or education, i.e. the working classes. This is a link to the theme of the gentleman with the novel as Dickens acted as the voice of the working class and with his labelling of a gentleman as a person of morals, it created a feel good factor amongst the readership with the realisation that money did not make a man.
             England in the late 18th century was a place of great industrialisation, in which virtually none were exempt from labour of some form. Yet by the 1840's there was a distinct population who had benefited from the working class, and began to keep an "exaggerated allegiance to the concept of refinement" . Capitalism had created a new middle class of people to whom etiquette was one of the strongest determinants of a person's worth. Men were to dress and act in a refined manner and were never to be associated with anyone of the 'lower class'. This was the beginning of the Victorian era, and the concept of the 'ideal gentleman'. The true gentlemen of Great Expectations cannot be determined using standards of the nineteenth century for Dickens portrays his characters in a more modern way, that is, gentlemen are not made by their position in society but by their actions, compassion, and love for others. Dickens actually redefines what he believes a gentleman should be by displaying an array of male persona and attitudes.
             In Great Expectations, the idea presented of Pip's evolution from a child to a 'gentleman' is a problematic one. As a bildungsroman, the novel is concerned with the development of the protagonist, in this case, Phillip Pirrip. The dilemma here is whether Pip develops according to the environment he is in. I have a distinct problem with the fact that everyone in the novel labels him as a 'gentleman' when in fact he is anything but, according to what Dickens believes is a gentleman. In order to explain this, there first must be a defini...