Great Expectations
Exploring Dickensf life experiences and social background, I learnt more about the complex figure Pip, the protagonist of Dickensf novel Great Expectations. It may be said with immature, romantic idealism and innately good conscience that the popularity of this novel owes greatly to this character through his unusual grown experiences, exactly as Dickens himself did. It is an unfailing masterpiece, for Dickensf skillful writing by symbolic use, the brilliant irony, and the sustained theme. Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Pip, protagonist, narrator, idealism, conscience, symbolic, bildungsroman, self-improvementCharles Dickens's acknowledged masterpiece, Great Expectations, is rightly considered one of the greatest novels of all-time. Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, and spent the first nine years of his life living in the coastal regions of Kent, a county in southeast England. Dickensfs father, John, was a clerk in a navy pay office. He was kind and likable man, but he did not know how to take care of his financial situation and always ran into pecuniary troubles. When Dickens was nine, his family moved to London. When he was twelve, his father was arrested and
In Great Expectations, Pip is both the protagonist, whose actions make up the main plot of the novel, and the narrator, whose thoughts and attitudes shape the readerfs perception of the story. The result is a deep-seated irony, partly immediate and partly recognizable in retrospect. So it is obvious that the targets of satire in Great Expectations are not new ones for Dickens--education, the law, social climbing, self-deceit, and vanity. This technique of superimposing is characteristic of Great Expectations and gives it a nightmare quality. Throughout England, the manners of the upper class were very strict and conservative: gentlemen and ladies were expected to have thorough classical educations and to behave appropriately in innumerable social situations. When Pip becomes a gentleman, for example, he immediately begins to act as he thinks a gentleman is supposed to act, which leads him to treat Joe and Biddy snobbishly and coldly. Pip, the novelfs protagonist, lives in the marsh country, works at a job he hates, considers himself too good for his surroundings, and experiences material success in London at a very early age, exactly as Dickens himself did. h Objects, gestures, and phrases take on symbolic value, too. Walworth is Wemmickf s castle, not only because it has turrets and a drawbridge, but also because it is his individuality, his humanity, which must be preserved and defended against the world of his employer and Little Britain. He entertains fantasies of becoming a gentleman. A masterpiece for the ages, which will endure for years yet to come, Great Expectations is a great book that can be loved by one and all, for, at its heart, is that grain of simple truth that says so much about what is human in all of us -- whether we have great expectations or not. Although social class was no longer entirely dependent on the circumstances of onefs birth, the divisions between rich and poor remained nearly as wide as ever. The moral theme is quite simple: affection, loyalty, and conscience are more important than social advancement, wealth, and class. Many of the events from Dickensfs early life are mirrored in Great Expectations, which, apart from David Copperfield , is his most autobiographical novel.
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