Great Expectations is a story of the growth and development of its main character Pip. His desire for self-improvement is the main source of the novel’s title: because he believes in the prospect of advancement in life, he has “great expectations” about his future. Dickens presents Pip as an idealist; whenever he sees something better than what he has, he immediately wants it. When he sees Satis House, he yearns to be a rich gentleman; when he thinks of his moral shortcomings, he wishes to be good; when he realizes that he cannot read he wants to learn.
Pip’s desire for moral self-improvement can be seen as
he is extremely hard on himself when he acts immorally and feels guilty. The
feeling of guilt motivates Pip to improve his behaviour in the future. When he
leaves for London, he distresses himself about having behaved dreadfully
towards Joe and Biddy.
Dickens uses Pip’s desire for social self-improvement
as a way of satirizing the upper classes as Pip's life as a gentleman is no more
satisfying and no more moral than his previous life as an apprentice
blacksmith. We see Pip develop his desire to raise his social class when he
falls in love with Estella and his dreams of becoming a gentleman form the
basic plot of the novel.
Pip's craving for educational improvement is deeply
connected to his social ambition and his longing to marry Estella. Being a
gentleman requires a good education. As an uneducated country boy, he would
have no hope of social advancement in Victorian England. Pip understands this
early in his childhood as he learns to read at Mr Wopsle’s aunt’s school, we
also see this later in his life when he takes lessons from Matthew Pocket. It
is only through his experiences with Joe, Biddy, and Magwitch that Pip learns
that social and educational improvement don’t show someone’s real value and
that conscience and affection are to be valued above sophistication and social
standing.
In many of his novels Charles Dickens explores the theme
of social class and Great Expectations is no exemption. The novel was written
after the industrial revolution and the new opportunities created allowed
people from ‘lower’ social classes to gain wealth through hard work and
enterprise and thus move up to ‘higher’ more wealthy classes.
During the novel, Pip interacts with people from
different classes from criminals like Magwitch, poor working-class people like
Joe and Biddy, the middle class like Pumblechook and the very wealthy like Miss
Havisham.
The theme of social class is central to the novel’s
plot and through his interaction with characters from different backgrounds, Pip
comes to realise that wealth and class are less important than affection,
loyalty, and inner worth, which provides the reader with the novel’s key moral.
The theme of crime and guilt is explored by Dickens
throughout the novel largely through the characters of the convicts and the
criminal lawyer Jaggers. Dickens uses the character of Magwitch to advise the
reader that punitive punishment and failure to deal with poverty and other
primary factors that lead people to commit crimes only make matters worse and
cause criminals to re-offend.
Magwitch’s trial for returning to England highlights
the failings of the legal system at the time as his show trial was only going
to have one outcome – his being sentenced to death.
The imagery of crime and criminal justice is seen
throughout the novel, from Joe mending handcuffs at the smithy to the gallows
in London. These become an important symbol of Pip’s inner struggle with his
own moral conscience and the justice system.
When Pip first meets Magwitch he is terrified because Magwitch is a convict and Pip feels guilty at helping him as he is afraid of the police, by the end of the novel Pip has discovered Magwitch’s true character which enables him to value Magwitch rather than just see him as a criminal.
Pip desires wealth and status as a means of winning Estella's love and fitting into high society. Pip's expectations, however, lead him down a path of moral decay and betrayal as he becomes more focused on his own desires for wealth and less concerned with the well-being of those around him. Through the character of Pip Dickens suggests that the pursuit of wealth and status can have a corrupting influence on individuals and society as a whole, highlighting the importance of valuing morality and compassion over material possessions.