Great Expectation and the Industrial Revolution
Great Expectations takes place roughly during the same time of the Industrial Revolution. While there are many similarities between the movie and the Industrial Revolution, there are also many differences in the lifestyles, which Charles Dickens, in Great Expectations, twisted slightly from actual industrial reality to order to illustrate a certain message about the Industrial Revolution.
The film and the actual times have some similarities, because they take place in the same time in roughly the same area, but the similarities are actually surprisingly few between the two worlds. One of the similarities is that, in the industrial times, many people moved from their farms and the cottage system to the work in the factories in the cities, causing urbanization. In film, Pip also worked in the cottage system, he was an apprentice to the blacksmith and then he moved to the big city of London. Just like many people at that time, Pip moves to the urban area in the pursuit of a better life. Other than that and the fact that the film and the Industrial Revolution approximately coincide temporally and spatially, the lifestyles of the people in the film are vastly different than those of the actual times.
As for differences, the film takes actually takes place a little bit earlier than the real meat of the Industrial Revolution. For instance, in the film there are no electric lights and automobiles, but it is known that both of those items were invented during the Industrial Revolution. This would of impacted the lifestyles of Pip and others in the film because it meant that they couldn't work or do anything the night and could only do things by light of the sun. The lack of cars meant ...
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...ig snob who thinks that he is a great gentleman. Pip dreads Joe's visit because he looks down on him, but Pip is then is shocked by Joe's humbleness and his simple, quiet dignity. Also, at the end of the movie, Estella and Pip fall in love, and Estella ends up not marrying Drummle, the stuck up London gentleman. Estella favors the original country boy, and on a larger scale, this showed how Dickens thought how the quiet country life was superior to the industrial life.
Most importantly, the entire movie is just one story of how a simple country boy is turned into a snob by the city life. Moreover, Pip doesn't gain anything when he goes to live in the city and actually is less happy than his early days. In this, Dickens is trying to convey the sense that being wealthy and aristocratic is not as important as having loyalty, love, humble dignity, and inner worth.
At the start of the novel, Pip is very low educated and unaware of his social class , or even that he belongs to a social class. Because he does not know of any "better" lifestyle, Pip is content with what he has and who he knows. As life goes on, he meets new people from both higher and lower social classes and his content turns to greed and shame, as he immediately longs to be better educated. He is suddenly ashamed of his family and origins. Pip learns as he grows older, however, that having mone...
Relationships can be detrimental to our sense of belonging as they can alienate us from our true friends and ultimately lead to regret. Dickens employs orphan Pip to critique the rigid social hierarchy of Victorian society and explores how our relationships can negatively affect our sense of belonging. Pip’s lack of nurture and support in his early life being brought up ‘by hand’ by his ‘coarse’ sister; Mrs Joe, left pip ‘ashamed of home’ and attempting to find solace in social inclusion of a ‘gentleman’. However, his impressionable time at Satis house encourages Pip to pursue the unattainable ‘star’ Estella and aspire to the social pretensions of the like of Drummle who is ‘idle, proud, niggardly, reserved , suspicious’. Consequently severing ties with Joe and the ‘meshes’ (marshes) leaves him to become the ‘loneliest I (Pip) has ever known’. Pip’s attitude of initial abhorrence on the sudden arrival of Magwitch shifting to a willingness to care for Magwitch after learning he is the benefactor and not Miss Havisham. Magwitch’s arrival sparks in Pip a need for forgiveness, which h...
Many people strive for things that are out of their reach. In the novel Great Expectations, Charles Dickens shows the themes of personal ambition and discontent with present conditions. The main character, Pip, shows early on in the story that he is unhappy with his current situation. Throughout the story he strives for the things that are beyond his reach, and is apathetic to the things that he can obtain. Pip demonstrates this by striving for Estella when he could have Biddy, and yearning to be a gentleman when he could be a blacksmith.
Charles Dickens utilizes his life for inspiration for the protagonist Pip in his novel Great Expectations. They both struggle with their social standing. Dickens loved plays and theatre and therefore incorporated them into Pip’s life. Dickens died happy in the middle class and Pip died happy in the middle class. The connection Dickens makes with his life to Pip’s life is undeniable. If readers understand Dickens and his upbringing then readers can understand how and why he created Pip’s upbringing. Charles Dickens’ life, full of highs and lows, mirrors that of Pip’s life. Their lives began the same and ended the same. To understand the difficulty of Dickens’ childhood is to understand why his writing focuses on the English social structure. Dickens’ life revolved around social standing. He was born in the lower class but wasn’t miserable. After his father fell into tremendous debt he was forced into work at a young age. He had to work his way to a higher social standing. Because of Dicken’s constant fighting of class the English social structure is buried beneath the surface in nearly all of his writings. In Great Expectations Pip’s life mirrors Dickens’ in the start of low class and the rise to a comfortable life. Fortunately for Dickens, he does not fall again as Pip does. However, Pip and Dickens both end up in a stable social standing.
In conclusion, Charles Dickens develops different characters to create an image of a true gentleman that proves how inherited money usually leads to corruption and discontent in life. All of the characters: Miss Havisham, Pip, and Joe Gargery finally learned what a gentleman is, even if they all had different events happen to them. People often use their money to buy clothes or toys at stores, but there is never a store that sells happiness. Happiness cannot be bought, but it is created by reliable and friendly people who have always been loyal and trustworthy to their friends. Money cannot create happiness; only the individual can determine their contentment with their lives.
After being very ill Pip realises that being a gentleman means more than having money and an education. Many of Dickens books are about childhood difficulties. Perhaps this is because he was drawing on the experience of his own difficult childhood and his own desire, like Pips to become a gentleman. Dickens books are also about the class struggle, cruelty, inequality and injustice. Punishment was harsh such as deportation to do hard labour in Australia for small crimes or public hanging.
Life drastically changed during the industrial revolution. People were living in germ infested, crowded and very unhealthy conditions, much like the places where they work. Women and children worked in harsh conditions for almost whole days and only received little pay. The British Parliament stepped in and limited child labor. This sparked a revolt. People, especially wealthy capitalists, wanted the government to stay out of its issues, called the laissez-faire system5. Many people opposed the laissez-faire system, saying the capitalists would gain too much power and people would be mistreated. The laissez-faire system was disregarded after a few years.
The novel, Great Expectations, presents the story of a young boy growing up and becoming a
In the novel, Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens the principal character, Pip, undergoes a tremendous change in character. I would like to explore with you the major incidents in Pip’s childhood that contribute to his change from an innocent child to someone consumed by false values and snobbery.
As a bildungsroman, Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations presents the growth and development of Philip Pirrip, better known as Pip. Pip is both the main character in the story and the narrator, telling his tale many years after the events take place. Pip goes from being a young boy living in poverty in the marsh country of Kent, to being a gentleman of high status in London. Pip’s growth and maturation in Great Expectations lead him to realize that social status is in no way related to one’s real character.
The main character, Pip, is a gentle character. His traits include humbleness, kindness, and lovingness. These traits are most likely the cause of his childhood poverty. In the beginning of the story, Pip is a mild mannered little boy who goes on with his own humble life. That, though, will change as he meets Magwich, a thief and future benefactor. Pip’s kindness goes out to help the convict, Magwich when he gives food and clothing to him. Magwich tells Pip that he’ll never forget his kindness and will remember Pip always and forever. This is the beginning of Pip’s dynamic change. Throughout the novel, Great Expectations, the character, Pip gradually changes from a kind and humble character to a character that is bitter, then snobbish and finally evolves into the kind and loving character which he was at the beginning of the story.
The Industrial Revolution was a period from 1750 to 1850 where agriculture, manufacturing, transportation, and technology went through a period of significant change. These changes had a profound impact on the social and cultural conditions of the time, beginning in the Untied Kingdom and spreading throughout Western Europe, North America, and the rest of the world. The Industrial Revolution, considered a major turning point in history, effected almost every aspect of daily life; through new discoveries in technology came new jobs; through new jobs came new working conditions; through new working conditions came new laws and new politics, the repercussions of which extend to today. As Crump emphasizes: ‘The world as we have come to know it in the twenty-first century is impossible to understand without looking at the foundations laid – mainly in the English-speaking world of the eighteenth century – in the course of what is now known, but not then, as the ‘Industrial Revolution’ .
Marxism consists of the political and economic theories of Karl Marx, in which class struggle is a central element in the analysis of social change in Western societies. Marxism applies to the novel Great Expectations in many ways. Dickens uses Pip’s complex and altering relationships with Estella, Joe, and Magwitch to show the subjugation of the working-class from the privileged.
Shades of Dickens' childhood are repeatedly manifested throughout Great Expectations. According to Doris Alexander, Dickens "knew that early circumstances shape character and that character, in turn, shapes reactions to later circumstances" (3). Not coincidentally, then, the novel is initially set in Chatham and the action eventually moves to London, much like Dickens did himself. The "circumstances" that young Pip experiences a...
At the start of the novel, Pip is a poor uneducated orphan boy unaware of social classes, or even the existence of such things. As a result, he is content with what he has and who he knows. Moving on in life, he comes across new people from all spectrums of social classes, and his content turns to shame and greed, as he longs to be “better”. All of a sudden Pip becomes ashamed of both his family and his social class. As Pip begins to understand the true meaning of life, his childish attitude does however change. “Pip learns as he grows older, however, that having money and power and being of a higher social class is not necessarily better than having true friends that care about him - even if they are of a lower social class” (Bloom, “Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations” 236). As the aforementioned quote suggests, in the final stages of the story Pip’s mindset changes for the better and Pip is able to give up having the “money and the power” and focuses ...