Attitudes toward Victorian Society in Great Expectations...

Great Expectations Explore some of the ways in which Dickens’ attitudes to Victorian society are presented in the opening chapter of Great Expectations. For this essay I will be focusing on the opening chapters of Great Expectations, a novel written by Charles Dickens. I am going to consider the Victorian society at the time and dickens’ use of language to express themes, settings and characters. Charles Dickens wrote this story in the Victorian times. Hence we seem to think what ‘does he mean’ by â€Å"Great Expectations†. By us the readers, knowing and understanding what it means, we can get a rough idea of what the story is like. By Great Expectations we mean having high expectations for life, class and dreams for a better life.†¦show more content†¦They always want to look better then their friends and most of the time they didn’t understand what was happening in the real world with the poor people. Charles Dickens came from a working class background and was taken away from his family to work in a dirty, filthy warehouse. Some of his brothers and sisters died when they were young. He di d not have a good childhood. All his work, his novels were based on the main characters being poor, working class, uneducated with some sort of disability. Dickens through his books wanted people to realise that children have needs, they need loving homes, not to be hit, gets a education and be allowed to think for themselves. He thought that if he wrote about poor children’s problems then maybe wealthy readers will do something about it. Great Expectations was one of the first British soap operas, published in a weekly magazine showing the minimum of one or two chapters. â€Å"Great Expectations’’ appeared in a weekly magazine called â€Å"All the year round†. The story ran for thirty six weeks. Plus another reason is so that the poor can get a chance to read something and later it was published as a book. The story is about Pip whose name was Phillip Pirrip. Pip is the narrative voice of the story as he starts the book by saying â€Å"my fathers famil y name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Pirrip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So I called myselfShow MoreRelatedGuilt and Corruption in Great Expectations1598 Words   |  7 PagesGuilt and Corruption in Great Expectations The Victorian era is often cited as England’s golden age; however, beneath the trappings of silk and gold lay a society of greed and corruption. The rich lived a lifestyle of luxury and indulgence by exploiting the labor of the poor. Charles Dickens saw the injustice of the class system in Victorian society and worked to highlight the immorality of the upper class through his literature. 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