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,
This move changes young Pip, he disregards his life with the Gargery`s, the life he has once lived. The character of Pip in the novel is seen to portray characteristics of one who is snobbish, selfish and portrays dandyism. These characteristics are made evident in a number of instances throughout the novel. Pip shows a sense of selfishness which is noted in his thoughts and actions. The selfishness is shown in Pip`s thoughts “It is a miserable thing to feel ashamed of home” ( Dickens106), this is rather selfish of Pip to have such thoughts for no child should refer to home as a miserable place, a place to be ashamed of or his family.
“The Horse Dealer’s Daughter,” written by D.H. Lawrence, takes place in strictly divided society. In this society, a person moving throughout classes was basically impossible. The life of a person was essentially predestined with the only factor being which class you were born into affecting the options they had. With a clear distinction between the classes, it was expected for any relationship between two separate classes to be strictly professional, preventing social mobility that way. For Mabel and her brothers and their current situation, this leaves them with essentially no options at all.
This also contributes to her life being labelled as a “terrible waste” because she probably did not have any outlandish aspirations as a small child and, consequently, could not form “regular” aspirations as a young adult. As they get older, Veronica is left to raise her siblings as the responsibility had “fallen on her”. Okeke does help as he “helped her fetch water from the stream and occasionally chopped firewood”, but there is only so much that he can do as his support is barred by his own “physical inadequacy”. Especially as Veronica is abused by her father “night after night”. Both Okeke and his father seem to both be responsible for this portion of Veronica’s life.
The importance of this prank refers to the issue of class mobility that audiences of the time would have identified with. Malvolio’s delusional dream of Olivia falling in love with him is not a romantic one but a beneficial one. Malvolio sees Olivia as a vehicle to carry him towards power and privilege and thus move up the social ladder. He yearns to transcend and transgress through the boundaries that are in place. Malvolio, in turn, collides with the social limits, ‘from his transgression of sumptuary codes to class intermarriage’ (Selden, 1989, 168).
This video really highlights the way that prejudice works and how easily people are influenced by specific stereotypes. It is hard to imagine to actually feel what it means to be discriminated. I feel that this exercise definitely helps the students understand how being discriminated, belittled, and humiliated can make them feel. It is very sad to live in society that does not fully recognize that it is wrong to discriminate people by how the way they look. I feel that everyone is equal and people should all be treated the same no matter where they come from.
Clyde starts in a very low class. David Lord explains the roots of these desires in his work, Dreiser Today. “It is undoubtedly true that poverty and social inferiority in childhood breed exaggerated views [...] when the individual is denied many things that he needs, [and] he sets greater store by those within reach” (Lord 234). Coming from a low class Dreiser presents Clyde being “denied many things that he needs” like success. Clyde’s childhood was of “poverty and social inferiority” lacking in money, beauty, and overall success creating “exaggerated views” of them.
Pip loses his childlike innocence after meeting the snobby Estella and the selfish Miss Havisham, who uses Estella to carry out her vengeance. Pip learns to use people in order to realise his great expectations to become an educated gentleman, in hope to marry Estella. Pip adopts a character trait knows as selfishness, when an individual is selfish he is said to be “someone who only thinks of their own advantages” (Cambrigde 1295).The first person to fall victim to his selfishness is Biddy. Pip uses Biddy “towards making himself uncommon” by “getting out of Biddy everything she knew” (Dickens 107). Ironically Pip goes to a person as common as he in an attempt to become less common just to fit in with the like of Miss Havisham and Estella.
Morel, one realizes that there is very little room for Mr. Morel in his own family; he is made an outsider in his own house by his own family. Poor Mr. Morel is neglected and despised not only by Mrs. Morel but later by his children as well. Mrs. Morel strived to make him something he was not. She was not able to accept him for what he really is, a man driven by sentiments. She did not understand the difference between them, that very difference which attracted her at first.
In Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, Pip is held by the restraint of Victorian society when certain events in his life make him desire a luxurious lifestyle that changes him for the worse. Dickens depicts Pip as an aspiring gentleman by having him re-think the way he acts around others. In the novel, when Pip reaches London, he sees how the upper class acts with great hypocrisy and poorly negotiates with others which forms him into being an ill-mannered character. As Leavis elaborates on Pip’s characterization, “Fallen into the world of production and consumption, Pip is not born: he is made, and that makes him vulnerable in the cannibalistic world of Victorian England” (Leavis 1). Pip’s vulnerability allows for Jagger’s manipulation of Pip, forcing him into becoming someone that he wasn 't.