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Unit 16: Great Expectations: Characterization and Ending of the Play

Self Assessment Notes

State the following sentences are True or False:
1. Charles Dickens is the narrator as well as the protagonist of the story.

2. Estella is the adopted daughter of Miss. Havisham.
3. Clara is the sweet heart of Wemmick.
4. Great Expectations is a novel about contentment and humility.
5. The major themes of great expectations are crime, social class, empire and ambition.
Essentially, it is a novel about contentment and humility, as well as honor. The thematic
notion of great expectations touches on every aspect of common emotions like pride, ambition,
envy, greed, and arrogance. The lesson Pip learns is that one should never presume he is
better than another. As Joe tells him, it is far better to be uncommon on the inside than the
outside. A person’s possessions do not matter as much as a person’s actions.

16.2.2 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.

16.2.3 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

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