Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

     I've taught this book for three years now to ninth graders. The opportunity to re-read the book (each year, and even in multiple periods throughout the school day) has given me the chance to appreciate the sheer density of humor that Dickens packs in his prose. Somehow, every time I open the book, my appreciation of Dickens humor grows stronger. The only others I’ve read by Dickens are Hard Times and Oliver Twist. These led me to disparage the author for his sentimentalist streak. But here, maybe because Dickens wrote this when he was older and more jaded, the sentimentalism and wit seem even-handed. I’ve come to the point where I feel like the humor might even be the book’s most dominant quality—although I wasn’t as struck by it on my first read through, in which it was all I could do keep straight all the characters and plot twists. I’ve tried my hand at analyzing specifically how and why the book achieves such a comical effect. I sense that a lot of it comes from the blending of the absurd with the proper, as when Herbert tells Pip all about Miss Havisham through a dinner conversation in which Pip commits a number of absent-minded social blunders, including stuffing his napkin into his empty cup (189) His other mistakes are more understandable—this one comes out of left field. A second element to the humor is that Dickens is comfortable completely belittling the characters. Joe meets Miss Havisham and stands with “his mouth open as if he wanted a worm” (105). It helps that the characters are so cartoonishly exaggerated to begin with. They are fascinating to read about, but essentially walking caricature completely defined by a single quality. A third element to the humor is Pip’s narration itself. He has a way of undercutting a moment of sincerity or needless propriety. Take for example Joe’s admission that Mrs. Joe can be a “buster,” which Pip claims Joe pronounces as though it begins with “at least twelve capital Bs” (50).

     Even after re-readings, I have questions about the book's message. Is it really so wrong of Pip to crave social mobility? I like to think that Dickens means to share something about finding happiness in what might appear like mundane circumstances. However, I understand that some have analyzed this to be a corrupt element of Dickens writing. For example, Herbert tells Pip, describing Miss Havisham’s fiancé, that, “…he was a showy man…but that he was not to be, without ignorance or prejudice, mistaken for a gentleman…no man that is not a gentleman at heart ever was, since the world began, a true gentleman in manner…no varnish can hide the grain of the wood, and the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will express itself” (189). These are interesting words in the context of a novel about a poor person who wishes to be rich. By saying that only some people can ever be a true gentleman—does he mean gentleman in terms of someone who exhibits appropriate social behavior, or someone who was born to be “upper class.” Pip’s awkwardness at the dinner here complicates the picture. By mixing up the social cues, is Dickens saying that Pip isn’t fit to be among the wealthy by virtue of the fact that he was born poor?