Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Context in Great Expectations (Dickens' own life (Born on 7th February…
Context in Great Expectations
Life in the 1800s
The industrial Revolution
Where most people went from working in farming to working in industry and manufacture.
Transformed the social landscape, enabling capitalists and manufacturers to amass huge fortunes. Although social class was no longer entirely dependent on the circumstances of one’s birth, the divisions between rich and poor remained nearly as wide as ever
There was an illusion that people could move between the class systems (like when Pip believes that he can be a gentleman or when Mrs Joe wants to be rich)
Before Great Expectations, Britain was more rural, and income relied on farming most of the time.
Life was tough in the cities and the countryside.
Wages were low, life was hard and the population was increasing in the countryside, leading to a lack of jobs.
Most people left the country for big cities to hope to find better wages and better security.
Life in the city was poor: lots of pollution, waste and fumes (people dies young and became ill), houses were also overcrowded and cheap.
Pip moves from the countryside to the city
Moves to London to learn how to be a gentleman because he thinks there will be a lot of opportunity.
First notices filth, crime and squalor. London corrupts his natural kindness and he goes into debt.
Goes on a trip to the country and realises what's important. He looked upon the "outspread beauty" and "was not nearly thankful enough"
Pip feels restricted and unhappy in the countryside. The marshes are wild and isolated and can be dangerous - Pip is threatened twice (by Magwitch and then Orlick) in the marshes
Women and children
Very different attitudes towards children - they should be 'seen and not heard' and beating was thought of as acceptable. Children were supposed to be respectful to all adults.
Many children died at young ages due to poor hygiene, and if they did live, and the family were poor, the children were expected to work.
Dickens himself gave up his education to work, and he will always have the negative impact of that experience of work, which he expresses through the novel.
No free schools, about half the population could not read or write because they couldn't afford an education
Poor standard of education on offer
Some local schools were run by women from the village, these were called 'Dame schools'. Biddy uses her education to teach others attending the school.
Some wealthier children were sent to live with their tutors, for example when Pip is tutored by Mr Pocket.
Married women has no legal rights (all of their property automatically went to their husbands), and most people believed that they belonged at home.
There were few jobs for women, so marriage gave them financial security and allowed them to become more independent and run their own home.
Dickens had controversial views on women's roles. The quiet and well behaved women in the novel (Biddy, Miss Skiffins and Clara) are shown as truly lovable and are rewarded with happy lives
Estella's marriage to Drummle shows the risks for women in marriage - he provides her with financial security and independence from Miss Havisham, but he abuses her and she leads an unhappy life.
Class and social rules
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.
Your class determined the life that you would have.
Good manners helped you prove you were middle class 'society'. Table manners were important because meals were often used to socialise
Middle and upper class people were expected to use correct English and with no regional accent. Joe knows he can't do this which is why he is so embarrassed when meeting Miss Havisham.
It became easier to become rich during the industrial revolution because people could invest in industry. People could then socialise with the upper class, but they were considered inferior to those who inherited their wealth.
Being a Gentleman
Down to a man's social class and job
Considered a good thing but it was unclear how to become one.
Upper class men, church ministers and army officers would all have been considered gentlemen.
Some believed that you were a gentleman if you didn't work, or if you didn't work with your hands.
A gentleman can also be having strong morals and being kind, but this type of gentleman was disregarded because it meant you were not wealthy and upper class.
Dickens uses characters to show that the kind and strong moral gentleman is better than that of wealth and class.
Joe has the qualities of a gentleman - he treats others well, strong sense of right and wrong. Pip can;'t see this because Joe works with his hands, while others like Miss Havisham respect his dignity and manners.
Bentley Drummle is seen as a gentleman by society because he is wealthy an upper class, but he is rude, aggressive and violent which aren't qualities of a true gentleman.
Ambition - Pip and Magwitch both desire to be gentlemen but have no clear idea of what one is.
Dickens' own life
Born on 7th February 1812
Spent first 9 years of life living in Kent.
Father was kind and likeable (maybe reflected in Joe's character) but incompetent with money and piled up debts (could represent Pip and his immaturity).
He and his family moved to London, and when he was 12, his father was arrested and taken to debtor's prison
Dickens' mother moved his siblings into the prison with their father, but Charles lived alone outside it, and started to work.
Dickens found the three months he spent apart from his family highly traumatic.The job itself was miserable, but he considered himself too good for it, earning the contempt of the other children. This mirrors Pip who lives in the marshes, works at a job he doesn't like, and considers himself too good for his surroundings
After his father was released from prison, Dickens returned to school. He eventually became a law clerk, then a court reporter, and finally a novelist.
Great Expectations was published in 1860-61, but is set around 1810 and 1840. Dickens based the story and settings on the real world, as he remembered it from his childhood.
Crime and punishment
In 1800, there were about 5,000 crimes a year in Britain. By 1840, there around 20,000
Many were forced to steal because they had no money or job. The fear of starving to death was worse than the fear of prisons.
Prisons became overcrowded
Government decided to use old warships to hold prisoners. Known as 'Hulks' and moored on the river Thames and river Medway.
Magwitch and Compeyson escape from the hulks
Hulks often housed inmates due to be exported. In the early 1800s, some convicts were sent by authorities to serve their sentence in Australia (like Magwitch)
Prisoners had to endure hard labour in Australia. Anyone who stepped out of line could be whipped or worse. If you behaved well , you were eventually released and could earn a living in Australia, but not allowed back into Britain
Magwitch is free to earn his fortune in Australia but he is sentenced to death for returning to England
Most of the prisoners sentenced to transport were convicted of petty crimes such as theft, so Magwitch’s own transportation indicates he is less sinister than Pip believes him to be.
Prisons changed by the time the book was written
Dickens wrote about them as they were at the start of the century
They had improved when he wrote Great Expectations
Dickens uses Pip to voice his own opinions about prisons. Pip's experiences show the justice system is unfair and ineffective, and prisons are dirty and overcrowded.
Describes open courtyard in Newgate as an "ugly, disorderly, depressing scene"
Magwitch initially committed crimes to survive. Expected to be "pitied" by the court, but they believed he was "hardened"
Pip could "scarcely believe" that he saw 32 people being sentenced to death
Pip is terrorized and disgusted by his various encounters with criminals including Magwitch, Orlick, and Compeyson, Dickens’s readers were likely enthralled by the inclusion of these criminal elements.
Miss Havisham
Charles Dickens had a great interest in psychiatry and the treatment of the insane.
he visited some asylums in Britain and the US. In American Notes (1842), he writes of the inhuman treatment and wretched environment in a lunatic asylum in New York
Miss Havisham’s illness was apparently incomprehensible to most Victorian readers because it was difficult to distinguish between eccentricity and insanity.
Her origin
The origin of Miss Havisham is generally considered to be a woman attired in stark white,whom Dickens as a boy saw wandering in Berners Street and Oxford Street. This “White Woman”was rumoured to become mad, rejected by a wealthy Quaker.