Great Expectations

The realist novel is classified as such by its attempt to represent social types of the time and symbolize the community of a historical era by portraying particular individuals. Consequently, characters within the novel serve as examples of their particular social type. One of the aims of the realist novel was to bring life to history, to add a human viewpoint to a real historical situation. This means that the realist narrative focuses on the everyday concerns, thoughts and feelings of society's people. Not concerned solely with immediate feelings, the ambitions and desires of a person are also of great interest to the realist writer. As a result we are presented with a picture not just of how the world was, but how different social types imagined it to be.

Great Expectations written by Charles Dickens is set in early Victorian England at a time when great social changes were taking place. The Industrial Revolution of the late eighteenth and nineteenth century had transformed the social landscape, enabling capitalists and manufacturers to amass huge fortunes that would otherwise have been unattainable; social class was no longer a status dependent purely on birth. This is the dynamic environment into which Dickens places his protagonist, Pip. Pip's sudden transformation from country laborer to city gentleman allows Dickens to commentate on the differences between social extremes. Pip's decisions are constantly influenced by the strict rules and expectations that governed Victorian England at this time. The setting of the novel would have been familiar to its readership and certain aspects can clearly be linked to historical truth. For example, in 1841 there would have been three thousand civilian prisoners held aboard nine 'hulk' ships anchored in English waters. It is reasonable to believe, therefore, that Magwitch could have escaped from a ship that found itself anchored off the Essex coast.

The moral of the story is clear: social standing is a...