Dickens was a social critic of several aspects of his
Victorian society:
The plight of abandoned,
abused children
Great
Expectations depicts little Pip and the orphan Biddy as often mistreated.
Mrs. Joe physically and verbally abuses Pip, and Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt makes little
Biddy works in her small general shop keeping accounts of all that is sold. In other
areas, too, Biddy acts as the
servant.
Inadequate education
Dickens perceived educational institutions
of his time as unconcerned with intellectual improvement or care, finding them instead
mere institutions where profit was to be made in the housing of children. At Mr.
Wopsle's great-aunt's school, the woman is incompetent and the children learn virtually
nothing. It is Biddy who teaches Pip how to read and
figure.
Alcohol
abuse
Orlick represents the dangers of
alcohol abuse as in Chapter 53,he attacks Pip who enters the old sluice-house. There,
Orlick accuses Pip of coming between him and a woman he fancied. Also, in drunken
ramblings, he tells Pip of his connections to Compeyson and that he was on the stairway
the night Magwitch arrived. Vowing revenge, Orlick calls Pip his enemy. Fortunately, as
Pip cries out when Orlick takes a swing of liquor and picks up a hammer, Herbert and
some other men rescue him.
Social snobbery
Pip's first two visits to Satis House
introduce him to the elitist attitudes of a frivolous upper class. Passing through the
gate outside held by Estella, Pip hears, "Why, he's a common labouring boy!" as Estella
mocks his coarse hands and boots and his vocabulary, such as calling knaves jacks when
they play cards. With irony, Dickens points to the importance of mere appearance as
Estella herself is not upperclass, but has merely been adopted by an aristocrat, and a
decaying, eccentric one at that.
Satire in his criticism
of this aspect of Victorian society appears also, as Dickens portrays Uncle
Pumblechook's sycophancy in his efforts to advance himself socially. Farcical is Sarah
Pocket's supercilious treatment of her servant who must constantly save her children who
tumble dangerously underfoot or with scissors as their vacuous, oblivious mother sits
continuously reading from a book on social titles as though she were among the
aristocrats mentioned. Further, within the element of farce are the thespian ventures
of Mr. Wopsle who fancies himself a Shakespearean
actor.
Hypocrisy and
selfishness
The "basest of swindlers,"
Pumblechook is the greatest hypocrite in the novel. While using only cruel words to Pip
until Pip's social rise, in Chapter 28 Pumblechook boasts to the local newspaper of
Pip's social success, crediting himself as Pip's
"mentor."
The Pockets, "toadies and flatters," appearing
each year at Miss Havisham's birthday really just hope the eccentric will die so they
can receive inheritances.
Abuses of the legal
and penal system
The unscrupulous Mr.
Jaggers bespeaks of a corrupt justice system in which clients who cannot pay are not
served. Often he operates outside the law, such as cautioning Pip not to say his
benefactor's name or mention anything about his being in London. Only Wemmick who
visits Newgate Prison displays any concern. Magwitch, who as a gamin of the
streets, forced to steal to eat,victimized by unjust system, receives a graver sentence
than the evil Compeyson simply because Compeyson's appearance is that of a
gentleman.
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