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Great Expectations Quotes: Themes
Themes
Crime & Punishment; Law and Justice
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Jaggers, his office and his house
Magwitch vs Compeyson (M is criminal because ‘a man needs to eat’)
Drummle, Miss H and Molly= criminals that aren’t caught or punished by law

Forgiveness & Redemption
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Pip forgives Miss H, which helps him redeem himself
E never explicitly forgives Miss H in novel- ambiguity
Mrs Joe: ‘Pip
...
Pardon’
Pip matures and redeems himself in the readers’ eyes
E redeems herself as she asks Pip for forgiveness

Education
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Books and reading are used as a key recurring motif to remind the audience of the
significance of education and convey Dickens’ view of the importance of education
in one’s life
‘Ridiculous old woman of limited means…used to sleep from six to seven in the
evening in the society of youth who paid for the improving opportunity of seeing her
do it’ (Ch 7)
 Dickens ridicules the lack of education system on offer to the working classes
through his satirical portrayal of Mr Wopsle’s great-aunt’s evening school

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Good and Bad Parenting; Dysfunctional Families; Exploitation of Children
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Abuse in Gargery household
Miss H and Molly parody of Victorian motherhood
Pocket household is chaotic- Mrs Pocket has no control
Joe sets good example
Magwitch like Pip’s ‘second father’, shows him love

Society; Social Class and Snobbery
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‘we spent as much money as we could… we were always more or less miserable’ (Ch
34)

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Dickens mocks the class system as being based entirely on wealth and not
moral worth by showing Pip excess on materialistic goods in order to be a
‘gentleman’
 In this way, great expectations are also shown to be negative
 Parallelism (‘we spent…we were…’) emphasises that their extravagant
lifestyle is not making them happy as Pip thought it would- links money to
self destruction
 Through the contrast of Biddy and Estella and Herbert and Drummle, Dickens states
his satirical view that those higher in society (Estella and Drummle), who have the
most privileged opportunities and the most wealthy resources, should have the
most positive ambitions and should be making a change in the world, whereas in
reality it is the less privileged people (Biddy and Herbert) who are more determined
to make a difference, but have little opportunities to progress
 In this way Dickens exploits the social injustices of the 19 th Century
 Mrs Pocket’s ‘book all about titles’
 Mrs Pocket is the epitome of social snobbery as she spends her days
perusing a book ‘all about titles’ because she feels destined for a better class
and life
 She sees herself as a victim after marrying Mr Pocket, who is neither of high
class or great wealth, but is a true gentle man in word and deed
 Mrs Pocket’s obsession with moving up in society has caused her to neglect her
household and children, and her inability to organise her own household is satirised
by Dickens in Chapter 23 as she drops her child on its head, and allows the cook to lie
‘insensibly drunk’
 As well as providing comic relief to the novel, Dickens also parodies Pip’s
own desires to move up in society through Mrs Pocket’s obsession with
aristocrats
 Dickens comments on Mrs Pocket’s father seeing her as a ‘treasure for a prince’ but
Mr Pocket only received ‘indifferent interest’, a pun which ironically exploits the
snobbish attitudes of those who put title and wealth above the essential qualities of
kindness, love and hard work- a recurring theme in the novel
 Miss Havisham lives ‘up-town’, whereas Joe and Biddy live in the village
 Dickens uses the physical division between the upper and working classes to
emphasise the severity of class division in the Victorian society
 This delineation between the wealthy and working class in Kent is palpable
and is reinforced by the gate that guards Miss Havisham's decaying riches
 Pip, like most in Victorian society, values the knowledge and education that Miss H
and E have, although it is Joe who knows the most about the essential values a
person should have
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‘but it is indisputable that while you can't possibly be genteel and bake, you may be
as genteel as never was and brew’ (Ch 22)

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Using the parallel ‘you can’t be genteel
...
and I thought with absolute abhorrence of the
contrast between the jail and her’
 Irony as Estella is not only illegitimate, but also of criminal class, and does in
fact ‘belong’ in jail
 Dickens mocks how many in society would think like Pip- that her ‘beautiful’
appearance apparently means that she is completely contrasted to the jail

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Gentleman vs Gentle man

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Joe is the true gentle man
...
His love is presented by Dickens to make him delusional and
overlook reality- he believes he and E are destined for each other by Miss H (‘she
had adopted Estella, she had as good as adopted me’) when that is clearly not the
case

Good v Evil
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‘No varnish can hide the grain of the wood and that the more varnish you put on,
the more the grain will express itself’
 Dickens uses this vivid metaphor to suggest that if at heart you are an evil
person, no matter how much you pretend to be good, your innate evil
nature will be exposed
 It shows Herbert’s wisdom that he understands the concepts and
recognises the social pretences around him
Jaggers recognises how he lives in ‘an atmosphere of evil’ and all he sees of children
was ‘their being generated in great numbers for certain destruction’
 Shows how Jaggers tried to ‘save’ Estella
 Exposes the corruption of the justice system and their punishment, Dickens
goes as far as calling it ‘evil’
Sympathy for M as he was one of the children who had been caught up in crime and
punishment ever since he was a child, as was heading for ‘certain destruction’; M
was a victim of such social circumstances
Parallel characters of convicts in M and Compeyson
 They are contrasted
 Magwitch was essentially a good person at heart but because he was an
orphan and because of the prevailing social circumstances he becomes a
criminal and is arrested by the police
...

 Dickens thus illustrates how good and evil are intertwined even in criminals,
and forces audience to consider whether the same punishment for two types
of criminal is just- explores the injustices of the legal system
 Compeyson, because he looks more like a gentleman, is given a much more
lenient sentence; the judge is deceived by the outward appearance of
Magwitch and Compeyson- Compeyson was dressed like a gentleman and
behaved like one, so he was sentenced only for seven years, but Magwitch
(because of his superficially ‘crooked’ appearance) got fourteen years

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Character vs Environment; Nature vs Nurture
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Biddy, Joe
Estella negatively influenced by Miss H but then abuse from Drummle puts her into
‘better shape’
Satis house reflecting Miss H’s self destruction
Jaggers’ office and home reflecting his character
Wemmick changes in different environments

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Startop from ‘weak mother’ who spoilt him, but he loves her and he becomes a
good character

Great Expectations
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‘I want to be a gentleman…I am not at all happy as I am’
 young Pip thinks that wealth and being a gentleman is going to make him
happy, but it doesn’t
 Through Pip’s journey from a blacksmith to a gentleman, Dickens presents
great expectations as something that is desired but not as good as it seemsPip later says that, as a gentleman, he was ‘always more or less miserable’
 ‘Oh I wouldn’t if I were you!’ [in reply to Pip wanting to be a gentleman]
 Dickens indirectly shows his view of great expectations through Biddy’s ironic
comments on Pip’s great expectations; Dickens satirises Pip’s over-ambitious
expectations in this way, suggesting his view that great expectations are not
something that should be strongly desired
 ‘I used think…that I should have been happier and better if I had never seen Miss H’s
face and had risen to manhood content to be partners with Joe in the honest old
forge’ (Ch 34)
 Conditional language with the modal auxiliary verbs such as ‘should’ creates
a sense of lost opportunity, although going to Miss H and moving to London
was seen as the opportunity, not staying at the forge
 Dickens shows that a humble heart will make a person more emotionally ‘wealthy’,
as shown with Joe’s poor background shaping him into a better person
...
When he watched the ships on the horizon, he'd dream about the life
he couldn't have
 Dickens has made the ships became a metaphor for a life of money and
privilege—but once Pip eventually got on board, it promptly sank,
symbolising how Dickens thinks people’s dreams of wealth and great
expectations is not as good as it seems
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Violence
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‘He got heavily bruised… the more I hit him, the harder I hit him’ (Ch 11)
 Violence even among children; young Pip fights young Herbert

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‘I often served her [Mrs Joe] as a connubial missile’ (Ch 2)
 Satire and exaggeration of Mrs Joe’s violence reflects Dickens’ dramatic style
and also highlights the abuse in the Gargery household

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Guilt
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‘It seems to my opposed conscience like a phantom devoting me to the Hulks’ (Ch 3)
 Pip’s imagination reflects the guilt he is feeling
 Reference to the supernatural and gothic semantic field makes Pip’s guilt
more threatening
 ‘devoting’ suggests Pip’s life will be heavily influenced by it- self-destruction
is implied here
‘A boy with somebody-else’s pork pie! Stop him!’ (Ch 3)
 Anthropomorphism of the cows in the marshes uses Pip’s youth and
imagination to suggest the guilt following him
 Adds humour to the otherwise tense situation, leaving room for Dickens to
explore and expand upon his main thematic preoccupation of criminality and
the guilt it brings
‘I stole some bread, some rind of cheese, about half a jar of mincemeat…’ (Ch 2)
 Asyndectic listing and detailed descriptions shows the vividness of the event
in Pip’s memory, suggests his guilt is still with him as he writes the book in
retrospective narration
‘In my sleep I saw the file coming at me out of a door, without seeing who held it
and I screamed myself awake’ (Ch 10)
 Pip is haunted by his guilt even in his sleep- his subconscious mind is heavy
with feelings of guilt
 ‘screamed myself awake’ suggests the guilt is gradually turning into fear
 There is a sense of mystery as Pip doesn’t see who holds it
‘God forgive me!’
 Pip, as the older and more mature narrator, judges himself for being hostile
towards Joe when he came to visit him in London- shows guilt
 Religious connotation shows confessional nature of his narrative



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