Good and evil manifestations of wealth in Great Expectations

 

Great Expectations’s characters define wealth in different ways. Some solely consider wealth to be monetary. Others perceive wealth in more general terms and as the means by which one might access society. Wealth serves to motivate individuals and to drive them to destroy others. Wealth promises freedom and the realization of dreams, but it never delivers upon these promises.Dickens’s creations the language and metaphor of money, the terms of indebtedness, lending, borrowing, rates of payment and return tell us what money can do, how it can change distinctions of class, how it can completely alter the conditions of life.money is not in itself evil, we see that the drive to get money accounts for large areas of human wickednesss - depending on what is done to obtain it and how it is finally spent. Money affects such a vast area of human nature and human activity that it stands for things and men as they are.the nineteenth century money came to represent and make accessible to human ambition the means to satisfy vanity and selfish materialism, to gain advantage, power, and luxury.attacks money, then, because it corrupts morality and all decent values.Throughout his work, those without money tend to be better people than those who have it or those who are bent on attaining it. Getting money raises the question of the means used to obtain it and the source from which money comes. The pursuit of money clashes with one of Dickens’s declared moral absolutes: work. Nothing of value can be had without work.moral problems raised by money are numerous and contradictory. Money tends to corrupt when it is divorced from work, when it is obtained solely by chance, by merely shrewd business operations, by inheritance, or undeserved acquisition. Ruin lies ahead, he warns, for young men who depend not on their own efforts but on their «expectations.»case against money is not complete until its role in fostering illusion is exposed, as in the moral realism of the title, Great Expectations. That title suggests the disillusion of the author and raises great human questions, symbolic either of defeat or acceptance of things as they are. Here Dickens’s attack on nineteenth century optimism reaches its fulfillment. He questions the very nature of the age that gave hope to the young, that roused Hazlitt’s feeling of youth’s immortality, when it was glorious to be alive, when an obscure Corsican might become emperor of France, and when an impoverished English artisan might attain to unimagined riches and a seat in the House of Lords., the nineteenth century created illusions destined to be lost and inspired «great» expectations. Once again, the villain is money, whose very existence creates illusion.When one has money, from whatever source, illusions are possible. So Pip recovers his moral dignity only after he has lost everything he once considered precious.accuses the age of encouraging illusion in the young and then frustrating their hopes, of inspiring excessive ambition and then requiring calculated acts of cruelty to fulfill that ambition, of depriving youth of its grace, vitiating its generous sentiments.is led from a wholesome past into a corrupt future. Selfish meanness of spirit is encouraged, as youth is led to cherish desires that are false because they are satisfied by money alone, without work.lives as a parasite, using people who love him as instruments. He makes disastrous choices, shamefully betraying primary human relationships because the laws of the world demand the sacrifice of those who have nothing to contribute to the fulfillment of his «great expectations.» These wholesome relationships are doomed, the moral and human price exacted as Pip journeys to London, the city which symbolizes the ultimate illusion, the one that encompasses all other illusions.of this is suggested by the title, which introduces a book that is quite unlike any other among the fifteen of Dickens’s novels. The earlier works tend to resemble the eighteenth century’s loose, semi-biographical tales that have for a title the protagonist’s name.Yet even without the hero’s name in the title, Great Expectations is intensely biographical, reaching out from the career of a single youth to comment upon the world.finds that money, like original genius, radiates energy. Once acquired, it transforms a man’s position, elevates him in the general esteem, and gives a new value and dignity to his opinions. It changes all of his relationships with others, inviting deference, servility on all sides. Money, being what all others have desired, has the effect of changing Pip from an object of contempt or indifference to one who has in fact obtained what all have been seeking. He is suddenly what they all want to be, and they give him the deference they would themselves expect in his place. Money in turn deceives, in persuading one of his own merit in acquiring it, so Pip’s money must reward his merit as Pumblechook loses no time in saying that his fortune«well deserved.» Pumblechook’s servility and asininity are forgotten as he now seems a sensible, «prime fellow.» Once one has money then, from whatever source, the mystery or fortune in it fades away, and the money becomes a just reward to a deserving man. Luck has simply displayed good judgement.Great Expectations, Pip must survive the clashing influences of Joe’s wholesome forge and the dark rottenness of Satis House.That mansion has the effect of quickening the hero’s fatal desire for wealth and social place, of fixing until it is too late the illusions certain to be lost.dualism of place leads us immediately to London and country with their manifold associations; to the journeys, the unceasing movements to and fro that give such life and variety to Dickens’s action; to the houses, seen from without and within, that tell us what the life and character of their inhabitants must be, given the surroundings in which they pass their lives. London is viewed throughout as a place of bewildering variety and contradiction, where «life and death went hand in hand; wealth and poverty stood side by side; repletion and starvation laid them down together.» Money returns us to London as the goal of ambition, a concentration of wealth and the desire for it, remaining a continuous, massive presence in Dickens’s world.all that money can buy begins to flow into Pip’s new life. It can buy the fulfillment of his «great expectations» in all their forms external to himself, in all their hollowness and final disillusion. Can it buy Estella too? What can money buy in women but the favors of a prostitute? What is Estella if she can be obtained for Pip by money alone? In the end, however, Estella will be his, only when money is lost and cannot be offered to her.Great Expectations the dream corrupts the dreamer, and the nearer to being realized, the more it corrupts. Pip repudiates those who have loved and aided him; he becomes idle and wasteful, he does no work for the money he spends; he loses his dignity as a man, becoming almost unfit for the society of others.Expectations is a fiction, not a statement of fact subject to analysis as such, so we must beware of reasoning about Pip and what he could or should have known outside the realm of Dickens’s imagined possibilities. Pip is finally the beneficiary of a larg sum of money, about whose source he is at first mistaken, but which he is to accept under three main conditions: he must keep his name as it is; he must never inquire into the identity of his benefactor or try to discuss it in any way; he must enter at once on a course of education suited to his new circumstances.first of these conditions means that Pip will finally be saved. Pip’s name reveals his common origin, and his being not anyone or anything in particular through its being spelled the same either way. He has started from the discontent inspired by Satis House, the desire to be a gentleman, the coming of great expectations and the acceptance of illusory values. Yet he finds that everything in his life may change except his name; he does not see that therefore his nature cannot change, that he is destined to be what he has been. He is forced to stay with an original natural value in his own identity, giving him a base to which he can always return. The meaning is that the illusions can come to nothing, Pip has to go back to what he was in his moral being.

In conclusion let’s once again look through this novel, searching for the theme of wealth and money. Great Expectations depicts the differences between the classes, and how money can corrupt. The novel makes clear that money cannot buy love, nor does it guarantee happiness. One of the happiest - and most morally correct - people in the novel is Joe, Pip's sister's husband. And, Miss Haversham is one of the richest.

Pip believes that if he can be a gentleman, he will have everything he wants from the world. His world collapses and he realizes that all his money has been based on Magwitch's dishonest earnings. And, Pip finally understands the true value of life.Expectations features some of Dickens's greatest characters and one of his trademark convoluted plots. The novel is a fantastic read, and a wonderful morality tale. Full of romance, courageousness and hope - Great Expectations is a brilliant evocation of a time and place. Here's a view of the English class system that is both critical and realistic.

Wealth, or the lack of it, plays an important part in the novel:

·   the capacity to pay Jaggers as a defence lawyer may mean the difference between freedom and imprisonment, life and death for those accused of crime;

·   Pip and Herbert are quite unable to handle their finances and find themselves in severe difficulties;

·   Miss Havisham also uses her money to create in Estella someone who will enable her to take revenge on men;

·   Magwitch intends to do good with his money, but, in fact, causes Pip many difficulties;

·   on the other hand, Pip’s money (and later Miss Havisham’s) is able to do good for Herbert;

·   Individuals and groups of people are shown to be predatory about money:when Pip is invited to visit Miss Havisham, his sister and others immediately begin to think about what she might ‘do’ for Pip in monetary terms;

·   Miss Havisham’s relatives visit her on her birthday, not out of love, but because they hope that she will leave them money in her will;

·   when Pip finds out about his expectations, people in the town, including Mr. Pumblechook, change their behaviour towards him, in the hope that they too will benefit.these senses, money is linked to the novel’s moral themes. Ultimately, the novel seems to say:

·   wealth is no guarantee of happiness;

·   inherited wealth carries great dangers;

·   it is in hard work to earn a modest living that contentment may be found.