How does Great Expectations Reflect the Victorian Era?

How does vast Expectations Reflect the Victorian Era?Then, Pip flexs a gentleman, he assumes that great expectations mean that he may no longer be content with the good things he already has. When Mr. Joe visits Pip in capital of the United Kingdom, Pip looks down on Mr. Joe and thinks that he does not fit to his new environment anymore. Pip thinks to himself, Not with pleasure, though I was bound to him by so many ties no with considerable disturbance If I could have unploughed him away by paying money, I certainly would have paid money (pg.186). Although Joe protected and assisted Pip throughout his childhood and adolescence, Pip was lull embarrassed by him. However, in the end he regrets for treating him so rude.After so many disappointments (He was planning to marry Biddy, but she married Mr. Joe. He expected that being a gentleman would provide him a chance to marry Estella, but she married Bentley etc.), he is finally forced to develop more or less simple and realistic ex pectations and learns how to be content with the modest living he makes in the mercantile firm. Pip learns that societal class is not essential for gratification that strict designations of good and evil, and even of guilt and innocence, atomic number 18 nearly impossible to maintain in a world that is constantly changing and that his treatment of his love ones must be the guiding principle in his life. bulky Expectations and Victorian AgeDickens Great Expectations is one of several reflective books of Victorian age. It is a very successful representative of its own time. Written in 1860 and following the story of Pip from childhood to adulthood, the book represents the common Victorian elements like social class difference, industrialization, Victorian houses, Victorian values and women.At the very beginning of the book, we encounter with a typical low-class family. They live in a hamlet among marshes. Mr. Joe is a blacksmith and his wife (the sister of Pip) is a typical Victo rian low-class housewife. She sinks under the household duties and always complains about not being able to burgeon forth off her apron (chapter 1-2). Because of her harsh duties, she is always frustrated and often beats Pip. Then, we encounter with high-class, well-dressed, well-dancing women like Miss Havisham and Estella through the onwards of the book.These two different families are also the first signals of the existence of social classes in the society. On the one hand, Gargery family is a poor, uneducated, living in a village. On the other hand, Miss Havisham lives in a mansion called Satis House. The Pockets house is full of servants. Estella is a young lady who dances well and educated abroad. Also the other women in Pips snobbish life in London represent the typical high-class Victorian women. Having seen the two different lives in early years of his life, Pip wants to shift to the upper class. He expects to become a gentleman who has all the values appreciated by the so ciety in order to have Estella and an upper class lifestyle.Pips early impressions about London remind us the effects of Industrial Revolution and immigration. When he comes to London, he is amazed and displeased with the unbelievable crowd (resulting from immigration for job) and awful smell (coming from sewerage due to the factories) I was scared by the intensity of London. I think I might have had some faint doubts whether it was not rather ugly, crooked, narrow, and dirty.(pg. 138) The good-for-nothing streets of Smithfield disturb him.It is easy to see Victorian architecture and Victorian houses in the book. Satis House, Wemmicks house (like a castle), and other ornamented houses tell us the taste of architecture of those days.It is very sad not to see some of important themes of Victorian era like child labor, prostitution, colonialism etc. in Great Expectations. But, Dickens uses colonialism in Great Expectations as a narrative device. A transported convict exactly meets th e need for a benefactor who can make a substantial fortune still who has to remain anonymous, and of whom Pip will eventually be ashamed. The capital law against returning from transportation sharpens the impact of the later chapters, when Pip sheds his pretensions as well as his wealth. Thus Dickens, like so many Victorian authors who used the colonies as places to transfer burned-out characters or from which to retrieve characters, uses this aspect of colonialism as the dramatic al-Qaida for his novel. (Jonah Raskin in The Mythology of Imperialism (New YorkRandom House,1971))In other words, colonialism is used not as a theme but a narrative device in Great Expectations. Also, Dickens used the other themes mentioned above in his other works. For example, Oliver Twist child labor, destitution etc.