What Criticisms of 19th Century Life Is Dickens Making in the Novel Great Expectations Essay Example for Free

What Criticisms of 19th Century Life Is ogre Making in the Novel extensive Expectations EssayCharles Dickens wrote the young great Expectations in 1861. He originally wrote it as weekly instalments for a magazine called All the year round. In the sweet he criticised umpteen things about 19th atomic number 6 life, for example, the importance of being a valet and fond status, crime and punishment, childhood and last unless non least the role of women. Charles Dickens was born on 7th February, 1812, and spent the first nine days of his life living in the coastal regions of Kent. Dickenss draw, John, was a kind and likable man, but he was hopeless with m maviny and piled up tremendous debts byout his life.When Dickens was nine, his family moved to capital of the United Kingdom and when he was twelve, his father was arrested and taken to prison house for unpaid debts. Dickenss m new(prenominal) moved his seven br some others and sisters into prison with their father, but she arranged for the young Dickens to live alone outside the prison and work with other children pasting labels on bottles in a blacking warehouse. Dickens found the three months he spent aside from his family highly traumatic. Not only was the job itself miserable, but he considered himself too good for it, earning the contempt of the other children.After his father was released from prison, Dickens returned to school. He eventually became a law clerk, then a beg reporter, and finally a novelist. Many of the events from Dickenss archean life are mirrored in Great Expectations, which, apart from David Copperfield, is his most autobiographical novel. strap, the novels hero 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 actually early age, exactly as Dickens himself did.In addition, one of the novels most appealing characters, Wemmick, is a law clerk, and the law, justice, a nd the courts are all all important(predicate) components of the story. In prudish society, a gentleman was a person of upper or middle class. Usually, one was born into being a part of the gentry as it was almost impossible to move up the social hierarchy. beingness a part of this elite sector of the class system is what Dickens explores and in doing so exploits the ambiguity of the term gentleman and the complications as to what makes a man become gentleman.One of the major criticisms of 19th speed of light life in the novel is the need to distinguish between social prestige and virtuous worth. Dickens explores this theme by questioning ideas about the nature of a gentleman. dissipate is central to this theme, as he represents the link between the social classes. He is the village boy who becomes a gentleman with the help of a criminal. However, the contrasting view given through Herbert Pocket and his father shows us that no man who was not a true gentleman at heart, ever was, since the world began, a true gentleman in manner.Although Herbert has very little money, he is unquestionably a gentleman, both in the social sense, as he is well-born and has received an upper-class education, and in the moral sense, as he teaches Pip table tact, and, by example, that manners are meaningless unless they derive from sound moral principles. This is as well illustrated through Compeyson, Miss Havershams lover, who possessed a superficial elegance that blinded passel to his real nature. Hes a gentleman, if you please, this villain. Drummle is to that degree another example of an exaggerated type of gentleman.Although he has inherited money, and great expectations, he has no moral standards and remains idle, proud, reserved and suspicious. Dickens saw two sorts of gentlemen, Joe Gargery, who is a simple and hardworking blacksmith. He is also humble and kind. This was illustrated when he claimed that his father who was also a blacksmith What sumeer the failings on his part, remember reader he were that good in his heart. However, Drummle defined through his knowledge of social etiquette, the extent of his education, appearance and income.Dickens showed in his novel that one does not need to be wealthy and educated to be a gentleman. aversion and punishment is a key theme in Great Expectations which is linked closely to justice and injustice. Pip is introduced to crime and criminals very early on when he is confronted with Magwitch on the marshes. This encounter compels Pip to steal from his have got family, the iron file and the pork pie. So the first crime we see committed is by Pip, which is fundamental because the book is centred around crime and how Pip gets more and more involved.When Magwitch is caught, he is taken to the prison rule where Pip got an insight into the justice system and saw how the prisoners were treated. Dickenss dissatisfaction with the prison system is evident when Wemmick is giving Pip a walking tour through the streets of London. merely evidence of Dickens concern can be found in Pips reaction to the Debtors Door of Newgate Prison, in which culprits came to be hanged. Using Pip as a vessel to express his latent views of criminals, Dickens expresses his deep-rooted memories of poverty and a father sentenced to debtors prison.This contradicts the fact that in real life, Dickens believed the model prisons to be too lenient to their inmates and extolled instead the virtues of hard and unrewarding labour, a regime which relied more upon punishment than moral improvement. This suggests that in real life, Dickens felt that it was more important to focus on the punishment of criminals, rather than giving them a second chance to redeem themselves. Further evidence of Dickenss concern for maximum punishment can be found in this statement regarding the punishment of a local street ruffian I would have his back scarified often and deep.This carriage most likely stems from the fact that Dickens legal training gave him a far rigorouser outlook on prisoners. Dickens is often credited for being influential in the passing of the Capital Punishment numeral of 1868, which banned public executions The reason Dickens was against public executions was because he felt they only made people sympathize too much with murderer, rather than the victim. Dickens paints an extremely vivid picture of childhood through the eyes and mind of Pip and sees the world through the eyes of a child.This was possible because Dickens understood the thoughts and feelings of children and applied this to Pips any thought and action when he wrote the novel. Dickens had an obvious gift for creating child characters in his works. The word pip itself refers to a seed from a plant. Seeds need to be nurtured if they are to grow and flourish. In order to understand both Dickens talent and his compulsion to write about children it important to crystalize that through the characters in his novels he took up th e plight of all children.In Dickens view of childhood, he felt that children have certain require, for example, guidance in a nurturing home, to be free from emotional and forcible abuse, to have a good education, and to be allowed to use their imaginations and as in the novel, Pips father figure, Joe Gargery had to work hard like his father before him and did not get an education. The phrase brought up by hand implied emotional and physical abuse and yet it was meant to care and love in a very harsh way. In order for children to succeed in life he felt these needs must(prenominal) be met.Through his portrayal of child characters in the novel, Great Expectations, Dickens demonstrates how adults rarely, nor adequately provided for these particular needs that children have. In Great Expectations one can see how the women who fit Dickens ideas were rewarded with happy lives, usually in the form of marriage. Like in the case of Biddy, she was a nurse to a maimed Mrs. Joe and was the epitome of domesticity. She was by and by rewarded with a happy life by her marriage to Joe.Dickens imagines two types of women, subordinate and insubordinate, and rewards women according to their great power to render domestic harmony On the other hand, the women who did not conform to these ideas were punished in one way or another. Even though not all of Dickens attitudes reflected what was typical of the period, many did. Great Expectations is a reflection of those attitudes that were most likely encouraged by the women in his life. He believed as many did during the Victorian period that the womans place was in the home. Women were the caregivers of the world.Their lives were supposed to be centred on their family, for example, characters like Biddy and Clara barleycorn play the part of a natural, motherly type. Biddy takes over caring for Joe and Pip after Mrs. Joe is attacked by Orlick and dies soon after. Biddy, like Pip, is an orphan. She was the one that taught Pip to re ad and later taught Joe. Great Expectations is set in early Victorian England, a time when great social changes were sweeping the nation. The Industrial Revolution of the late 18th and early nineteenth centuries had transformed the social andscape, enabling capitalists and manufacturers to amass huge fortunes.Although social class was no longer entirely dependent on the circumstances of ones birth, the divisions between rich and lamentable remained nearly as wide as ever. 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 These criticisms as defined by Dickens in his novel were felt in almost every facet of Great Expectations.Pips sudden rise from country labourer to city gentleman forces him to move from one social extreme to another while dealing with the strict rules and expectations that governed Victorian Engla nd. Ironically, this novel about the desire for wealth and social advancement was written partially out of economic necessity. He also portrays characters caught up by social forces primarily via lower-class conditions but which usually steer them to tragical ends beyond their control.