Great Expectations

Great Expectations uses Pip’s coming-of-age story and class ambitions as a means of deconstructing a “gentleman’s” education. By examining the long, multi-layered process behind “making” Pip into a gentleman, Dickens reveals that there is nothing natural about the elegant dress, habits, and speech of the upper-class. Rather, these modes of dressing, behaving, and speaking come through extensive systems of education and social conditioning, to which lower-class individuals typically have no access.

From the beginning of the novel, Pip experiences a strong drive to learn and improve his status, demonstrating this drive through the practice of tracing his parents’ names on their tombstones. Unsatisfied with the disorganized education he receives at Mr. Wopsle’s local school, he elicits help from Biddy, who teaches him to read, write, and add using whatever books she can find. Pip recognizes early on, however, that even with Biddy’s help, it will be difficult to become uncommon in his circumstances. In another revealing scene, Pip practices writing on a slate, leading Joe to remark on his talent as a scholar. Joe then tells the story of his own disrupted education as a poor child from a family with an abusive father. With Joe’s story, Dickens establishes that education, literacy, and refined communication skills are privileges that are not readily available to people from Pip’s social class.