Analysis of Great Expectations through the prism of good and evil

Dickens set out to compose what Bernard Shaw called his «most compactly perfect book» during a tumultuous time of upheaval and change in his native England.the second half of the nineteenth century, when Dickens’s career had flowered, the world’s center of influence shifted from France to London, whose population tripled during the time of Queen Victoria’s reign-and society shifted from one of ownership and property to one of manufacture and trade. While the beginning of the nineteenth century and the effects of the Industrial Revolution brought poverty and persecution for the laboring class, a series of reforms in the 1830s and 1840s helped to stabilize both the economy and the population.acts restricted child labor and limited hours of employment, and the erection of the Crystal Palace in 1851 celebrated the beauty - rather than the strife - lof the Revolution’s technological innovation.Darwin’s treatise The Origin of Species, published in 1859, put this progress in the context of evolution and natural selection. And so, in 1860, the story of a boy’s confusion-riddled rise from impoverished orphan to city gentleman grew slowly from a the seed of Dickens’s letter to his friend John Forster, describing «a little piece I am writing... Such a very fine, new, and grotesque idea has opened upon me... I can see the whole of a serial revolving around it, in a most singular and comic matter».Expectations is at once an elegy for the lost innocence of lower-class rural population - who, like the Gargerys of Rochester, toiled in the countryside of his childhood - and a critical analysis of the broadening gap between illusion and reality that came with the hopefulness of reform, socia mobility, and ever increasing commerce. In order to successfully render this transformation, Dickens’s scholar David Paroissien says the author needed to use first-person narration and maintain a dual focus: «Pip looks back to those events of his life set in Regency England but tells them from a present he belongs to, the now of the relating time.» Through his protagonist, Pip, Dickens sought to define and question the motivations and forces behind a rise in social status and the prejudices surrounding the divide between high society and the base criminal world.advocate of free trade, Dickens was sickened by the cruelty overcrowded London inflicted upon its inhabitants. His depictions of Smithfield market and Newgate prison serve as reminders of the filthy, teeming, bloody world of questionable justice during this era. But since Pip’s story begins not in the present time but rather in the early part of the century, Dickens appealed to readers by depicting Pip as looking back from a current perspective, with some of theand maturity that wouldn’t be available to a young, «common labouring boy» in the beginning of the century.faith and investment was necessary for a writer who constructed his plot as a series of bite-sized chunks. As the editor of the weekly journal All the Year Round, Dickens had to contend with the journal’s plummeting sales following the failure of novelist Charles Lever’s serialized publication of his A Day’s Ride.Expectations appeared in weekly installments in both All the Year Round and Harper’s Weekly from December 1860 to August 1861. This format, though challenging for the writer, brought him a broad readership that only improved his career. Dickens used the serial constraints as structural features in the novel, shaping plot around his need to have a continual series of beginnings and endings and maintaining suspense throughout the work.Expectations does not fall neatly into any particular genre. It does have aspects of domestic realism - which by 1860 was characteristic of Dickens’s contemporaries such as Thackeray, Eliot, and Trollope-but in different moments also resembles a variety of Victorian subgenres, including the historical novel; a «silver-fork» fiction dealing with high society; a «Newgate» sensationalist or crime novel; and, perhaps most obviously, the Bildungsroman.the autobiographical nature of Great Expectations is easy with the knowledge that Dickens, like Pip, once lived in the marsh country, was employed in a job he despised, and experienced success in London at an early age. These similarities may be the reason why biographer Thomas Wright says that Great Expectations differs from Dickens’s other novels, arguing that the hero and heroine are «really live and interesting characters with human faults and failings.» Some critics, including Wright, argue that Estella, in name and spirit, is an amalgam of Ellen Lawless Ternan, a 20-year-old actress with whom Dickens had an affair following his divorce.like Pip and Estella, Dickens and Ternan were united in the end, Great Expectations’s original ending was considerably more melancholy. After finishing the last installment of the book in June 1861, the exhausted Dickens brought the proofs to his friend, novelist Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton. argued that the Dickens’s first and considerably shorter ending-in which Pip encounters Estella remarried and unambiguously leaves her forever-would be too disappointing for readers. In a letter to Forster, Dickens wrote, «I have put in as pretty a little piece of writing as I could, and I have no doubt that the story will be more acceptable through the alteration.»great expectations Dickens judges his characters not only on social position or upbringing but also on their treatment of one another.his prosperous career as a writer, Charles Dickens took a literacy stance on the values and social status of society in London in the 19th century. Great expectations is of no exception. I agree completely with the statement, as Dickens portrays the characters we favor with sympathy (i.e. Joe, Magwitch and to a lesser extent Pip) to the characters which are adversely portrayed (i.e. Estella, Miss. Havisham, and Mrs. Joe). This use of sympathy and aversion towards these certain characters relate to their treatment on one another and their moral values.first relationship that Dickens judges harshly against is that of Estella and Mrs. Havisham. We are initially come in contact with the characters Estella and Miss. Havisham when Pip enters Satis House in chapter 8. The physical environment in which Estella and Miss. Havisham lived in gives vital first impressions of the status and condition of the characters.Havisham’s house, which was old brick, and dismal, and had a great many iron bars to it. The rank garden, overgrown and tangled with weeds.element of treatment in this case is neglection and imprisonment, which can be directly related to Miss Havisham mothering Estella. Miss Havisham s main objective for raising Estella is to mold her into herself so that she can have another chance in life to love again. This sick fetish fantasy leads to Miss Havisham showing no love or companionship towards Estella. Instead she infuses materialistic and social implications into Estella and most importantly teaches and encourages her to lure men and in doing so, break to their hearts., wealth and social position can’t buy one of the most important qualities of being human - to be loved. As Miss Havisham was coming of age, fear and real loneliness had set in and she tried to confide and be loved be Estella. Miss Havisham s emotional neglection for Estella leads to Estella s inability to love her back.implies through the aversion towards Miss Havisham and Estella that both characters are very emotionally limited through the inability to communicate, respond, confide and relate to each other s mutual feelings.major judgement of character by Dickens is Pip. The reader is both very sympathetic and disheartened towards Pip through his interactions and treatment on other characters, and it is only through these actions we find Pips true sense of being a true gentleman.are very sympathetic towards Pip through his innocence as a young boy. This initialed sympathy for Pip occurs from a combination of important aspects; Pip s orphaned status, and his reoccurring recollection of his mothers grave wife of the above makes the reader feel in favor for Pip. The treatment of Pip s legal guardians, Mrs. Joe and Joe, towards Pip and Pips treatment towards his parents is of vital importance how the reader sympathizes for Pip.. Joe s physical and emotional harshness degrades Pip. She emphasizes the point that she had raised him by hand, he was a burden and should be grateful for all that she has done for him. Although Pip is young and innocent, Mrs. Joe portrays him to be small and worthless. Mrs. Joe is judged not on her status of a well-trained housewife, her possessions, reputation, or for her sacrifices she had made to raise Pip up by hand. She is judged on her inability to show her love, her emotions and her affections towards Pip and her violently plagued temper which made her a hard woman both physically and emotionally.s simplistic nature and ideals created the prefect character for Pip to look up to and confide in at an early age. Love, affection, protection and the persistence of education were the values that Joe showed towards Pip, and this flourished and blossomed into a strong mutual relationship.. Joe s value towards Pip, however, was to infuse the materialistic implications of life and exposed him to the evils of Satis House. Primarily Estella and Mrs. Havisham changed the nature of Pips complexion of character. Pip s own confused judgment of who he is, where he lives is based on the false pretences of Estella s contempt towards Pip.and confusion starts infiltrating Pip s small young mind, and when apprentice to Joe there is extreme dissatisfaction in Pip s life, for fear of Estella s possible sighting of him at the forge while his grimmest and commonest. This is a turning point in Pip s relationship with Joe and the sympathy the reader feels for Pip. This is fundamentally due to Pip finding difficulty and alienation to relate with Joe, his only real friend, and thus a build up of emotion starts to form in Pip.the chain of events from Satis House to moving to London, away from Joe and the forge to peruse his great expectations, Pip can be described as a hardening stone that is going cold in the wintry night. Pip is a half cast in London, trying to fight his way for reputation, materials and wealth. Upon returning to the forge his treatment on the village people is very patronizing and reminds us of the disliked characters Mr. Wosple and Pumblechook.lose further sympathy for Pip for his rejection of Joe, (when he feels ashamed to introduce Joe to Herbert), and through his extreme expenditures for image, materials and reputation (Pip s servant The Avenger). There are on many occasions, however, that we see a revive in good heartedness from Pip, which wins approval and favor from the reader.

«Our eyes met, and the entire sir melted out of that manly heart as he gave me his hand». The quote above shows that no matter how many walls, through materialism and shifting social classes, Pip tries to put up around himself, his relationship with Joe is so intense that in special moments when they unit on common ground, these walls are broken. This is only possible through Joe s treatment towards Pip, as Joe never held anything against Pip for leaving the forge, the apprenticeship or moving to London. Joe always persisted to be in support of Pip, and to protect him while keeping his gentle, understanding and simple nature that characteristic to Joe.see a distinct change in the development and maturity of Pip when he shows true love for Magwitch, as well as empathy and self-sacrifice. Through this love and commitment for Magwitch, Pip is proven to contain the moral, inner characteristics of a true gentleman based not on materials, but on the genuine Victorian qualities of kindness. Through Magwitch s death, Pip clearly acknowledges the wonderful Christian morals and simple standards possessed by Joe.main great expectation in Pip’s life is to become a gentleman. Dickens poses question to the reader what does it mean to become a gentleman- possession, pride, reputation or to enlighten the idea of a true gentile-man - through the treatment of others.we can see how Dickens uses the treatment of characters on one another combined with sympathy and aversion to make the reader judge each character on their own merits and values.the novel was published as a whole that July, critics had differing opinions on the revised ending, but the novel was a tremendous commercial success. A century and a half later, few remember that the novel once closed with a remarried’s encounter with Pip on a Picadilly street and their final, unambiguous parting soon after. Today the novel is popular - well-read and widely taught.Dickens’s controversial decisions in writing the serial have faded into the annals of history. «This was the author’s last great work,» wrote Swinburne. «The defects in it are as nearly imperceptible as spots on the sun or shadow on a sunlit sea».

Conclusions

 

Having analyzed the critical sources and historical background of literature of the XIX century we may undoubtly say that great literature and poetry does not illuminate clearly the good and evil in the world, but rather, it shows how in good there is almost always some evil, and in the most evil deeds, good intentions can often be found. The goal of literature should be to help people to understand the human endeavors, not to arbitrarily classify them into one category of another. Understending of good and evil helps us to grasp the world we live in. In life, we are in a constant limbo between good and evil.

Having explored the issue of good and evil in English literature of the XIX century, we can conclude that authors most widely used this notion of optimism (good) against pessimism (bad) to teach a moral lesson, to make opposite viewpoints evident to the reader, or to show a transformation of a character whether it is from an optimistic perspective to a pessimistic one or vice versa.

As we have discovered, this period of fierce class struggle was mirrored in literature by the appearance of a new trend, that of «Critical Realism». The greatest novelists of the age are Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell. These writers used the novel as a means to protest against the evils in contemporary social and economic life and to picture the world in a realistic way. Although the Chartist Movement failed to directly achieve its aims, a good case can be made that the movement itself was not a failure at all, but a powerful force that resulted in an increased awareness of social issues and created a framework for future working-class organisations. Many of the demands of the Chartists were eventually answered in the electoral reform bills of 1867 and 1864. It also seems likely that the agitation for reform that the Chartist Movement helped bring to the forefront of British society was responsible for the repeal of the Corn Laws <http://www.britainexpress.com/History/victorian/corn-laws.htm> and other social reforms. All pros and cons of that movement were clearly shown in literature of those times, especially in the works of Charles Dickens.we have discussed, because of Dickens's moral outrage and his attacks on society’s institutions and values, later critics, who were often Marxists, hailed him variously as subversive, rebellious, and even revolutionary. His attacks on society were based on traditional moral beliefs and humanism rather than on social or political theories and programs. He urged a secular ideal of human brotherhood.

Talking about the theme of money, we may say that in the XIX 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. Throughout 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.

The greatest difference between Great Expectations and Dickens’ earlier novels is the introduction of dramatic psychological transformations within the lead characters, as opposed to characters that are changed only through their circumstances and surroundings. The story of Pip is a Bildungsroman - a story that centers on the education or development of the protagonist - and we can follow closely the things that Pip learns and then has to unlearn. All in all, Great Expectations is considered the best balanced of all of Dickens’ novels, though a controversy still persists over the ending, as it had been changed. Dickens had originally written an ending where Pip and Estella <http://www.gradesaver.com/character.html?character=9719> never get back together. Many critics, including George Bernard Shaw, believe that this rather depressing ending was more consistent with the overall theme and tone of the novel, which began, continued, and perhaps should have finished with a serious, unhappy note. Nevertheless, Dickens published the ending where all is forgiven and Estella and Pip walk out of the Satis House garden together. It was, perhaps, an ending that Dickens would have like to have had for his own life.

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