Great Expectations 2

As a bildungsroman, Great Expectations presents the growth and development of Pip, whose life twists and turns. Pip's two most important traits are his immature, romantic idealism and his innately good conscience. On the one hand, Pip tends to expect more for himself than what is reasonable, and he desires to reinvent himself and rise to a higher social class. After receiving his mysterious fortune, his idealistic wishes seem to have been justified, and he gives himself over to a gentlemanly life of idleness. In general, Pip’s fantasy of self-improvement involves three forms: moral, social and educational. When he behaves wretchedly toward Joe and Biddy, he feels guilty and desires to be a good man; when he meets Estella, he longs to be a wealthy gentleman; when he realizes he is an ignorant country boy, he yearns to be erudite. As the saying goes, “ Life is like a box of chocolates，you never know what you are going to get.” Pip has great expectations about his future, because he believes in the possibility of advancement in life and tries to figure out his own destiny. On the other hand, in essence, Pip has a hidden conscience which can be witnessed in his numerous acts of kindness throughout the book, for example, he secretly buys Herbert's way into business and struggles to protect Magwitch from the police. In the end, when sophistication is revealed as a shallow and superficial value because it does not lead to Pip achieving anything, he returns to his hometown. After all these life-changing events, Pip learns that sincerity and kindness are the simplest but the most valuable things of a real gentleman. Pip’s experience also provides Dickens the opportunity to gently satirize the class system of his era and to make a point about its capricious nature. By using irony, the author explores the class system of Victorian England from the lower to the upper class. For instance, Drummle is a lazybone of upper class, while Magwitch, a convict, knows how to be grateful and hardworking. Industrial civilization widens the gap between the rich and the poor, and the hypocritical faces of the rich are exposed under the unfair social background. We can come to a conclusion that one's value has nothing to do with his social status. Social class is like an invisible shackle which constrains personal development and deforms self-awareness. In all, life is full of ups and downs, and we need to stay sober in both. When pursuing a better life, bear in mind that inner worth is always more important than wealth.