Great Expectations

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Maryam Chaudhery 11W

Ms Spencer

Great Expectations

In Charles Dickens life he experienced both poverty and wealth. It has been suggested that the novel ‘Great Expectations’ was a extract of his life, when Pip was in poverty Joe was working hard to get money for the family. While Dickens was still a young boy, his father was sent to debtor's prison. During that time, Dickens briefly worked in a London factory pasting labels on shoe polish bottles, which shows how low his status was. Even after his father's release, John Dickens (Charles Dickens father) work barely provided enough money to support the family.  

Dickens uses different characters to show the contrast between the social class and to show that you don’t need money to be happy because the character pip did not find happiness when he comes into lots of money. Using the characters Pip, Joe and Mrs. Havisham I will be presenting his views on wealth and class

Pip is the only the main character in the novel but he is also the narrator. ‘Great Expectations’ shows many stages of Pips life, in the opening chapter he is presented as an innocent and sweet boy ‘goo-good night sir’ pip respects the convict (who he meets) by calling him sir but then the status turns around, ‘I wish to come in master’ the same person who pip once used to call ‘sir’ now is calling him ‘master’ because he has status once he was older.

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When Pip goes to Mrs. Havisham house he meets Estella the love of his life but she has other things to say about him ‘boy- why he’s a common laboring boy’ this is how Estella feels for pip because of this comment pip feels lower than usual ‘my coarse hands and my common boots’ Pip gets upset on Estella’s words because of how little wealth he has got.  He can’t afford good working boots but because of all of Estella’s wealth she can afford better, and she shouldn’t judge a person on the quality of their clothes.

Pip is wishing ...

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