Literary Analysis Essay-Laurie Chan
A key theme in Great Expectations and April Raintree is the growth and change of the characters towards their acceptance of social class. This will be proven by Pip not accepting himself in the lower class and April not accepting herself in the native class. Then, there will be proof of how Pip and April attempted to change their social class. Finally the proof of how Pip accepted himself in the social class he was in and how April accepted herself as a Métis.
Pip did not accept himself in the lower class. He wanted to be in the upper class just like Miss Havisham is. Pip was ashamed of his family and its lower class status. How he wasn’t as fortunate as Estella who is a member of the higher class, especially when Estella insulted Pip saying that he is "common" and how he has “coarse hands”. He did not have a reason to think about his class status before this, and now that he does, he's disturbed to think he might be just "common." This ensured Pip to not accept himself in the lower class. He didn’t see any good from it. Pip felt he needed to impress Estella. She was the one who changed Pip’s perspective in everything. Before meeting Estella, Pip really looked up to Joe, blacksmith or a gentleman, Joe's class status makes no difference. It is not until later, when he learns that the world cares about class, that’s when Joe's status mattered to Pip. After seeing Estella’s house and everything she had, he wanted more to look forward to. Pip did not accept his life in the lower class.
April is a young woman who has so many issues with her family and the people in her life. April always hid her feelings of shame from her sister Cheryl. April did not accept herself in the native class. Although she did not look native, she was sometimes ashamed that her sister Cheryl looked more native than she did. “There were two different groups of children that went to the park. One group was brown-skinned children who looked like Cheryl in most ways. They were dirty-looking and they dressed in real raggedy cloths. I didn’t care to play with them at all. The other group was fair-skinned and I envied them especially the girls with blonde hair and blue eyes. They seemed so clean and fresh. Some of them were freckled but they didn’t seem to mind. To me, I imagined they were very rich and lived in big, beautiful houses. I wondered what their lives were like and I wished we could play with them. But they didn’t care to play with Cheryl and me. They just called us names and bullied us.” (Pg. 6) Since April was young, she always wanted to be with the people who were fair-skinned. She didn’t like seeing her sister being called names especially, when they had to live with the DeRosiers. Half breeds were all that was said in that house. “I heard you half breeds were dirty but now I can see that it’s true.” (Unknown ☹) At one point, April hated being Métis. She felt that being Métis changed her life because when you think of Métis, you think of living off the streets and bums on Main Street. She wasn’t any of these and she didn’t want to be labelled as them. She was not happy being the person she knew she was. April did not accept her life in the native class.
