Great Expectations - Introduction
Who is the author of Great Expectations?
Where and when did he live?
What happened to his father? How old was Dickens when this happened? Could this have been dramatic for him? Explain!
Who was his wife? What happened with their relationship? What caused this? Who was the new person in his life?
How did Victorians read their novels? Was 500 pages too long of a read?
What was Dickens editor of?
Was Great Expectations published weekly or monthly? How many months/weeks?
How might have this affected Dickens’s writing?
What was going on in Dickens’s life during/directly preceding Great Expectations? (1858-1960). Page vi
How might you guess Great Expectations may include the drama / themes that were occurring in Dickens’s life? Page vi
Dickens was not famous when he was married, then he acquired fame. How can this affect the average person? How did it affect Dickens? If you had to guess, how might Great Expectations reflect this part of Dickens’s life?
Who was Ellen Ternan? How might she have been “socially” different from his wife Catherine? Who is the “beautiful Estella”? How might she be compared to Ellen Ternan?
Why would the life of gentility with Ellen be impossible for Dickens to achieve? Was it socially acceptable for Dickens to leave his wife and seven children to pursue Ellen? What was Dickens risking for his infatuation with Ellen?
Bottom of page vi – Does Dickens allow his character Pip to have a life with Estella? Why or why not? Why does Dickens have two endings?
What does Great Expectations mean? – bottom of page vii
What were the hulks? Page viii Where were they destined? Why there?
Dickens grew up in harsh times, and he remembers seeing “convict ships”. How might he incorporate this information into his story? Remember his father? What might happen if you had to guess?
What year was Pip – the main character – most likely born? Page viii.
Without have done any reading, what themes do you believe Great Expectations might explore? Explain your answer with reasons as to why you believe!
Do you believe that the story will end happily / sad? What lessons may Pip have to learn?
Sunday, December 16, 2007
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Victorian Society
EDUCATION
Education in nineteenth-century England was not equal - not between the sexes, and not between the classes. Gentlemen would be educated at home by a governess or tutor until they were old enough to attend Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Winchester, Westminster, Charterhouse, or a small handful of lesser schools. The curriculum was heavily weighted towards the classics - the languages and literature of Ancient Greece and Rome. After that, they would attend Oxford or Cambridge. Here they might also study mathematics, law, philosophy, and modern history. Oxford tended to produce more Members of Parliament and government officials, while Cambridge leaned more towards the sciences and produced more acclaimed scholars. However, it was not compulsory, either legally or socially, for a gentleman to attend school at all. He could, just as easily, be taught entirely at home. However, public school and University were the great staging grounds for public life, where you made your friends and developed the connections that would aid you later in life. Beau Brummel met the Prince of Wales at Eton and that friendship helped him conquer all of London Society despite his lack of family background.
A lady's education was taken, almost entirely, at home. There were boarding schools, but no University, and the studies were very different. She learned French, drawing, dancing, music, and the use of globes. If the school, or the governess, was interested in teaching any practical skills, she learned plain sewing as well as embroidery, and accounts.
SCIENCE AND PROGRESS
Industrial Revolution: the developments that transformed Great Britain, between 1750 and 1830, from a largely rural population making a living almost entirely from agriculture to a town-centered society engaged increasingly in factory manufacture.
As many thousands of women throughout rural Britain saw their spinning wheels become redundant and their jobs disappear into the factories, they moved to the cities. The towns offered a better chance of work and higher wages than the countryside, where many families were trapped in dire poverty and seasonal employment. On the other hand, the countryside was healthier.
The Industrial Revolution gathered steam, and accelerated the migration of the population from country to city. The result of this movement was the development of horrifying slums and cramped row housing in the overcrowded cities.
SOCIAL CLASS
Working class - men and women who performed physical labor, paid daily or weekly wages
Middle class - men performed mental or "clean" work, paid monthly or annually
Upper class - did not work, income came from inherited land and investments
MONEY
Pounds (£)Shillings (s.)Pence (d.)
Typical Incomes (annual)
Aristocrats £30,000 Merchants, bankers £10,000 Middle-class (doctors, lawyers, clerks) £300-800Lower middle-class (head teachers, journalists, shopkeepers, etc.) £150-300Skilled workers (carpenters, typesetters,etc.) £75-100Sailors and domestic staff £40-75Laborers, soldiers £25
DISEASES
Cholera - caused by human waste in the drinking water.Symptoms: nausea, dizziness, vomiting, diarrhea, overwhelming thirst, crampsDeath often followed within 24 hours of the first symptom
Consumption - a tuberculosis of the lungsSymptoms - weakness, fatigue, wasting away, blood in the lungs(killed hundreds of thousands of English in the nineteenth century)
Typhus - spread by body lice and dirty conditionsSymptoms: delirium, headaches, rash, high fever
What Makes a Victorian Gentleman?
Nicholas Sbroglia
What made a person a gentleman in Victorian England? Social rank and class surely had to do with a majority of it. Was there anything else? The Victorians had definitions of what constituted a gentleman. There are also modern and classical authors who, through their research have created their own definitions of the gentleman. The gentleman was a prominent figure in the Victorian novel. From Mr. Pocket in Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations to John Halifax in Dinah Craik’s John Halifax, Gentleman, each of the popular authors of the period had characters like these in their novels. There are a variety of definitions of gentlemen according to modern writers. Characters were considered gentlemen in novels when they were members of the gentry, the upper class of society, just below nobility, by birth, how he manages his finances showing his business acumen. In addition, Victorian writers sometimes used phallic imagery when describing their gentlemanly characters. The gentleman was what ever society considered him to be. He was an ideal for others to strive toward. In Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre there are three prominent figures who would not necessarily qualify as gentlemen. Mr. Brocklehurst, Rochester and St. John Rivers all have faults which tarnish their reputation for being gentlemen. These characters in Bronte’s Jane Eyre are poor examples of gentleman in a Victorian novel.
According to Arlene Young of the University of Manitoba, the classic Victorian gentleman was “a man of high social station, a member of the gentry or the minor aristocracy” (14). This definition could be used in both literature and during the Victorian Era during the nineteenth century. Patricia Ingham of Oxford University has a slightly different definition of the gentleman. The gentleman was “the yardstick against which moral value could be measured.” Ingham continues, “For many [ . . . ] it was an accolade to which they aspired.” (109). A gentleman’s moral values revolved around being honorable and chivalrous. Author Daniel Defoe took the literary definition a step father. The gentleman, as Defoe stated, was the “exalted Creature of our own forming” (Young 45). He believed that the gentleman in literature reflected the values and social assumptions of society itself and that gentlemen were just creations to live up to the ideal. Based on these weak, very basic definitions, it is difficult to try to analyze the characters in Jane Eyre. According to David Cody in his essay “The Gentleman,” the Victorians struggled with their own definition; “The concept of the gentleman was not merely a social or class designation. There was also a moral component inherent in the concept which made it a difficult and an ambiguous thing for the Victorians themselves to attempt to define, though there were innumerable attempts, many of them predicated upon the revival in the nineteenth century of a chivalric moral code derived from the feudal past” (Cody). There needs to be specific actions or attributes that are easily identified in these characters.
There is more to a gentleman than just brief definitions however. There are other characteristics that create this character on the pages of Victorian literature. In nineteenth century literature the true gentleman “was the man who [ . . . ] wisely and profitably manages his estate and finances” (Young 29). In Jane Eyre, the three gentlemen in question do not always fit this aspect of a definition. It can easily be said that all of the men in question do have at least some form of wealth. St. John might be an exception. But it is how they handle the wealth that makes them ungentlemanly. Mr. Brocklehurst manages Lowood School. Although the inmates of the school are not allowed to have extra bread and are constantly subjected to freezing temperatures, his family seems to know luxury. Jane describes the dress of the daughters of Brocklehurst: “they were splendidly attired in velvet, silk and furs” (Bronte 74; ch. 7). His daughters dress in such a fashionable way and the students of the school are left freezing and hungry. This is not the way that one would think a gentleman to act. His chivalrous nature should command him to ensure pleasurable conditions for all of those in his care.
Mr. Rochester also “profitably manages his estate and finances.” Although it is never disclosed how much wealth Rochester has, the reader is led to believe that it must be a huge sum. Rochester has the money to tour Europe looking for love as well as keep a full house of servants working at Thornfield Hall while he is gone on his many business trips to check his property throughout the country; “business had called him [Rochester] to a small estate of two or three farms he possessed thirty miles off – business it was requisite he should settle in person” (Bronte 273; ch. 2). He also owns much property throughout the land. He not only has Thornfield, but Ferndean, his country house where he goes after the destruction of Thornfield. Rochester does have the financial definition of being a gentleman but all of his wealth does not prevent him from acting in an ungentlemanly way. First he has an abusive attitude to his first wife Bertha, locking her on the top floor of Thornfield. Even though he has taken Adele in as his ward, Rochester still does not take kindly to her on occasion. He often calls her a “brat” (Bronte 136; ch. 14). Gentlemen, although not expected to be saintly, still needed to behave in a way that showed respect toward others. Rochester does not have this characteristic until Jane comes to Ferndean to be his wife and caretaker.
Finally, St. John Rivers also handles his little wealth and his modest estate with dignity. Although Rivers is not a member of the gentry, he can still be considered a gentleman in this respect. According to Young, a gentleman, by extension, “could also refer more generally to a man of distinction or to a man who exhibited the chivalry and refined sensibilities appropriate to a person of gentle birth” (14). This means that although St. John is not a gentleman by birth, he still may be considered one in some ways because of his kind and honorable attitude. Being the religious man of Morton, Rivers tends to have chivalrous actions. He allows Jane to stay with his family until she is well enough to find lodging, and he also gives Jane the job of teacher at the school in Morton. Although he does not seem to have a great amount of wealth, he still manages a large house where he supports his sisters as well as a servant with ease. Although St. John does embody the chivalrous attitude of a gentleman, he still acts in questionable ways toward those near him. When Jane refuses to marry and go work as a missionary, rather than respecting her views as her own, he treats her as an outcast different from his sisters.
Another characteristic that Victorian authors often gave their gentlemanly characters was having them associated with “phallic imagery” (Young 28). Examples of this trait are easy to find in Jane Eyre. When young Jane first meets Brocklehurst in the library of Gateshead, she describes his appearance as “a black pillar, such at least, appeared to me, at first sight, the straight, narrow, stable-clad shape standing erect on the rug: the firm face at the top was like a carved mask, placed above the shaft by way of capital” (Bronte 42; ch. 4). Bronte uses graphic language to compare Brocklehurst to the male genitalia. This imagery places Brocklehurst as a powerful figure in the novel.
There is also phallic imagery when Jane first meets Mr. Rochester. While leaving Thornfield on an errand, Jane encounters a gentleman, Rochester that has fallen off his horse. During his fall, Rochester lost his whip and asks Jane to retrieve it for him: “‘Now, just hand me my whip; it lies there under the hedge’ I sought it and found it” (Bronte 122; ch. 12). Bronte is using veiled imagery to show the sexual tension between Jane and Rochester.
The novel’s other gentleman, St. John Rivers, is not necessarily associated with “phallic imagery” but is definitely described in a sexual manner. When Jane sits and analyzes his features she describes him as “young [. . .] tall, slender; his face riveted the eye; it was a Greek face, very pure in outline; quite a straight, classic nose, quite an Athenian mouth and chin” (Bronte 338; ch. 29). From Bronte’s description, it should be concluded that she wanted her readers to believe that Rivers was a sexuality attractive man. So even though he does not use any phallic symbols, Rivers has sexual energy that Jane is aware of.
The male characters in Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre are and at the same time are not examples of gentlemen in Victorian literature. These men do each fit some of the definitions discussed earlier. Rochester and Brocklehurst each have some financial definitions but lack the moral and chivalrous traits that a gentleman must have. St. John Rivers has some moral traits but lacks others when it comes to Jane disobeying him. However, these characters are described with a characteristic that many Victorian Era authors used. These gentlemen are described with sexual imagery that places them as interesting characters in the novel. Although these gentlemen do have their positive characteristics, there are problems with some of their thoughts and actions that lead to their downfall.
EDUCATION
Education in nineteenth-century England was not equal - not between the sexes, and not between the classes. Gentlemen would be educated at home by a governess or tutor until they were old enough to attend Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Winchester, Westminster, Charterhouse, or a small handful of lesser schools. The curriculum was heavily weighted towards the classics - the languages and literature of Ancient Greece and Rome. After that, they would attend Oxford or Cambridge. Here they might also study mathematics, law, philosophy, and modern history. Oxford tended to produce more Members of Parliament and government officials, while Cambridge leaned more towards the sciences and produced more acclaimed scholars. However, it was not compulsory, either legally or socially, for a gentleman to attend school at all. He could, just as easily, be taught entirely at home. However, public school and University were the great staging grounds for public life, where you made your friends and developed the connections that would aid you later in life. Beau Brummel met the Prince of Wales at Eton and that friendship helped him conquer all of London Society despite his lack of family background.
A lady's education was taken, almost entirely, at home. There were boarding schools, but no University, and the studies were very different. She learned French, drawing, dancing, music, and the use of globes. If the school, or the governess, was interested in teaching any practical skills, she learned plain sewing as well as embroidery, and accounts.
SCIENCE AND PROGRESS
Industrial Revolution: the developments that transformed Great Britain, between 1750 and 1830, from a largely rural population making a living almost entirely from agriculture to a town-centered society engaged increasingly in factory manufacture.
As many thousands of women throughout rural Britain saw their spinning wheels become redundant and their jobs disappear into the factories, they moved to the cities. The towns offered a better chance of work and higher wages than the countryside, where many families were trapped in dire poverty and seasonal employment. On the other hand, the countryside was healthier.
The Industrial Revolution gathered steam, and accelerated the migration of the population from country to city. The result of this movement was the development of horrifying slums and cramped row housing in the overcrowded cities.
SOCIAL CLASS
Working class - men and women who performed physical labor, paid daily or weekly wages
Middle class - men performed mental or "clean" work, paid monthly or annually
Upper class - did not work, income came from inherited land and investments
MONEY
Pounds (£)Shillings (s.)Pence (d.)
Typical Incomes (annual)
Aristocrats £30,000 Merchants, bankers £10,000 Middle-class (doctors, lawyers, clerks) £300-800Lower middle-class (head teachers, journalists, shopkeepers, etc.) £150-300Skilled workers (carpenters, typesetters,etc.) £75-100Sailors and domestic staff £40-75Laborers, soldiers £25
DISEASES
Cholera - caused by human waste in the drinking water.Symptoms: nausea, dizziness, vomiting, diarrhea, overwhelming thirst, crampsDeath often followed within 24 hours of the first symptom
Consumption - a tuberculosis of the lungsSymptoms - weakness, fatigue, wasting away, blood in the lungs(killed hundreds of thousands of English in the nineteenth century)
Typhus - spread by body lice and dirty conditionsSymptoms: delirium, headaches, rash, high fever
What Makes a Victorian Gentleman?
Nicholas Sbroglia
What made a person a gentleman in Victorian England? Social rank and class surely had to do with a majority of it. Was there anything else? The Victorians had definitions of what constituted a gentleman. There are also modern and classical authors who, through their research have created their own definitions of the gentleman. The gentleman was a prominent figure in the Victorian novel. From Mr. Pocket in Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations to John Halifax in Dinah Craik’s John Halifax, Gentleman, each of the popular authors of the period had characters like these in their novels. There are a variety of definitions of gentlemen according to modern writers. Characters were considered gentlemen in novels when they were members of the gentry, the upper class of society, just below nobility, by birth, how he manages his finances showing his business acumen. In addition, Victorian writers sometimes used phallic imagery when describing their gentlemanly characters. The gentleman was what ever society considered him to be. He was an ideal for others to strive toward. In Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre there are three prominent figures who would not necessarily qualify as gentlemen. Mr. Brocklehurst, Rochester and St. John Rivers all have faults which tarnish their reputation for being gentlemen. These characters in Bronte’s Jane Eyre are poor examples of gentleman in a Victorian novel.
According to Arlene Young of the University of Manitoba, the classic Victorian gentleman was “a man of high social station, a member of the gentry or the minor aristocracy” (14). This definition could be used in both literature and during the Victorian Era during the nineteenth century. Patricia Ingham of Oxford University has a slightly different definition of the gentleman. The gentleman was “the yardstick against which moral value could be measured.” Ingham continues, “For many [ . . . ] it was an accolade to which they aspired.” (109). A gentleman’s moral values revolved around being honorable and chivalrous. Author Daniel Defoe took the literary definition a step father. The gentleman, as Defoe stated, was the “exalted Creature of our own forming” (Young 45). He believed that the gentleman in literature reflected the values and social assumptions of society itself and that gentlemen were just creations to live up to the ideal. Based on these weak, very basic definitions, it is difficult to try to analyze the characters in Jane Eyre. According to David Cody in his essay “The Gentleman,” the Victorians struggled with their own definition; “The concept of the gentleman was not merely a social or class designation. There was also a moral component inherent in the concept which made it a difficult and an ambiguous thing for the Victorians themselves to attempt to define, though there were innumerable attempts, many of them predicated upon the revival in the nineteenth century of a chivalric moral code derived from the feudal past” (Cody). There needs to be specific actions or attributes that are easily identified in these characters.
There is more to a gentleman than just brief definitions however. There are other characteristics that create this character on the pages of Victorian literature. In nineteenth century literature the true gentleman “was the man who [ . . . ] wisely and profitably manages his estate and finances” (Young 29). In Jane Eyre, the three gentlemen in question do not always fit this aspect of a definition. It can easily be said that all of the men in question do have at least some form of wealth. St. John might be an exception. But it is how they handle the wealth that makes them ungentlemanly. Mr. Brocklehurst manages Lowood School. Although the inmates of the school are not allowed to have extra bread and are constantly subjected to freezing temperatures, his family seems to know luxury. Jane describes the dress of the daughters of Brocklehurst: “they were splendidly attired in velvet, silk and furs” (Bronte 74; ch. 7). His daughters dress in such a fashionable way and the students of the school are left freezing and hungry. This is not the way that one would think a gentleman to act. His chivalrous nature should command him to ensure pleasurable conditions for all of those in his care.
Mr. Rochester also “profitably manages his estate and finances.” Although it is never disclosed how much wealth Rochester has, the reader is led to believe that it must be a huge sum. Rochester has the money to tour Europe looking for love as well as keep a full house of servants working at Thornfield Hall while he is gone on his many business trips to check his property throughout the country; “business had called him [Rochester] to a small estate of two or three farms he possessed thirty miles off – business it was requisite he should settle in person” (Bronte 273; ch. 2). He also owns much property throughout the land. He not only has Thornfield, but Ferndean, his country house where he goes after the destruction of Thornfield. Rochester does have the financial definition of being a gentleman but all of his wealth does not prevent him from acting in an ungentlemanly way. First he has an abusive attitude to his first wife Bertha, locking her on the top floor of Thornfield. Even though he has taken Adele in as his ward, Rochester still does not take kindly to her on occasion. He often calls her a “brat” (Bronte 136; ch. 14). Gentlemen, although not expected to be saintly, still needed to behave in a way that showed respect toward others. Rochester does not have this characteristic until Jane comes to Ferndean to be his wife and caretaker.
Finally, St. John Rivers also handles his little wealth and his modest estate with dignity. Although Rivers is not a member of the gentry, he can still be considered a gentleman in this respect. According to Young, a gentleman, by extension, “could also refer more generally to a man of distinction or to a man who exhibited the chivalry and refined sensibilities appropriate to a person of gentle birth” (14). This means that although St. John is not a gentleman by birth, he still may be considered one in some ways because of his kind and honorable attitude. Being the religious man of Morton, Rivers tends to have chivalrous actions. He allows Jane to stay with his family until she is well enough to find lodging, and he also gives Jane the job of teacher at the school in Morton. Although he does not seem to have a great amount of wealth, he still manages a large house where he supports his sisters as well as a servant with ease. Although St. John does embody the chivalrous attitude of a gentleman, he still acts in questionable ways toward those near him. When Jane refuses to marry and go work as a missionary, rather than respecting her views as her own, he treats her as an outcast different from his sisters.
Another characteristic that Victorian authors often gave their gentlemanly characters was having them associated with “phallic imagery” (Young 28). Examples of this trait are easy to find in Jane Eyre. When young Jane first meets Brocklehurst in the library of Gateshead, she describes his appearance as “a black pillar, such at least, appeared to me, at first sight, the straight, narrow, stable-clad shape standing erect on the rug: the firm face at the top was like a carved mask, placed above the shaft by way of capital” (Bronte 42; ch. 4). Bronte uses graphic language to compare Brocklehurst to the male genitalia. This imagery places Brocklehurst as a powerful figure in the novel.
There is also phallic imagery when Jane first meets Mr. Rochester. While leaving Thornfield on an errand, Jane encounters a gentleman, Rochester that has fallen off his horse. During his fall, Rochester lost his whip and asks Jane to retrieve it for him: “‘Now, just hand me my whip; it lies there under the hedge’ I sought it and found it” (Bronte 122; ch. 12). Bronte is using veiled imagery to show the sexual tension between Jane and Rochester.
The novel’s other gentleman, St. John Rivers, is not necessarily associated with “phallic imagery” but is definitely described in a sexual manner. When Jane sits and analyzes his features she describes him as “young [. . .] tall, slender; his face riveted the eye; it was a Greek face, very pure in outline; quite a straight, classic nose, quite an Athenian mouth and chin” (Bronte 338; ch. 29). From Bronte’s description, it should be concluded that she wanted her readers to believe that Rivers was a sexuality attractive man. So even though he does not use any phallic symbols, Rivers has sexual energy that Jane is aware of.
The male characters in Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre are and at the same time are not examples of gentlemen in Victorian literature. These men do each fit some of the definitions discussed earlier. Rochester and Brocklehurst each have some financial definitions but lack the moral and chivalrous traits that a gentleman must have. St. John Rivers has some moral traits but lacks others when it comes to Jane disobeying him. However, these characters are described with a characteristic that many Victorian Era authors used. These gentlemen are described with sexual imagery that places them as interesting characters in the novel. Although these gentlemen do have their positive characteristics, there are problems with some of their thoughts and actions that lead to their downfall.