Great Expectations

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Full title · Great Expectations

Author · Charles Dickens

Type of work · Novel

Genres · Bildungsroman, social criticism, autobiographical fiction

Language · English

Time and place written · London, 1860-1861

Date of first publication · Published serially in England from December 1860 to August 1861; published in book form in England and America in 1861

Publisher · Serialized in All the Year Round; published in England by Chapman & Hall; published in America by Harper & Brothers

Narrator · Pip

Climax · A sequence of climactic events occurs from about Chapter 51 to Chapter 56: Miss Havisham’s burning in the fire, Orlick’s attempt to murder Pip, and Pip’s attempt to help Magwitch escape London.

Protagonist · Pip

Antagonist · Great Expectations does not contain a traditional single antagonist. Various characters serve as figures against whom Pip must struggle at various times: Magwitch, Mrs. Joe, Miss Havisham, Estella, Orlick, Bentley Drummle, and Compeyson. With the exception of the last three, each of the novel’s antagonists is redeemed before the end of the book.

Setting (time) · Mid-nineteenth century

Settings (place) · Kent and London, England

Point of view · First person

Falling action · The period following Magwitch’s capture in Chapter 54, including Magwitch’s death, Pip’s reconciliation with Joe, and Pip’s reunion with Estella eleven years later

Tense · Past

Foreshadowing · Great Expectations contains a great deal of foreshadowing. The repeated references to the convict (the man with the file in the pub, the attack on Mrs. Joe) foreshadow his return; the second convict on the marsh foreshadows the revelation of Magwitch’s conflict with Compeyson; the man in the pub who gives Pip money foreshadows the revelation that Pip’s fortune comes from Magwitch; Miss Havisham’s wedding dress and her bizarre surroundings foreshadow the revelation of her past and her relationship with Estella; Pip’s feeling that Estella reminds him of someone he knows foreshadows his discovery of the truth of her parentage; the fact that Jaggers is a criminal lawyer foreshadows his involvement in Magwitch’s life; and so on. Moreover, the weather often foreshadows dramatic events: a storm brewing generally means there will be trouble ahead, as on the night of Magwitch’s return.

Tone · Comic, cheerful, satirical, wry, critical, sentimental, dark, dramatic, foreboding, Gothic, sympathetic

Themes · Ambition and the desire for self-improvement (social, economic, educational, and moral); guilt, criminality, and innocence; maturation and the growth from childhood to adulthood; the importance of affection, loyalty, and sympathy over social advancement and class superiority; social class; the difficulty of maintaining superficial moral and social categories in a constantly changing world

Motifs · Crime and criminality; disappointed expectations; the connection between weather or atmosphere and dramatic events; doubles (two convicts, two secret benefactors, two invalids, etc.)

Symbols · The stopped clocks at Satis House symbolize Miss Havisham’s attempt to stop time; the many objects relating to crime and guilt (gallows, prisons, handcuffs, policemen, lawyers, courts, convicts, chains, files) symbolize the theme of guilt and innocence; Satis House represents the upper-class world to which Pip longs to belong; Bentley Drummle represents the grotesque caprice of the upper class; Joe represents conscience, affection, loyalty, and simple good nature; the marsh mists represent danger and ambiguity.

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THEMES, MOTIFS AND SYMBOLS

Themes

Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

Ambition and Self-Improvement
The moral theme of Great Expectations is quite simple: affection, loyalty, and conscience are more important than social advancement, wealth, and class. Dickens establishes the theme and shows Pip learning this lesson, largely by exploring ideas of ambition and self-improvement—ideas that quickly become both the thematic center of the novel and the psychological mechanism that encourages much of Pip’s development. At heart, Pip is an idealist; whenever he can conceive of something that is better than what he already has, he immediately desires to obtain the improvement. When he sees Satis House, he longs to be a wealthy gentleman; when he thinks of his moral shortcomings, he longs to be good; when he realizes that he cannot read, he longs to learn how. Pip’s desire for self-improvement is the main source of the novel’s title: because he believes in the possibility of advancement in life, he has “great expectations” about his future.

Ambition and self-improvement take three forms in Great Expectations—moral, social, and educational; these motivate Pip’s best and his worst behavior throughout the novel. First, Pip desires moral self-improvement. He is extremely hard on himself when he acts immorally and feels powerful guilt that spurs him to act better in the future. When he leaves for London, for instance, he torments himself about having behaved so wretchedly toward Joe and Biddy. Second, Pip desires social self-improvement. In love with Estella, he longs to become a member of her social class, and, encouraged by Mrs. Joe and Pumblechook, he entertains fantasies of becoming a gentleman. The working out of this fantasy forms the basic plot of the novel; it provides Dickens the opportunity to gently satirize the class system of his era and to make a point about its capricious nature. Significantly, Pip’s life as a gentleman is no more satisfying—and certainly no more moral—than his previous life as a blacksmith’s apprentice. Third, Pip desires educational improvement. This desire is deeply connected to his social ambition and longing to marry Estella: a full education is a requirement of being a gentleman. As long as he is an ignorant country boy, he has no hope of social advancement. Pip understands this fact as a child, when he learns to read at Mr. Wopsle’s aunt’s school, and as a young man, when he takes lessons from Matthew Pocket. Ultimately, through the examples of Joe, Biddy, and Magwitch, Pip learns that social and educational improvement are irrelevant to one’s real worth and that conscience and affection are to be valued above erudition and social standing.

Social Class
Throughout Great Expectations, Dickens explores the class system of Victorian England, ranging from the most wretched criminals (Magwitch) to the poor peasants of the marsh country (Joe and Biddy) to the middle class (Pumblechook) to the very rich (Miss Havisham). The theme of social class is central to the novel’s plot and to the ultimate moral theme of the book—Pip’s realization that wealth and class are less important than affection, loyalty, and inner worth. Pip achieves this realization when he is finally able to understand that, despite the esteem in which he holds Estella, one’s social status is in no way connected to one’s real character. Drummle, for instance, is an upper-class lout, while Magwitch, a persecuted convict, has a deep inner worth.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember about the novel’s treatment of social class is that the class system it portrays is based on the post-Industrial Revolution model of Victorian England. Dickens generally ignores the nobility and the hereditary aristocracy in favor of characters whose fortunes have been earned through commerce. Even Miss Havisham’s family fortune was made through the brewery that is still connected to her manor. In this way, by connecting the theme of social class to the idea of work and self-advancement, Dickens subtly reinforces the novel’s overarching theme of ambition and self-improvement.

Crime, Guilt, and Innocence
The theme of crime, guilt, and innocence is explored throughout the novel largely through the characters of the convicts and the criminal lawyer Jaggers. From the handcuffs Joe mends at the smithy to the gallows at the prison in London, the imagery of crime and criminal justice pervades the book, becoming an important symbol of Pip’s inner struggle to reconcile his own inner moral conscience with the institutional justice system. In general, just as social class becomes a superficial standard of value that Pip must learn to look beyond in finding a better way to live his life, the external trappings of the criminal justice system (police, courts, jails, etc.) become a superficial standard of morality that Pip must learn to look beyond to trust his inner conscience. Magwitch, for instance, frightens Pip at first simply because he is a convict, and Pip feels guilty for helping him because he is afraid of the police. By the end of the book, however, Pip has discovered Magwitch’s inner nobility, and is able to disregard his external status as a criminal. Prompted by his conscience, he helps Magwitch to evade the law and the police. As Pip has learned to trust his conscience and to value Magwitch’s inner character, he has replaced an external standard of value with an internal one.

Motifs

Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.

Doubles
One of the most remarkable aspects of Dickens’s work is its structural intricacy and remarkable balance. Dickens’s plots involve complicated coincidences, extraordinarily tangled webs of human relationships, and highly dramatic developments in which setting, atmosphere, event, and character are all seamlessly fused.

In Great Expectations, perhaps the most visible sign of Dickens’s commitment to intricate dramatic symmetry—apart from the knot of character relationships, of course—is the fascinating motif of doubles that runs throughout the book. From the earliest scenes of the novel to the last, nearly every element of Great Expectations is mirrored or doubled at some other point in the book. There are two convicts on the marsh (Magwitch and Compeyson), two invalids (Mrs. Joe and Miss Havisham), two young women who interest Pip (Biddy and Estella), and so on. There are two secret benefactors: Magwitch, who gives Pip his fortune, and Pip, who mirrors Magwitch’s action by secretly buying Herbert’s way into the mercantile business. Finally, there are two adults who seek to mold children after their own purposes: Magwitch, who wishes to “own” a gentleman and decides to make Pip one, and Miss Havisham, who raises Estella to break men’s hearts in revenge for her own broken heart. Interestingly, both of these actions are motivated by Compeyson: Magwitch resents but is nonetheless covetous of Compeyson’s social status and education, which motivates his desire to make Pip a gentleman, and Miss Havisham’s heart was broken when Compeyson left her at the altar, which motivates her desire to achieve revenge through Estella. The relationship between Miss Havisham and Compeyson—a well-born woman and a common man—further mirrors the relationship between Estella and Pip.

This doubling of elements has no real bearing on the novel’s main themes, but, like the connection of weather and action, it adds to the sense that everything in Pip’s world is connected. Throughout Dickens’s works, this kind of dramatic symmetry is simply part of the fabric of his novelistic universe.

Comparison of Characters to Inanimate Objects
Throughout Great Expectations, the narrator uses images of inanimate objects to describe the physical appearance of characters—particularly minor characters, or characters with whom the narrator is not intimate. For example, Mrs. Joe looks as if she scrubs her face with a nutmeg grater, while the inscrutable features of Mr. Wemmick are repeatedly compared to a letter-box. This motif, which Dickens uses throughout his novels, may suggest a failure of empathy on the narrator’s part, or it may suggest that the character’s position in life is pressuring them to resemble a thing more than a human being. The latter interpretation would mean that the motif in general is part of a social critique, in that it implies that an institution such as the class system or the criminal justice system dehumanizes certain people.

Symbols

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

Satis House
In Satis House, Dickens creates a magnificent Gothic setting whose various elements symbolize Pip’s romantic perception of the upper class and many other themes of the book. On her decaying body, Miss Havisham’s wedding dress becomes an ironic symbol of death and degeneration. The wedding dress and the wedding feast symbolize Miss Havisham’s past, and the stopped clocks throughout the house symbolize her determined attempt to freeze time by refusing to change anything from the way it was when she was jilted on her wedding day. The brewery next to the house symbolizes the connection between commerce and wealth: Miss Havisham’s fortune is not the product of an aristocratic birth but of a recent success in industrial capitalism. Finally, the crumbling, dilapidated stones of the house, as well as the darkness and dust that pervade it, symbolize the general decadence of the lives of its inhabitants and of the upper class as a whole.

The Mists on the Marshes
The setting almost always symbolizes a theme in Great Expectations and always sets a tone that is perfectly matched to the novel’s dramatic action. The misty marshes near Pip’s childhood home in Kent, one of the most evocative of the book’s settings, are used several times to symbolize danger and uncertainty. As a child, Pip brings Magwitch a file and food in these mists; later, he is kidnapped by Orlick and nearly murdered in them. Whenever Pip goes into the mists, something dangerous is likely to happen. Significantly, Pip must go through the mists when he travels to London shortly after receiving his fortune, alerting the reader that this apparently positive development in his life may have dangerous consequences.

Bentley Drummle
Although he is a minor character in the novel, Bentley Drummle provides an important contrast with Pip and represents the arbitrary nature of class distinctions. In his mind, Pip has connected the ideas of moral, social, and educational advancement so that each depends on the others. The coarse and cruel Drummle, a member of the upper class, provides Pip with proof that social advancement has no inherent connection to intelligence or moral worth. Drummle is a lout who has inherited immense wealth, while Pip’s friend and brother-in-law Joe is a good man who works hard for the little he earns. Drummle’s negative example helps Pip to see the inner worth of characters such as Magwitch and Joe, and eventually to discard his immature fantasies about wealth and class in favor of a new understanding that is both more compassionate and more realistic.

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Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, and spent the first nine years of his life living in the coastal regions of Kent, a county in southeast England. Dickens’s father, John, was a kind and likable man, but he was incompetent with money and piled up tremendous debts throughout his life. When Dickens was nine, his family moved to London. When he was twelve, his father was arrested and taken to debtors’ prison. Dickens’s mother moved his seven brothers and sisters into prison with their father, but she arranged for the young Charles to live alone outside the prison and work with other children pasting labels on bottles in a blacking warehouse (blacking was a type of manufactured soot used to make a black pigment for products such as matches or fertilizer). Dickens found the three months he spent apart 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 court reporter, and finally a novelist. His first novel, The Pickwick Papers, became a huge popular success when Dickens was only twenty-five. He published extensively and was considered a literary celebrity until his death in 1870.

Many of the events from Dickens’s early life are mirrored in Great Expectations, which, apart from David Copperfield, is his most autobiographical novel. Pip, the novel’s protagonist, 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 very early age, exactly as Dickens himself did. In addition, one of the novel’s most appealing characters, Wemmick, is a law clerk, and the law, justice, and the courts are all important components of the story.

Great Expectations is set in early Victorian England, a time when great social changes were sweeping the nation. The Industrial Revolution of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries had 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. London, a teeming mass of humanity, lit by gas lamps at night and darkened by black clouds from smokestacks during the day, formed a sharp contrast with the nation’s sparsely populated rural areas. More and more people moved from the country to the city in search of greater economic opportunity. 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 conditions defined Dickens’s time, and they make themselves felt in almost every facet of Great Expectations. Pip’s sudden rise from country laborer to city gentleman forces him to move from one social extreme to another while dealing with the strict rules and expectations that governed Victorian England. Ironically, this novel about the desire for wealth and social advancement was written partially out of economic necessity. Dickens’s magazine, All the Year Round, had become extremely popular based on the success of works it had published in serial, such as his own A Tale of Two Cities and Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White. But it had experienced a decline in popularity after publishing a dull serial by Charles Lever called A Day’s Ride. Dickens conceived of Great Expectations as a means of restoring his publication’s fortunes. The book is still immensely popular a century and a half later.

In form, Great Expectations fits a pattern popular in nineteenth-century European fiction: the bildungsroman, or novel depicting growth and personal development, generally a transition from boyhood to manhood such as that experienced by Pip. The genre was popularized by Goethe with his book Wilhelm Meister (1794-1796) and became prevalent in England with such books as Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, and Dickens’s own David Copperfield. Each of these works, like Great Expectations, depicts a process of maturation and self-discovery through experience as a protagonist moves from childhood to adulthood.

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In Great Expectations, Pip goes through stages of moral maturity. Over the course of the novel, Pip learns lifelong lessons that result from pain, guilt, and shame. Pip evolves from a young boy filled with shame and guilt to a selfish, young man, and finally into a man who has true concern for others. Pip goes through three stages in the novel; shame and guilt, self-gratification, and his stage of redemption.

The first stage of Pip's maturity is his shame and guilt. Shame is a feeling brought on by circumstances beyond the control of the person. For example, Pip feels ashamed over how common and coarse he and Joe are. Guilt, on the other hand, is a feeling brought on by one's actions. An example of this is after Pip beats the pale young gentlemen.

Pip starts off the novel with feelings of guilt but when Pip encounters Estella and Miss Havisham he begins to feel shame as well. Pip feels ashamed about how he is so common. He regrets that Joe is a mere blacksmith and has no education. Pip's shame is brought on by Estella. Estella points out all of Pip's common mannerisms and treats Pip as an inferior, even though they are about the same age. She taunts Pip for calling knaves "Jacks", for wearing thick boots, and for having coarse hands. This makes Pip feel ashamed of things he has never been ashamed of before. His self-esteem is demolished by Estella. Pip thinks to himself: "I had never thought of being ashamed of my hands before; but I began to consider them a very different pair," From then on, Pip is ashamed of who he is and where he comes from. He doesn't see himself in the same light as he used to.

Pip's feelings of guilt are shown after the fight with the young pale gentlemen and the attack of Mrs. Joe. After beating up the boy at Ms. Havisham's, Pip said he "felt but gloomy satisfaction in my victory. Indeed, I go so far as to hope that I regarded myself while dressing, as a species of savage young wolf, or other wild beasts." Pip is not happy with his behavior. Though Pip feels guilt here, some feelings of pride come over Pip; he did beat up a gentlemen.

The attack upon Mrs. Joe also brings guilt to Pip. The weapon used against Mrs. Joe was an ironed leg-chain. Pip's guilt comes from his believing that he supplied the weapon. Orlick puts blame on Pip, as well.

"I was at first disposed to believe that I must have had some hand in the attack upon my sister...I was a more legitimate object of suspicion than anyone else."

Although Pip was in no way responsible for his sister's attack, he is filled with guilt.

Pip was a young boy riddled with intense feelings of shame and guilt. As a result of this, he undergoes a change in character. Pip is encountered with an opportunity to leave behind his life of being a common labouring boy and on his way to become a gentlemen. Pip is quite pleased with these circumstances because he feels that he will then be accepted by the upper class and, therefor, be able to win Estella over. However, these circumstances bring about a negative change when Pip starts to see himself above others. He becomes a person with characteristics he used to detest. He always hated Mr. Pumblechook's superficial ways, and now Pip has adopted them. Examples of Pip being superficial is when Joe comes to visit and Pip dreads his arrival only because he is embarrassed by him. When Pip encounters his grand opportunities, he immediately starts acting better than others, even Biddy and Joe. He even goes as far as to say, "I should have been good enough for you, shouldn't I, Biddy?" Pip's bad attitude of being above everyone continues throughout all of volume 2; his stage of self-gratification. This stage of self-gratification and self-interest eventually leaves Pip with no money and broken-hearted.

Pip's guilt and shame that was mostly brought on by his visits to Miss Havisham's encouraged his next stage of self-gratification. Pip's insecurities, guilt, and shame about himself that was caused by Estella made him want to be more like her and the upper class. These insecurities led him to be superficial and self-absorbed.

As Pip is living his new life and enjoying his new fortune, he becomes wrapped up in his own life and concern of what others think of him. He becomes superficial and phony. He loses touch with what truly mattered to him in the beginning of the novel and what should matter to him; his loved ones, the ones who respect for the person he truly was raised to be. Pip's negative change in attitude can be seen when he receives a letter from Biddy explaining that Joe is coming to visit him in London. Instead of being happy and gracious, Pip does not look forward to seeing Joe. He, in fact, did not want Joe to come at all:

"Not with pleasure...no; with considerable disturbance, some mortification, and a keen sense of incongruity. If I could have kept him away by paying money, I certainly would have paid Money."

This mean and disrespectful behavior towards Joe, his best friend, the man who raised him, shows a perfect example of where Pip is in this stage of his life. Pip is only concerned with his appearance and what people think of him. He doesn't want anyone to see Joe and his common ways, especially Drummle. Pip is ashamed of Joe and his past.

Pip's hiring of the avenger is another example of Pip's self-gratification. He only hires the Avenger so he can impress Joe and the other people in town. The servant is not even needed in Pip's small apartment and he doesn't even like having the Avenger around: "he haunted my existence,"

Joining the club Finches of the Grove is yet another example of Pip's self-gratification. The social club had no real function or purpose to Pip except to dine "dine expensively...to quarrel among themselves" Pip doesn't belong in such a club. He even says that "The Finches spent their money foolishly". Despite the negative aspects of the club, he and Herbert join without any hesitation, just so they can be members of high class. The Finches of the Grove does not bring Pip happiness though. Pip says of the club: "We spent as much money as we could, and got as little for it as people could make up their minds to give us. We were always more or less miserable." This quote shows that Pip would do anything to fit in and to be accepted by upper class, even if it means being miserable. Pip's priorities were topped off with his concerns of his appearance and reputation.

Pip's stage of self-gratification comes to a downfall when he falls into debt and finally, when he learns Magwitch is his secret benefactor. Before this though, we see some evidence of change. He shows genuine concern for Herbert when he "helps" Herbert obtain his new, successful job. Pip feels genuinely happy for the first time in a while when Herbert tells him how great his job is. Pip is ecstatic by the fact that he helped someone he cared about. "I did really cry in good earnest when I went to bed, to think that my expectations had done some good to somebody." Pip's final stage of redemption, in which he achieves true selflessness, becomes clear when he starts to take care of Magwitch. Pip realizes he should not judge others based on their appearance, but rather on who they are inside. This point of redemption is made after realizing how grateful he is to Magwitch. At first, Pip is disgusted with Magwitch and wishes he wasn't his benefactor. Pip goes through a stage of redemption and he has the utmost concern for his loved ones. He realizes how much Magwitch actually loved him and Pip stays by his side until the end. Pip says, "I will never stir from your side...when I am suffered to be near you. Please god, I will be as true to you as you have been to me."

This quote shows that people can change. Pip changed after encountering true love. His love for Magwitch was real because he had nothing to gain from him. Pip's love for Magwitch is true because when Magwitch dies, it puts Pip into a tailspin. Pip becomes physically ill and depressed. Pip now realizes how much he missed Biddy and Joe. He realizes Joe was a true blessing. He is the only thing that has remained constant in Pip's life; through all the good times and all the bad times. Joe even pays off Pip's debt and helps Pip get better when he had become ill. Pip says of Joe, "Exactly what he had been in my eyes then, he was in my eyes still; just as simply faithful, and as simply right."

Pip goes through a big evolution throughout his lifetime. Pip began as an innocent child. When he became unhappy with his life, he left home in search of a better life. He became wrapped up in appearances and being accepted by the upper class society becomes most important to him; self-gratification became the driving force of his actions. This stage starts to disappear when his true benefactor is revealed. He is at first repulsed by Abel Magwitch, but he slowly learns to look beyond a persons' surface. He finally sees Magwitch as the person he truly is: the person who cared for Pip and changed his life. Pip's evolution changed him immensely. He learned how to be happy and to not judge a book by its' cover. By doing generous and kind acts, people can be much happier then if they had all the money in the world. Pip's evolution was long and painful, but in the end made him a better person then what he was. He learned how to care for others and saw what he had all along- a man who loved him like a son, a man who was there through thick and thin. Joe Gargery was the only constant in Pip's life. Joe was the same man at the end of the novel that he was in the beginning. Shame and guilt never took control of him; that is why he was able to save Pip. In the end, Pip manages to become a respectful, true gentlemen.

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During his lifetime, Charles Dickens is known to have written several books. Although each book is different, they also share many similarities. Two of his books, Great Expectations and Oliver Twist, are representatives of the many kinds of differences and similarities found within his work.

Perhaps the reason why these two novels share some of the same qualities is because they both reflect painful experiences which occurred in Dickens' past. During his childhood, Charles Dickens suffered much abuse from his parents. This abuse is often expressed in his novels. Pip, in Great Expectations, talked often about the abuse he received at the hands of his sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery. On one occasion he remarked, "I soon found myself getting heavily bumped from behind in the nape of the neck and the small of the back, and having my face ignominously shoved against the wall, because I did not answer those questions at sufficient length."

While at the orphanage, Oliver from Oliver Twist also experienced a great amount of abuse. For example, while suffering from starvation and malnutrition for a long period of time, Oliver was chosen by the other boys at the orphanage to request more gruel at dinner one night. After making this simple request, "the master (at the orphanage) aimed a blow at Oliver's head with the ladle; pinioned him in his arms; and shrieked aloud for the beadle."

The whole beginning of Oliver Twist's story was created from memories which related to Charles Dickens' childhood in a blacking factory ( which was overshadowed by the Marshalsea Prison ). While working in the blacking factory, Dickens suffered tremendous humiliation. This humiliation is greatly expressed through Oliver's adventures at the orphanage before he is sent away.

Throughout his lifetime, Dickens appeared to have acquired a fondness for "the bleak, the sordid, and the austere." Most of Oliver Twist, for example, takes place in London's lowest slums. The city is described as a maze which involves a "mystery of darkness, anonymity, and peril." Many of the settings, such as the pickpocket's hideout, the surrounding streets, and the bars, are also described as dark, gloomy, and bland. Meanwhile, in Great Expectations, Miss Havisham's house is often made to sound depressing, old, and lonely. Many of the objects within the house had not been touched or moved in many years. Cobwebs were clearly visible as well as an abundance of dust, and even the wedding dress which Miss Havisham constantly wore had turned yellow with age.

However, similarities are not just found in the settings. The novels' two main characters, Pip and Oliver, are also similar in many ways. Both young boys were orphaned practically from birth; but where Pip is sent to live with and be abused by his sister, Oliver is sent to live in an orphanage. Pip is a very curious young boy. He is a "child of intense and yearning fancy." Yet, Oliver is well spoken. Even while his life was in danger while in the hands of Fagin and Bill Sikes, two conniving pickpockets, he refused to participate in the stealing which he so greatly opposed. All Oliver really longed for was to escape from harsh living conditions and evil surroundings which he had grown up in. However, no matter how tempting the evil may have been, Oliver stood by his beliefs. Therefore, he can be referred to as "ideal and incorruptible innocence." "It is Oliver's self-generated and self-sustained love, conferred it would seem from Heaven alone, that preserves him from disaster and death."

Unfortunately, many critics have found it hard to believe that a boy such as Oliver Twist could remain so innocent, pure, and well spoken given the long period of time in which he was surrounded by evil and injustices.

Pip, on the other hand, is a dreamer. His imagination is always helping him to create situations to cover up for his hard times. For example, when questioned about his first visit to Miss Havisham's house, he made up along elaborate story to make up for the terrible time he had in reality. Instead of telling how he played cards all day while being ridiculed and criticized by Estella and Miss Havisham, he claimed that they played with flags and swords all day after having wine and cake on gold plates. However, one special quality possessed by Pip that is rarely seen in a novel's hero is that he wrongs others instead of being hurt himself all of the time.

Another similarity between Oliver and Pip is that they both have had interactions with convicts. Fagin the head of a group of young thieves, spends most of his time trying to "demoralize and corrupt Oliver and prevent him from ever coming into his inheritance." To Oliver, he is seen as an escape from all previous misery. He also helps Oliver to ease any fears about starvation and loneliness.

Just as Fagin is Oliver's means of escape, Magwitch, an escaped convict, is Pip's. However, as Fagin provides Oliver with an escape from misery, Magwitch tries to provide Pip with an escape from poverty by becoming his anonymous benefactor.

Obviously, escape is an important theme in both Oliver Twist and Great Expectations. Even though they both have different goals in mind, Pip and Oliver are seeking various forms of escape from conditions which make them unhappy: Pip from his poverty, and Oliver from his loneliness and starvation.

Since dealing with escapism, it is not surprising that death also plays a major role in both stories. In the two novels, death and coffins symbolize a happy and peaceful manner of escape. In Oliver Twist, it is suggested that only loneliness and brutality exist on earth. Supposedly, there is no sanctity on the planet, which is a belief that goes against the idea of a Heaven on earth.

Another important theme within the novel is the theme of the "two separate and conflicting dualisms: one, social, between the individual and the institution; the second, moral, between the respectable and the criminal." Most of Oliver Twist seems to imply that "it is better to be a thief than to be alone." This tends to make the reader think that Dickens favors the criminal aspect of his novels over the moral side.

However, the conflict between the individual and the institution leads to Dickens' criticism of social injustices such as injustices towards the poor. Also in the form of satire, Dickens attempts to "challenge the pleasurability of fortune."

Aside from satire, Dickens uses various other devices in writing these novels. one of the most common is that of coincidence. For example, in Oliver Twist, Oliver just happened to end up, first, at the house of Mr. Brownlow, who at one time was a really good friend of Oliver's father. Then, later on, Oliver ends up at Rose Maylie's house, who, as it turns out is his aunt.

In Great Expectations, the use of coincidence is also noticeable. For instance, Pip finds out that Magwitch and Molly, Mr. Jagger's servant, are the parents of Estella long after he first met them.

Then, later on, Pip just happens to be visiting Satis House (Miss Havisham's old home) at the same time as Estella.

"Written in abrupt, truncated chapters," Oliver Twist took the form of a new type of English prose. Both Oliver Twist and Great Expectations depend heavily on the use of abstraction, or the
avoidance of various facts.

However, the novels each have their own form of narration. While Oliver Twist is written in the third person, Great Expectations is in the first person. Therefore, in Oliver Twist, the reader gains a view of the story from the position of an onlooker or outsider. They form their own opinions about the characters from "watching them."

In contrast, when reading Great Expectations, the view is given through the character of Pip. So, since we only know about Pip's feelings and what he tells us, our opinions of the other characters are highly influenced by what he thinks of them.

In conclusion, both books seem to have much in common such as feelings shared by the main characters, themes dealing primarily in social injustices, and various writing techniques such as the use of coincidental incidences and abstractions. However, they also differ greatly from one another. For example, Pip searches for money while Oliver searches for security, and while Pip was raised in a home environment, Oliver was raised in an orphanage. Yet, both books have a lot to offer society in terms of pointing out many problems which still exist today, such as child abuse and injustice to the poor. In order to conquer these evils, they must first be understood, and explaining the severity of these experiences seems to be a job which Charles Dickens is very good at.