How Does Dickens Relate the Idea of Social Class to Personality? In Dicken's book 'Great Expectations'.

However in Victorian class at the time it was generally the opinion that anyone without the neccesery money and social standing could not be a good person. For example in a company the most brilliant business mind could be working as a poorly paid clerk, never likely to be promoted simply because they did not go to the right school. This kind of prejedice seems very offensive today but at the time that Dickens lived it was considered the norm that everyone had their place and should stick to it (this was of course the view of those higher up the social ladder). It was even seen as acceptable for some factory owners to treat ‘their’ workers as little more than disposable property, it is this that Dickens is likely to have experienced in the shoe-polish warehouse. Dickens was a great supporter for more rights for factory workers and campaigned openly against the mistreatment of the poor in later life. He also, somewhat more suptely intorduced several ideas that speak against the established social order in books such as Great Expectations.

His early experiences are likely to have influenced Dickens in his portrayel of class and personality in his book. In the early chapters of the novel Pip is content with his upringing and status, partly because he is actually ignorant to a large extent of the idea that class affected your life to the great degree that it did in Victorian England. Pip is only introduced to this idea of class when he goes to Miss Havisham’s house for the first time. There the young and very snobbish Estella is extremely rude to him for reasons that Dickens clearly meant to seem ludicrous; such as his boots being too thick or the fact that Pip doesn’t call the Jacks in a pack of cards ‘Knaves.’ These are obviously not valid reasons for disliking someone and Estella has been raised as a snob, something which will affect her in later life. Miss Havisham is obviously a very upper class women who has everything she could want but actually, doesn’t come across as so snobbish as the young Estella is. However, as she is the one who bought up Estella this is unlikely to be the actual case and Miss Havisham may extend her snobbery to include the idea that all men are useless, evil beings which is obviously a consequence of her being left at the alter. Havisham was obviously over reacted in way that she dealt with this rejection, possibly because she had previously had everything and could not deal with any kind of rejection. Dickens portrays the charcter of Miss Havisham as cold and calculating, still realing many years later from something which for all her wealth and power she could simply not handle. The other charcter who has to deal with rejection in the book, Pip, reacts much less volatilely but comes from a much lower class background than Havisham indicating that Dickens thought those who were very rich would not necceserily be able to deal with simple situations in life.

This is furthur in evidence with Dicken’s portrayel of the other upper class charcters in the book. For example Mr and Mrs Pocket while possessing a large house and quite a lot of money are completely incapable of looking after their own children, instead this is left to their two hard working servents or ven their other children. One scene that perfectly ilustates this is when the Pockets and their guests (which include Pip) are having dinner. The Pocket’s youngest child, still a baby is handed to Mrs Pocket and nearly injures itself with some needles before it is rescued by the Pocket’s young daughter and two servents. Also, Mrs Pocket is obsessed with the fact that her grandfather could have had a title were it not for an unlucky chance and it the book continually refers to the fact that Mrs Pocket is very disapointed by the fact that she did not marry a title and is completetly useless for anything. Of course this behaviour of worrying over the bad luck of a long dead ancestor is totally ludicrous and Dickens means to bring this point to the reader. Also the behaviour of Mr Pocket at the dinner scene is of a similar style to Mrs Pocket’s attitude (ie mad) as he attempts to pick himself up by his hair. These two characters while somewhat exaggerarted, as is the style of Dickens still clearly show that he thought the upper class was unable to handle even things like their own families and this instead falls to their servants (supposedly of a ‘lower’ class).