In Great Expectations,
Dickens is interested in what it means to be a Gentleman
To be able to ascertain whether Pip, Joe and Magwitch were real "gentlemen" it is important that I am able recognise what it means to be a "gentleman". To me a gentleman should be a polite and well mannered person, unlike in the Victorian society when all "gentlemen" had to be either educated or wealthy.
The term "gentlemen" was important in Victorian society because to be a "gentleman" would earn a man a higher social status and would mean that he would be well educated and very wealthy. Samuel smiles was ahead of his time by saying that a "gentleman" should not have to be wealthy or well educated but have some general good manners and be polite to other people, dickens was also ahead of his time because he was saying a similar kind of thing "Great Expectations".
Pip's character progresses and changes a lot through the whole of the novel. There is an abundance of instances where we see that Pip is ashamed of his background as a "labouring boy", this is because of Estella, she made him feel bad about being a "labouring boy" and she made a number of offensive remarks about his hands and boots and the way he calls "Knaves" "Jacks", and this upset him and he regrets it. Then when he is older, (near the middle of the novel, Magwitch pays for him to become a gentleman (but Pip does not know of him being his benefactor), this is another point of progress in the novel, another is when he stops being a gentleman (at the end of the novel), because he realises that he has no more money left then he realises what he has done to Joe and feels terrible about it.
Dickens writes the novel from pips perspective because Pip was the central character in the novel and later all the other characters join together. Writing the novel in this way also has an impact on the audience because it gives us a better idea on the difficulties that Pip had encountered in his life.
Dickens is interested in what it means to be a Gentleman
To be able to ascertain whether Pip, Joe and Magwitch were real "gentlemen" it is important that I am able recognise what it means to be a "gentleman". To me a gentleman should be a polite and well mannered person, unlike in the Victorian society when all "gentlemen" had to be either educated or wealthy.
The term "gentlemen" was important in Victorian society because to be a "gentleman" would earn a man a higher social status and would mean that he would be well educated and very wealthy. Samuel smiles was ahead of his time by saying that a "gentleman" should not have to be wealthy or well educated but have some general good manners and be polite to other people, dickens was also ahead of his time because he was saying a similar kind of thing "Great Expectations".
Pip's character progresses and changes a lot through the whole of the novel. There is an abundance of instances where we see that Pip is ashamed of his background as a "labouring boy", this is because of Estella, she made him feel bad about being a "labouring boy" and she made a number of offensive remarks about his hands and boots and the way he calls "Knaves" "Jacks", and this upset him and he regrets it. Then when he is older, (near the middle of the novel, Magwitch pays for him to become a gentleman (but Pip does not know of him being his benefactor), this is another point of progress in the novel, another is when he stops being a gentleman (at the end of the novel), because he realises that he has no more money left then he realises what he has done to Joe and feels terrible about it.
Dickens writes the novel from pips perspective because Pip was the central character in the novel and later all the other characters join together. Writing the novel in this way also has an impact on the audience because it gives us a better idea on the difficulties that Pip had encountered in his life.
