Havisham. In this stage he is still a child, and is still bound to his present life (he is apprenticed to Joe). This stage ends when Jaggers shows up to take him out of his life and into a new life, as a young fellow of great expectations. Here Pip is still immature and inexperienced- he is always afraid that he will be punished and that if he does anything wrong he will somehow be found out.

The second stage involves Pip's adventures in London. There he meets new people, finds out what its like to have money, gets educated and learns to be a gentleman, and pawns after Estella. He still has ties to his other world, but not his family only Miss Havisham and Estella. He wastes his fortune and becomes a self-cantered idle rich jerk. He experiences Jaggers utilitarianism and Wemmick's strange world, and he sees Estella fall to Drummle. He also begins to realize how poorly he has treated those that love him, especially Joe who takes care of him when he is sick. At the end of this stage he finds out about Magwitch, that Estella was not designed for him and Miss Havisham never intended to make him a gentleman.

In the third stage Pip has to deal with hiding Magwitch to protect him from the law. He also has to forgive Miss Havisham and keep her from trying to kill herself as a result of the grief she has had from what she has done. He ends up back in the place where he has started his journey; sees Magwitch kill Compeyson and escapes being killed by Orlick. He also watches how unfairly Magwitch is treated at his trial, holds his hand when he dies, and tells him about Estella. Then he loses all of his money and returns to an honest, earned lifestyle in a counting house- all great expectations lost. He finds out how unhappy Estella was with Drummle and. depending on the ending you read he either marries her or sees her married to a doctor.

Throughout this whole novel, Pips moral develop a lot all the way through each stage of his expectations. When the story opens, Pip is a skittish and uncertain little kid. He is frightened by Magwitch, so he steals him food and tools. Then he regrets it, but his morality at this point is more connected to getting caught- rather than seeing that he has done anything wrong, he fears he will be punished. He reacts the same way to his fight with Herbert. Pip becomes selfish and priggish once he becomes a young man of great expectations. He does things only for himself, and he does not think of others that he should care about. He treats Joe terribly and is ashamed of him, and he only feels a little bad. At this point, Pip's morality is connected to how others feel about him. If others, such as Biddy, feel that he has done a bad thing, then he feels bad. Otherwise, he does not notice that he has hurt Joe.

When Magwitch reveals himself, Pip feels wronged. He accuses Miss Havisham of leading him on with Estella. He realizes, however, that they used him as he used them- and he was only misleading himself. In the beginning Pip is resentful of Magwitch and sullen about where his prospects come from. He does not heed Jaggers' or Wemmick's advice. He begins to realize that Magwitch is an honest and generous man that just wants the best for him. He first attempts to sneak him out of the country out of duty. Pip's morality is now tied to what he believes is right- his sense of right and wrong, though there, is based only on superficial impressions. He begins to do good things for people- get Matthew Pocket into Miss Havisham's will, set Herbert up in a business, etc.

When Pip is nearly killed several times- when saving Miss Havisham, when kidnapped by Orlick and in the river- and becomes very ill, his perception of life changes. He is by Magwitch's side as he dies not because he should be but because he wants to be. He feels as if Magwitch were his second father. When he loses his fortune, he repents. When Joe takes care of him, he is grateful. He accepts that Joe has married Biddy and Estella has married Drummle. He is prepared to live his life on his own terms, on his own sense of what is right and wrong. Pip has finally developed his own personality.

The message Dickens is sending is that the people in our lives are important to us, and we do not always know how much or why. We should not do things just for personal gain, or at the harm of others. We should also be happy with what we have. Dickens asks the question- what if you had everything you ever wanted? How would you treat the people you love? Would your priorities change? Is it really what you wanted after all. We can see this through Pip's moral development throughout the novel.

When Pip is frightened by the convict and steals food, he feels guilty. When Estella calls him coarse and common, he feels ashamed. In both ways, Pip is willing to take action to reverse the situation. While he lies about the food, he goes to Biddy to learn to be more uncommon. Pip also feels guilty when he lies about Estella and Miss Havisham and when he fights with Estella. When Pip is granted his expectations, he is still not granted Estella. He is involved in a stage of self-gratification- acting selfish, priggish and getting into horrible debt. Here he learns that his worst act can be to impress the person he most despises- Drummle. He hurts Joe's feelings. When Joe comes to take care of him, Magwitch returns and Estella marries Drummle, he changes.

Pip turns altruistic around the time Magwitch shows up. He suddenly is responsible for someone else. He takes care of Magwitch and tries to sneak him out of the country. He stays with him on his deathbed. Pip's altruistic actions intensify throughout the novel- he works to get Herbert into a partnership, he saves Miss Havisham from the fire, he tries to save Magwitch and he accepts the fact that his money is gone. Pip goes to work with Herbert, and marries Estella despite the way she treated him.

There are internal conflicts in which characters battle with their own motivations and desires. They have conflicting needs or choices. Pip's first internal conflict stems from a very real external threat- he must choose whether to help the convict or not. Later, Pip faces the conflicts of lying, which manifests itself in his guilt. This continues and strengthens later in the story when he lies to his family about what goes on at Miss Havisham's house. Throughout the novel, Pip's greatest internal conflict continues to be guilt over some choice he makes. Ultimately, his guilt over choosing to take Magwitch's money without knowing where it came from leads him to realize that he had been selfish and cruel to someone who helped him. It took a great internal struggle that lasts for most of the novel for Pip to realize that he had to do the right thing.

Pip's struggle to learn right from wrong begins early. He is conflicted over his choices to lie and steal and his motivations, which are pure. Like most children, Pip has to learn the fine line between which of society's rules to accept. He makes the choice again when he breaks the law to sneak Magwitch out of the country. Pip does not always make moral choices. He takes money from an unknown benefactor (which may or may not be immoral) and then spurns the benefactor when he reveals himself. He lives a lifestyle that breeds corruption, and he corrupts others including honest Herbert while allowing himself to be corrupted. It is at this point that he gets into debt and denounces his family, especially Joe, out of shame.

Pip has an even greater internal conflict with love. He must decide whether or not he truly loves Estella. He cannot stand her, yet he cannot be away from her. Though she is clearly bad for him and, as she tells him, has no heart to give him, he is in love. Much of his internal pain comes from her presence, her spurning of him and his longing for her.

Pip experiences external conflicts with other characters and with society. He struggles with his sister, who physically and mentally abuses him, but he really does not care for her and she does not dramatically affect him. Most of his struggles are with Joe, whom he loves and cares for but is ashamed of because of his status. Pip feels a sense of entitlement once he gets money, and he pushes humble Joe away. Later, when Joe saves him and comforts him in his illness, he regrets the way he treated Joe. When he returns, fallen, and wants to marry Biddy he finds himself humbled when he learns Joe already has her. Here the secret rivalry with Joe, who is essentially Pip's brother (his brother-in-law actually), manifests itself to Pip. Pip also struggles with Biddy, because he does not want to accept her advice. He considers her sweet and good, but beneath him. When his own idea of his social role is reduced he returns to marry Biddy, but she has already married Joe.

Pip struggles with Estella throughout the book. She tells him as a child that he is plain and simple, coarse. She belittles everything from his boots to his vocabulary and treats him like a dog. Pip realizes that she is this way because Miss Havisham is teaching her, but he cannot draw himself away. He believes that she is his betrothed, and in fact is led by Miss Havisham to think so. As she grows older, Estella pushes away more and more. She explains to him one day when he asks if she remembers their childhood:

`You must know,' said Estella, condescending to me as a brilliant and beautiful woman might, `that I have no heart -- if that has anything to do with my memory.'

Estella continues to taunt him as she tries for her own gains. She marries Drummle, a rival of Pip's (Pip's external conflicts with Drummle are secondary in the novel). Later, after he has died, she says that she will raise her child alone. In one version of the ending, she may marry Pip, but it would be a loveless marriage.

Miss Havisham is Pip's fate. She has had her heart broken (by Compeyson, Magwitch's former partner) and seeks to raise young girls so that theirs may not break also. To do this, she teaches them to break hearts instead. At a very young age, she goes for Pip's:

"'What do I touch?' `Your heart.' `Broken!' She uttered the word with an eager look, and with strong stress, and with a weird smile that had a kind of boast in it."

Later, Miss Havisham regrets what she has done to Estella. As she explains to Pip:

"But as she grew, and promised to be very beautiful, I gradually did worse, and with my praises, and with my jewels, and with my teachings, and with this figure of myself always before her a warning to back and point my lessons, I stole her heart away and put ice in its place.' `Better,' I could not help saying, `to have left her a natural heart, even to be bruised or broken.' "

From the first chapter, Pip has a conflict with Magwitch. He is afraid of him when he first meets him. When he learns that he has been taking his money, he is repulsed. When he learns of Magwith's life, and how he has been ill used, he softens. He helps Magwitch try to escape England and when they are caught and Magwitch is dying, he tells him that Estella is a fine, successful woman.

Pip's conflict with Dolge Orlick cannot be forgotten. Orlick tries to flount him throughout the book and at one point tries to kill him.

In conclusion to this novel, it shows 'Great Expectations' shows many different themes of social class in Victorian times. The main ones which are concentrated on are Pip looking up to Joe at the beginning of the story and Pip having big expectations in wanting to become a gentleman. If anything though Joe is more a gentleman then Pip ever was or tried to be as Pip thought he could buy his way into being something he wasn't originally. This whole novel tells the importance of not stating yourself as a particular class but being what you are already.

Olivia Cohn