Gender Roles In Great Expectations By Charles Dickens

Do you feel your past or your job define who you are? Is there a reason they do or do not define who you are? Is it because you are always working or because of the fact that the first thing someone asks you once you meet them is what do you do? In the past research has shown that people are defined by their past and their job. Revealing that in society people believe that accomplishments are what make you valuable and the you could be defined by your past and your job and your accomplishments. The question is are people in society still defined by their job and their past and is so then why? Have they taken initiative to try and change that? If they have taken initiative to try and change then why are they still defined by their past? Has …show more content…
In the novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens the language that is used conveys that your past doesn’t define who you are when you take initiative. The convict a character in Great Expectations is the main example of how if you take initiative then you can change your future and your past won’t define you. In the beginning of the novel he is a part of the lowest social class and was described as a “fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an …show more content…
Dickens also uses the phrases such as a man who has been soaked in water, smothered in mud, lamed by stones, cut by flints, stung by nettles, and torn by briars to emphasize that he is a convict and that he is a part of the lowest class which could be classified as the class of criminals. Dickens uses the convict as the name of the character through to most of the novel and it isn’t until volume 3 that Dickens gives the convict a name. This could symbolize that the as a convict you were the lowest of lows and that would follow you throughout the rest of your life unless you decide to take initiative to change your life. He decides to take initiative after Pip a young boy and the main character of Great Expectations gives him food and helps him. After his encounter with Pip he decides that he wants to work hard for a living so that Pip doesn’t have to work hard. As the convict is banished because of the crime he had done. In the new world he worked as “a sheep farmer, stock breeder, and other trades”(317). Once Pip finds out that the convict made him a gentleman , Charles Dickens reveals to us his name which is Magwitch but for the purposes of him not getting into trouble because he