Charles Dickens Influence On Social Class

Charles Dickens, one of the greatest writers ever known in Victorian London, used his personal experiences and incorporated them into his novels to make his works more interesting and intimate. Dickens has written one of the most praised books for its impacts on social values and problems in English History: Great Expectations. Through his own life experiences, Dickens includes topics of injustice towards the poor and uses these ideas in his novel through the main character Pip, who becomes exposed to social reform. In the novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Dickens criticizes and comments on the aspects of social class and education, especially because of instances in his own life, influencing his perspective on his character Pip,

Dickens started off with a strenuous life. Dickens and his family were in a poor state after his father left him due to debts he could not pay. Education-wise, Dickens, as well as the others with an impecunious status, had a limited schooling. During the Victorian Era, the options for the indigent were very limited. Elisabeth Rose Gruner, a British novelist, provides an analysis about social rank during the time of Dickens. “Wealthy children were usually educated at home, and middle-class children attended private schools. The options for poor and working-class children were limited to unregulated, unprofessional schools like ‘dame schools,’ often run by poorly trained women who supervised children in cottage industries (such as plaiting straw or lacemaking) while they performed a perfunctory instruction in reading” (Gruner 152). The words “dame schools” show how unprofessional these educational institutions were. Gruner provides a scintillating description on how cheap these schools were, for incompetent teachers gave quick and cursory lessons to the poor students. This contrasts to the affluent children, for they received education at home and learned to become a proper gentleman/lady. During Charles Dickens’s life, he experienced and saw others experience the inefficiency of a penurious life due to low social status, while he saw the fortunate children to receive privileges, leading to his

In Dickens's life, his first love was Maria Beadnell, who he felt a deep affection to. Yet, because he was of lower status, Dickens could not win Maria. According to a British novelist Marie Rose Napierkowski, Charles Dickens had “believed that Maria had rejected him because of social class differences, since Dickens had not yet established his writing career at the time and Maria's father was a banker” (Napierkowski 89). One can analyze that Charles Dickens felt despondent, for he had not finalized his career in writing and his love’s father was in a high position in society. Through the imagery provided, Dickens had perceived that he did not deserve her. This unworthiness Dickens felt was one reason why he chose Pip to feel that he is inferior to his love, Estella. Due to social standards, Estella does not feel that Pip was the love of her heart. “—Though she called me ‘boy’ so often, and with a carelessness that was far from complimentary, she was of about my own age” (Dickens 53). Through the word “boy,” Estella treats Pip as a subservient person, even though she is near to Pip’s age. Dickens includes the dash “—” to show an intrusion that Pip feels is imperative for him to bring up, for he feels unqualified to be with Estella. This was similar to how Charles Dickens felt towards his first love, Maria. Dickens incorporates instances in his life which influences his