Charles Dickens' Picture Of Childhood in Victorian Times

Charles Dickens' Picture Of Childhood in Victorian Times

Great Expectations is set in early Victorian England, a time when

great social changes were sweeping the nation. The Industrial

Revolution of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries had

transformed the social landscape, enabling capitalists and

manufacturers to amass huge fortunes. Although social class was no

longer entirely dependent on the circumstances of one's birth, the

divisions between rich and poor remained nearly as wide as ever.

London, a teeming mass of humanity, lit by gas lamps at night and

darkened by black clouds from smokestacks during the day, formed a

sharp contrast with the nation's sparsely populated rural areas. More

and more people moved from the country to the city in search of

greater economic opportunity. Throughout England, the manners of the

upper class were very strict and conservative: gentlemen and ladies

were expected to have thorough classical educations and to behave

appropriately in innumerable social situations. These conditions

defined Dickens's time, and they make themselves felt in almost every

facet of Great Expectations. Pip's sudden rise from country labourer

to city gentleman forces him to move from one social extreme to

another while dealing with the strict rules and expectations that

governed Victorian England. Ironically, this novel about the desire

for wealth and social advancement was written partially out of

economic necessity.

Great Expectations opens in a miserable, murky marsh. This 'bleak

place overgrown with nettles' is where Pip spends most of his time, we

can assume this as Pip has spent enough time there t...

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... children and to

tar every one in Victorian times with the same brush would be wrong.

Pip has to stop visiting Miss Haversham when he is fourteen because he

must start his blacksmith's apprenticeship with Joe. This tells us

that a Victorian childhood did not last as long as it does today but

finished at fourteen and even before fourteen for some. Young children

were sent up to sweep chimneys at ages younger than fourteen and many

were working in factories by twelve, at least if they came from a

working class family. Estella's higher class than Pip is shown off

greatly at this milestone in Pip's life (becoming an adult), because

as he starts his apprenticeship which will set him up with a job for

life Estella gets the chance to continue her education in 'being a

lady in France', which of course all has to be paid for.