The novel "Great Expectations" was written by Charles Dickens, he had written this book to show and exaggerate many themes that revolved around his real life. One of these themes was class; this theme runs throughout the novel as the main character, Pip, changes between the two. One of the main events in his book that show the theme of class was Pip's visit to "Satis house." Just like Pip, Dickens came from a working class background and he uses his experiences of it to show Pips view on the upper class. As this is how he has his knowledge his views in the novel are very one sided and therefore can be suggested that this novel was a way to tell the public his anger against the social class system. The novel itself can be determined as a buildingsroman which is defined as storyline that revolves around a protagonists self development.
Our protagonist, Pip, comes form an extremely low class family which consists of himself, his sister and her husband Mr Joe Gargery. When he was young, Pip's parents died to their poverty and so he is forced to live with his sister. While he lives with his sister we see how he is constantly abused by her and physically hit by her "She concluded by throwing me." His sister's attitude is juxtaposed to her husbands as he often praises and sticks up for Pip. He also has an education unlike most people in his social class but the standard of the teaching is extremely poor we see this when Pip tries to write a letter to Joe to practice his English abilities "MI DEeR JO I oPe U R KR WItE" to this Joe only replied "My little Scholar" this again shows how Joe praises and gives pip the attention he needs. As we find out in the story Pip will soon have to become an apprentice to Joe as he would become of a legal age and people form his social class cannot afford further education. As Joes apprentice he would become a blacksmith which shows how children had to labour, the negative comments about this show that Dickens disliked the fact that young children had to work.
The character that mainly juxtaposes pip in terms of class is Miss Havisham. Miss Havisham represents the life of the upper class as she owns a big house and can afford luxurious things. When Pip first visited "Satis house" his ideas of what the upper class were like were shaken as we see him to believe them as people who live in big, majestic houses yet at "Satis house" he sees how the house is decaying "which was of old brick, and was old dismal" this shows that even though it was big like Pip had imagined it was not at all majestic like he thought. Once he entered the house his ideas were shaken even more as the interior of the house was extremely unfriendly and dark "the first thing I noticed was, that the passages were all dark," this shows that this is making a more lasting impression on Pip rather then what his original ideas were. As the passages were dark he started to fear Miss Havisham as he expected her to be more dark and evil, we can see this fear when he says "I answered, more in shyness than politeness, "After you, miss.'
Pip had prepared for this visit by having Mrs Joe wash him and giving him clean clothes. This shows how the lower class respected the upper class and wanted to show that they could be just like them even though they couldn't. When Pip finally sees Miss Havisham for the first time his impression was the she was "strangest lady I have ever seen, or shall ever see." This again shows how Pips stereotypical views of the rich had been completely reversed. When Miss Havisham commands Pip to "play" we can see how she has the idea of superiority because she is of a higher social status. The fact that she tells him to "play" also suggest that the lower class were there only for amusement. The message that Dickens is trying to tell the reader is that the Stereotypical views of the upper class are not always true and that in fact they are more morally robbed. We can see how Mrs Havisham has been held in the past; a prime example of this is that all the clocks in the house have stopped at the exact same time. Miss Havisham also tells Pip "I know nothing of the days of the days of the week" which implies that she isn't fully in touch with reality.
Estella is another character which shows the opposite side of the class system even though she is similar to Pip in the way that they are both orphans. Estella's first conversation with Mr Pumblechook is different from what we would expect from a book written around these times, as around that time children were taught to respect their elders yet she intentionally demeaned him. One prime example of Estella's demeaning of Mr Pumblechook is when he asks if Miss Havisham wanted to see him to which she replied "Ah but you see she doesn"t' this shows her cheekiness as she deliberately said that without second thought. The fact that Mr Pumblechook couldn't respond to this comment shows how her status had overpowered the fact that there was a significant age difference. This piece of dialogue could also suggest that she was a stereotypical high class person who treated people lower then her like dirt.
