Analysis Of Dickens 'Great Expectations' By Charles Dickens

Great Expectations Essay
The Victorian society was divided into upper class, middle class, and the working class. Dickens’ “Great Expectations” ridicules the system and reveals life within classes. His novel uses an array of characters to demonstrate life in the Victorian Era. Dickens illustrates the negative outcomes of social class in the nineteenth century. One’s position in the social hierarchy pounds your mental health and character.
Lowest among the social hierarchy; therefore, the working class held an image of dirt. “So, leaving word with the shopman on what day I was wanted at Miss Havisham's again, I set off on the four-mile walk to our forge; pondering, as I went along, on all I had seen, and deeply revolving that I was a common labouring-boy; that my hands were coarse; that my boots were thick; that I had fallen into a despicable habit of calling

Pip is ashamed of his clothing and at how dirty he is. His hands symbolize the working class. “…my young mind was in that disturbed and unthankful state that I thought long after I laid me down, how common Estella would consider Joe, a mere blacksmith: how thick his boots, and how coarse his hands. I thought how Joe and my sister were then sitting in the kitchen, and how Miss Havisham and Estella never sat in a kitchen, but were far above the level of such common things” (Dickens 10). Pip compares his life to the upper class and sees nothing but the lack of appearance. His self-esteem decreases because he is chained to the lower class. “I never could have believed it without experience,