"Great Expectations Illustrates the danger of seeing status and money as the most worthwhile aims in life" - Discuss.

Pip's preoccupation with money and status! "Great Expectations Illustrates the danger of seeing status and money as the most worthwhile aims in life." Discuss Charles Dickens' Great Expectations is not so uncomplicated as to suggest that wealth is a destructive force. Instead it attempts to highlight the apparent dangers associated with becoming preoccupied with money and social status. In Pip, the book's chief protagonist, Dickens presents us with a character that misguidedly follows these ideals in a journey of self delusion. The abandonment of his childhood father figure -Joe - and his earlier virtues of decency and compassion are the consequences of his misconception that with wealth will come 'gentility'. Dickens' underlying message is that wealth and class are superficial, failing to give any indication of a person's quality or true gentility. This being said, it must be understood that Dickens' aim is not to condemn wealth and social 'niceties' such as good manners and a formal education, instead it is those who worship these false ideals and become preoccupied with them that are criticized. In characters such as Herbert and Mathew Pocket and, to an extent, Wemmick and Jaggers, we are presented with benevolent and harmless forms of class and privilege. Yet juxtaposed against this we have Pumblechook, Magwitch and Pip. Failing to realize what truly counts, these

  • Word count: 885
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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"Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens is a "Bildungsroman".

Importance of a main character to the novel "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens is a "Bildungsroman", a term that denotes a novel that presents the growth and development - within the context of a defined social order - of a single character, Philip Pirrip, better known as Pip. As the focus of the bildungsroman, Pip is by far the most important character in "Great Expectations": he is both the protagonist, whose actions make up the main plot of the novel, and the narrator, whose thoughts and attitudes shape the reader's perception of the story. As a character, Pip's two most important traits are his immature, romantic idealism and his naturally good conscience. On the one hand, Pip has a deep desire to improve himself, whether educational, moral, or social, "At last I began, in a purblind groping way, to read, write, and cipher." His longing to marry Estella and join the upper classes stems from the same desire as his longing to learn to read and his fear of being punished for bad behavior: once he understands ideas like poverty, ignorance, and immorality, Pip does not want to be poor, ignorant, or immoral. Pip the narrator judges his own past actions extremely harshly, rarely giving himself credit for good deeds but angrily criticises himself for bad ones. As a character, however, Pip's idealism often leads him to perceive the world rather narrowly, seeing only the

  • Word count: 619
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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"Great Expectations" is considered Dickens' finest novel. To what extent does it deserve this reputation?

"Great Expectations" is considered Dickens' finest novel. To what extent does it deserve this reputation? "Great expectations" was written by Charles Dickens in 1860. It is centred on Pip, an orphan living with his austere sister and her mild-mannered husband Joe Gargery the blacksmith. It follows his journey from being a simple boy with few expectations, to his moving to London and becoming a 'gentleman', at the expense of a mysterious benefactor. I am going to write an appreciation of it, analysing its main components: The story, the structure, the characters, the narration, the setting, the language and literary devices, the themes and the social/historical context, and evaluating their success to answer the question. "Great Expectations" combines many different genres, including romance, mystery, history, action and comedy. This means it has universal appeal, and people with a wide range of interests and preferences will find something to like about it. It also means that any individual reading it can respond it on a number of different levels. Great Expectations does not have one single 'bad guy' - many people fill this role. Magwitch, as the convict would have been the antagonist in a traditional story of good and evil, however Dickens does not portray him as such, and even when we see him terrorising young Pip, it is portrayed in a humorous light, and we do not hate

  • Word count: 5467
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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"Great Expectations" written by Charles Dickens. I have been analysing the way in which Dickens uses language techniques to create

Great Expectations Matthew Connor I have recently been reading the famous novel "Great Expectations" written by Charles Dickens. I have been analysing the way in which Dickens uses language techniques to create themes, characters and a setting for his story. The novel itself was written in Victorian times and a lot of the themes that occur in the book were also very prominent in the Victorian era. Firstly I want to mention the similarities between the main character and narrator Pip and the actual writer Charles Dickens. They both had a very comparable childhood with family problems and suffering very early on in their lives. The most striking similarity though is that both Pip and Dickens were at the bottom of the social ladder and the theme of social status is probably the most important one in this novel. This theme pieces together the whole plot of the book with a lower class Pip always eager to better himself and reach the top of that ladder. I also believe that due to Dickens being initially subjected to a life of poverty he had a negative view of money and status; almost all the characters with wealth and status in the novel end up destroyed. Secondly I am going to discuss the effectiveness of the serialised format of the novel. Charles Dickens actually wrote the novel in separate chapters before eventually merging them to make the book. This therefore is why

  • Word count: 2198
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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"Great-power politics rather than principles dominated the Vienna Settlement of 1915." Discuss

"Great-power politics rather than principles dominated the Vienna Settlement of 1915." Discuss It is hardly surprising that the Settlement was dominated by the Great Powers for it was they who, at great cost, had defeated Napoleon and only they who had the strength to bring the turmoil that he had created to an end. So the most delicate negotiations and the key decisions took place, outside the formal sessions of the Conference, between the statesmen representing the victorious powers. The scheming of Talleyrand won France a place in the inner discussions but the representatives of the lesser nations were kept away from the decision-making. The Settlement is often studied through a survey of Great Power representatives, motives, tactics and rewards. At the end of this essay it will be argued that this situation does not necessarily mean that principles had no part to play in shaping the settlement of Europe. A lot may depend on how one defines a principle. The territorial arrangements arrived at offer a clear indication of the significant part played by Great Power politics. The Tsar Alexander pursued the traditional Russian policy of expansion westwards in order to provide deeper defences for the heart of his kingdom, securing both Finland and Poland for his pains. Hardenberg of Prussia had great ambitions to obtain all of Saxony... What the Great powers wanted in the

  • Word count: 917
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: History
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"Green Thought" By Jon Stallworthy - Critical Evaluation

"Green Thought" By Jon Stallworthy - Reading Response By Melissa Bannon "Green Thought" by Jon Stallworthy is an interesting and valuable poem about love. During my essay I will justify why "Green Thought" is a worthy poem to be entered into a young student's poem anthology. The poem is an excellent choice because of Stallworthy's choice of characters, imagery and his skill in showing the power that love has to heal. Within the poem, Stallworthy tells a story of love and death. Written in first person narrative, the poet describes an old man as he reminisces about his wife during the good times, and bad. Ultimately, the young poet learns a valuable lesson about love through the experiences of this old man. The story within the poem is one of my reasons for choosing this poem as it is about a mature romance, so young adults would benefit and learn a lot about love from it. The poem also shows us that life is a very precious thing so we should live our life to the very best we can, as we cannot predict what will happen in the future. But most of all, teenagers would benefit from the hope the story conveys. It gives hope that in any bad situation we can anticipate and expect good events to follow. Despite being a story of mature love, which may seem to be an unusual subject for younger readers to enjoy, the lesson learned about love in the poem is very relevant. It gives

  • Word count: 1249
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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"Growing Up" the main character experiences something that changes his view of things. Compare the story with one other from the selection, in which a character experiences a kind of change.

"Growing Up" the main character experiences something that changes his view of things. Compare the story with one other from the selection, in which a character experiences a kind of change. This essay will be a comparison of the story "Growing Up" with the short story "Superman and Paula Brown's New Snowsuit". "Growing Up" written by Joyce Cary is a story about the relationship between fathers and their daughters and the way in which it develops and changes. Also this story portrays this change of relationship in a very negative and violent way with the climax being very aggressive. As two young daughters turn against their father and violently attack him. While "Superman and Paula Brown's New Snowsuit" written by Sylvia Plath is about a child being unjustly punished and the way it psychologically affects her and has an everlasting impression on the rest of her life. This small event of her being falsely accused of pushing a girl, Paula Brown into an oil-slick and ruining her new snowsuit mentally makes an impact on the narrator for the rest of her life. "Superman and Paula Brown's New Snowsuit" conveys this idea of this experience having an eternal effect on her from the beginning of the story with its title, as it can be seen as a childish because of the way she refers to the person by her first name and surname which is a very childish and typical thing for a young

  • Word count: 1704
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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"Guilty men" - how responsible were Chamberlain et.al for World War Two?

Guilty men Neville Chamberlain was 68 years old when he succeeded Baldwin as PM on 28th May 1937. It was a post for which he would never fight a general election. As he was being groomed as future PM, he became more critical of policy decisions, sure that he could do better on foreign matters, and his diary recorded a constant lament. He felt that Hitler was the 'bully of Europe', and decided to hope for the best, and plan for the worst. Chamberlain embarked on a policy of deterrence and appeasement, searching for 'decency even in dictators'. Chamberlain saw war as the ultimate absurdity, and he desired peace at all costs. However, he believed in the principle of the 'vital cause', one which if you went to war for, and won you could say 'that cause is safe'. Chamberlain's view that Britain was 'a very rich and a very vulnerable empire' was supported by the idea that Europe was divided between two ideologies. He believed that it was up to Britain to defend itself, holding France and the league of nations in low regard, with similar views towards the US. He was always quick to refute support for certain ideologies, claiming total indifference to Nazism, Fascism and Bolshevism. Chamberlain believed that a nation should not make threats unless it can back them up with action, and that foreign policy is dictated by circumstances. The criticism of Chamberlain came strongly,

  • Word count: 854
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: History
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"Guilty," freedom, strength, relief.

Joanne Alldritt "Guilty," freedom, strength, relief. As soon as the judge said this single, amazingly powerful word, these forgotten feelings rushed through me. I had finally got my revenge. The confusion lead me to let out tearful sighs of joy and sudden outcries of relief. The man who had made my adult life a misery and ruined my teenage memories didn't have any domination over my thoughts or feelings anymore. From going ahead with the prosecution I felt satisfied that no other innocent teenager or harmless child would have to worry about this particular evil, pathetic man ever going near him or her again. It had taken twenty years for me to work up the courage to prosecute but it was worth it. My personality is now like it was, I'm outgoing, less sensitive and I've learnt to trust people. I just hope no one has to go through what I did. When my mother sent me to Lowood boarding school after "average results" in my first year at a state school, I found it difficult to make new friends because firstly the clothes that my mother insisted I wore at weekends were not the most fashionable and the fact that I was the weakest academically in my class resulted in low self esteem. So I was thirteen and had few friends so to speak of. I could only assume that it was because of the "introvert personality," my mother always said I had. She implied that my shortage of friends

  • Word count: 1276
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Sociology
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"Guys like us are the loneliest guys in the world, They got no family, they don't belong no place". Discuss the theme of loneliness portrayed in "of Mice and Men"

"Guys like us are the loneliest guys in the world, They got no family, they don't belong no place" Discuss the theme of loneliness portrayed in "of Mice and Men" "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck is the story of two farm hands, Lennie and George working up a stake on a ranch so maybe they can buy a place of their own "An' live off the fatta the lan'." George is smart and small where as Lennie is a massively strong giant of a man yet as innocent and simple minded as a young child who relies on George as a protector and mentor. There is a theme of loneliness running through the book which comes from John Steinbecks own experiences of working the land. When George starts his story about what life will be like when they get a plot of land he starts it "guys like us." He's talking about Ranch hands and labourers like him and Lennie probably forced to search for jobs because of the economic recession at the time the book was set. The labourers were nearly always single men who have very unstable jobs and would have had to move on once the job was done (once the harvest was collected for example). Their hard itinerant lifestyle was very lonely as the men were separated from any friends they'd made as soon as their job was finished. So the ranch hands often blew all the money they'd just earned on whisky and prostitutes to drown their sorrows and forget their problems and as

  • Word count: 2445
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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