"It is the habit of my imagination", wrote one Victorian novelist, "to strive after as full a vision of the medium in which a character moves, as of the character itself." Explore the relationship between character and environment in any one or two fictional works of the period.
Both Great Expectations and David Copperfield are characterised by the close relationship between the characters and their immediate environment. This is emblematic of all Dickens' novels, reflecting Dickens' own life, recreating his experiences and journeys, using people and places to symbolise feelings and emotions.
David Copperfield opens to `Pip' in a churchyard on the eerie marshes of Kent sombrely reading his parents' gravestones. Dickens describes the scenery as:
"Dark flat wilderness...intersected with dykes and mounds and gates, with cattle feeding on it, was the marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond was the river; and that the distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing, was the sea" (Dickens 6)
This creates a picture of grey gloominess, which embodies how Pip is feeling at the time, as in the next sentence, he starts to cry. The sea is described as a "distant savage lair" (6), and the prison ship which is in the distance, on the sea, known as `The Hulks', Pip describes as "a wicked Noah's Ark" (39). This implies that he is scared of the sea, and The Hulks, and as this is most likely reflecting his state of mind, the reader presumes that this is how he feels a lot of the time when he is at home with Mrs. Joe and on the marshes. Home is a very uncomfortable place for Pip, made so by his sister and the contempt she holds for Pip.
In chapter eight, Pip finds himself at Satis House, home of Miss Havisham. Everything tha...
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...n times because travelling was just becoming a possibility, what with developments with transport, and people wanted to read about travelling, journeys and moving around. The Micawbers, in David Copperfield become "purposeful travellers, emigrating to Australia along with the Peggottys'." (Slater, 103) Magwitch, in Great Expectations is also for part of the novel, abroad, in New South Wales. This opened up the possibilities for Victorians to travel.
Bibliography
Andrews, M. Dickens on England and the English. Harvester Press, Sussex: 1979
Dexter, W. The England of Dickens. Purnell, England: 1925
Dickens, C. David Copperfield, Penguin, London: 1994
Dickens, C. Great Expectations, Penguin, London: 1994
Schwarzbach, F. S. Dickens and the City, Athlone Press, London: 1979
Slater, M. An Intelligent Person's Guide to Dickens. Duckworth, London: 1999
John H. Hagan, Jr. The Poor Labyrinth: The Theme of Social Injustice in Dickens's "Great
9. Ashbury, M (2001) Representation of Industrialization in Dickens’ Hard Times [Online]. Available: http://www.colourpurple.com [Accessed 25th April 2005].
In the opening chapter, we feel sorry for Pip as we find out that his
From these experiences Pip finds out about what he considers polite society, but Satis House is a place where society is anything but polite. This is exemplified by Estella’s blatant lack of regard for Pip’s feelings; she points out to him for the first time his faults such as his “coarse hands…. thick boots” and the fact that he is nothing but “a common labouring boy”. This not only points out Pip’s own faults but also leads to his awareness of Joe’s.
Charles Dickens is one of the most popular and ingenious writers of the XIX century. He is the author of many novels. Due to reach personal experience Dickens managed to create vivid images of all kinds of people: kind and cruel ones, of the oppressed and the oppressors. Deep, wise psychoanalysis, irony, perhaps some of the sentimentalism place the reader not only in the position of spectator but also of the participant of situations that happen to Dickens’ heroes. Dickens makes the reader to think, to laugh and to cry together with his heroes throughout his books.
Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens is a fascinating tale of love and fortune. The main character, Pip, is a dynamic character who undergoes many changes through the course of the book. Throughout this analysis the character, Pip will be identified and his gradual change through the story will be surveyed.
The Satis House’s mood is gloomy, with the barely lit rooms, rotted food, and the abusive Havisham. This negatively affects Pip’s whole life, in that it exposed him to love, however it was an unobtainable one which haunts Pip. To Pip, the Satis House represents his hopes, such as his longing for Estella.
No novel boasts more varied and unique character relationships than Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. This essay will serve to analyze three different relationships, paying special attention to the qualities that each uphold. Dickens created three types of character relationships: true friends, betrayed friends, and loving relatives.
The most important theme throughout the book can be said to be ambition and self-improvement. Pip at heart is an idealist; whenever he is convinced that something is superior to what he has, he immediately desires to obtain that improvement. This is best illustrated when he sees Satis house, which puts him into a state of mind of desiring to be a wealthy gentleman. In this novel, Pip’s ambition and self-improvement takes three forms: moral, social, and educational. Firstly, he desires moral self-improvement and is very hard on himself when he feels that he acts immorally, by trying to act better in the future. This can be noticed when Pip leaves for London and is disappointed with his behavior towards Biddy and Joe. Secondly he desires social self-improvement, after having fallen in love with Estella, who demands Pip to act according to high society. His fantasies of becoming a gentleman are further fueled by Mrs. Joe and Pumblechook. These fantasies prove to be very significant throughout the plot, since the author uses these ideas of social class to explore the class system of his period. Thirdly, Pip desires educational improvement, which is deeply connected to his social ambition and dream of marrying Estella. Ultimately, through the examples of Joe, Biddy and Magwitch, Pip learns that social and educational improvement are irrelevant to one’s real worth and that conscience and affection are to be valued above social ranking.
Starting out straight from the beginning of Pip's life he is already in pain from losing his parents. He then must live with his older sister Ms.Joe who puts him through a great deal of torture during his childhood. Such as when he went to the graveyard without her approval, she filled his mouth with tarred water just to prove a point to him. Not only was it Ms.Joe though, but the convict as well who put the dark image in his head of the certain someone who would come to kill him if he didn't bring him what he wanted which Pip eventually could not stop being concerned about after he came back from the graveyard. Once Pip starts to visit Miss Havisham though it is obvious the way she has designed the Satis House is in such a low, dark, depressing emotion because of the experiences she's had to suffer during her past. Miss Havisham's suffering has defined her character though. "Miss Havisham herself, of course, is the big victim of the novel, abandoned on her wedding day ...
Throughout both Jane Eyre and Great Expectations the reader can identify many universal themes of the Victorian period. It is shown through the similarities and differences of setting, social and gender mobility, the power of the unconscious, and the main character’s struggles with their internal passions, that Brontë and Dickens’ shared common bases for writing their works of literature.
Swisher, Clarice, Ed. “Charles Dickens: A Biography.” Readings on Charles Dickens. San Diego, Greenhaven Press, 1998. Print. 21 March 2014.
Throughout his lifetime, Dickens appeared to have acquired a fondness for "the bleak, the sordid, and the austere."5 Most of Oliver Twist, for example, takes place in London's worst slums.6 The city is described as a maze which involves a "mystery of darkness, anonymity, and peril."7 Many of the settings, such as the pickpocket's hideout, the surrounding streets, and the bars, are also described as dark, gloomy, and bland.8
Charles Dickens is well known for his distinctive writing style. Few authors before or since are as adept at bringing a character to life for the reader as he was. His novels are populated with characters who seem real to his readers, perhaps even reminding them of someone they know. What readers may not know, however, is that Dickens often based some of his most famous characters, those both beloved or reviled, on people in his own life. It is possible to see the important people, places, and events of Dickens' life thinly disguised in his fiction. Stylistically, evidence of this can be seen in Great Expectations. For instance, semblances of his mother, father, past loves, and even Dickens himself are visible in the novel. However, Dickens' past influenced not only character and plot devices in Great Expectations, but also the very syntax he used to create his fiction. Parallels can be seen between his musings on his personal life and his portrayal of people and places in Great Expectations.
While the novel does act as a social commentary on the disparaging treatment of the poor in England, Dickens fails to do more than comment on the situation. The fact that the social classes are fighting for survival against one another provides for the establishment of a further embedded social caste system of us against them. The very poor in David Copperfield, are at times overlooked by even the middle class characters in the novel. While some of the middle class characters do look out for a few of the lower class characters, these actions are taken as a result of their need to feel needed by others. My paper will examine the desire for the author to write a social commentary on class inequality, survival, and the search for happiness at all costs in David Copperfield.