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Recommended: What Are The Effects Of Social Class

Many people would leave their family behind for their own “great expectations”. In Charles Dickens’, Great Expectations, Pip is born a content, common boy but as the novel progresses, he becomes less happy with being poor. Pip meets the beautiful, rich Estella, and is taunted by her about being poor. After that, Pip is no longer happy to work the rest of his life as a common boy in the forge. When a strange lawyer comes to his home, offering him fortune and a chance to be a gentleman, Pip does not hesitate to go with him and leave his family behind. Once he has left, he beings to look down on the “common people”. He treats them poorly and believes that he is above them. In Great Expectations, Charles Dickens reveals the theme that money and social status can change relationships by character and bildungsroman in the writing.

Charles Dickens uses character to show the reader that opportunity for money and fortune cause Pip to leave the people who raised him behind. When Pip receives word from Jaggers that he has “great expectations” and an “anonymous benefactor”, he has few regrets of leaving behind his loving brother and friend, Joe and Biddy. He thinks, “My dream was out; my wild fancy was surpassed by sober reality…” (146). Pip’s only thoughts are of being excited to leave and become. He doesn’t think about missing his family or feeling bad to leave them. Pip chooses his potential fortune over the people who raised him with love. Jaggers also chooses money over family. When Pip meets Jaggers’ he is cold and does not care about anyone or anything but his work. Although the reader does not read about Jaggers’ childhood, he did have one and he did have people who raised him. Jaggers never mentions his family. He has no relations o...

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...are the same age and grew up together. They used to be friends and valued each other’s opinions but now Pip feels above Biddy and Biddy resents Pip for that. Social class had changed many things for Pip.

In Great Expectations, Charles Dickens uses character and bildungsroman to make the theme that relationships can be changed by a gain in social class and fortune. Through character, Charles Dickens shows the reader that people are not above leaving family for money and social status. Through bildungsroman, the reader can see that money and social status change the way people interact. By using these things, Charles Dickens is able to relay the theme to the reader. Many people, not just Pip and Jaggers, would leave their family and treat them differently because of a change in fortune or social class. Relationships can be altered by social class and fortune.

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