Social Class In Great Expectations

Social class is the dividing line between the working class and the wealthy. It’s there to divide people based on their amount of money, education, and land they have. In the novel Great Expectation by Charles Dickens, the effects social class has on people is explored with the character of Estella. Estella is a character that was born to someone in the lower class, however was raised in the upper class. This unique situation takes a negative turn for her life based on her emotions and actions.
Estella is a part of Pip’s first encounter with the upper class. When the two meet, she brushes him off as a “.. common labouring-boy”(Dickens 58) and wants nothing to do with someone so below her. Her reaction to Pip shows how social class is negative

She notices herself as an awful person that will break Pip 's heart and is scared to get close to him because of that reason. Estella and Pip both have feelings for one another, but instead of marrying him Estella marries an upper class doctor, Drummle. She lets Drummle treat her horribly all the years they’re married because he’s an upper class gentleman, she wouldn’t leave someone who was worshiped by people in Victorian England. He was seen as the perfect man, and she was encouraged to be the perfect wife. Her life in the upper class left her with nothing but emotional abuse from people who were truly a part of that class. When Estella and Pip meet back up again, she warns Pip, “...when we sat apart at a darkening window of the house in Richmond; ‘will you never take warning?’ ‘Of what?’ ‘Of me.’”(Dickens 292). Estella is terrified to love Pip because of how she was raised, partly by Miss Havisham 's influence and partly due to the social class separation between the two. She feels drawn to Pip, but she could never act upon her feelings will Miss Havisham still lived. Her blaming of Miss Havisham is clear to Pip. He saw this when, “...Estella was set to wreak Miss Havisham’s revenge on men, and that she was not to be given to me until she had gratified it for a term.”(Dickens 293). Miss Havisham’s personal inner turmoil with men was passed down to Estella for no other reason than

Although Pip may have lived in poverty a majority of his childhood with little money, he still had family like Joe that cared for and loved him. Estella was raised in isolation with just Miss Havisham, who emotionally abused her into becoming a cold, heartless person. Estella confronts Miss Havisham about this in part two after her Pip meetup. The two argue until Estella responds with, “I am what you have made me. Take all the praise, take all the blame; take all the success, talk all the failure; in short, take me”(Dickens 295). Miss Havisham raised Estella this way, identifying that her own past had trouble with men. She was left the altar, and never let a man in her life again. She took in Estella to become someone that breaks men’s hearts, so that her feelings live on within another person after she passes. Estella never wanted that, though. But with her past ruining her future, she couldn 't find her joyful ending like Pip wanted to. Estella brings up the fact that Miss Havisham “brought up [her] adopted daughter wholly in the dark confinements of these rooms, and had never let her know that there was such a thing as the daylight…” (Dickens 296). Estella never knew what love was; not between family and not between friends. Pip did, though. Pip had people who cared about him and didn’t want to see him fail. Nevertheless since Pip grew up in the lower class and Estella grew up in