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Great Expectations Essay Plan

Excerpt from my Accolade guide on Great Expectations.

Date : 02/01/2021

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Ashleigh

Uploaded by : Ashleigh
Uploaded on : 02/01/2021
Subject : English

Read the following extract from Chapter 5 of Great Expectations and then answer the question that follows.
At this point in the novel, Joe and Pip have just accompanied the soldiers as they recaptured the escaped convicts.

My convict never looked at me, except that once. While we stood in the hut, he stood before the fire looking thoughtfully at it, or putting up his feet by turns upon the hob, and looking thoughtfully at them as if he pitied them for their recent adventures. Suddenly, he turned to the sergeant, and remarked,

I wish to say something respecting this escape. It may prevent some persons laying under suspicion alonger me.
You can say what you like, returned the sergeant, standing coolly looking at him with his arms folded, but you have no call to say it here. You ll have opportunity enough to say about it, and hear about it, before it s done with, you know.

I know, but this is another pint, a separate matter. A man can t starve at least I can t. I took some wittles, up at the willage over yonder, where the church stands a most out on the marshes. You mean stole, said the sergeant.
And I ll tell you where from. From the blacksmith s.

Halloa! said the sergeant, staring at Joe.
Halloa, Pip! said Joe, staring at me.
It was some broken wittles that s what it was and a dram of liquor, and a pie.
Have you happened to miss such an article as a pie, blacksmith? asked the sergeant, confidentially.
My wife did, at the very moment when you came in. Don t you know, Pip?
So, said my convict, turning his eyes on Joe in a moody manner, and without the least glance at me, so you re the blacksmith, are you? Than I m sorry to say, I ve eat your pie.
God knows you re welcome to it, so far as it was ever mine, returned Joe, with a saving remembrance of Mrs. Joe. We don t know what you have done, but we wouldn t have you starved to death for it, poor miserable fellow-creatur. Would us, Pip?

Starting with this moment in the play, explore how Dickens presents the relationship between generosity and class.
Write about:

    how Dickens presents generosity at this moment in the novel

    how Dickens presents the relationship between generosity and class in the novel as

    a whole. lt;br>[30 marks] AO4 [4 marks] 43028

    Introduction: Here you are being asked to focus on two specific themes in relation to one another. While both are massively important themes in the novel, it is important that you treat both equally in the time you have, so make sure you choose examples where you have interesting things to say about both class and generosity.

    Dickens was incredibly invested in the importance of charity. Many of his novels (A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist) centre themselves around the value of generosity and how it can affect the lives of the poor and needy for the better. In Great Expectations, Dickens explores the implications of generosity between classes and how the act of both giving and receiving differs according to social circumstance.

    Theme One: Generosity is presented as being worth more when it comes from those who have nothing.

    Generosity can be seen as requiring a level of self sacrifice, of giving something up in order to better the position of someone else. When a person who has little to give is generous, their generosity could be considered far more significant than someone of greater means. The Gargery family are among the lower class characters in the novel they are uneducated, live in a wooden house and dine on bread and butter . Dickens writes their dialogue pseudo-phonetically in order to signpost their regional dialect and lack of elocution. In the above extract, Joe s kindness towards Magwitch s confession of theft can be seen as generous, especially since, compared with some of the other characters in the novel, his position could itself be considered as needy. Dickens here draws similarities to the biblical story of the Widow s Offering in Luke 21:1-4.

    In spite of the nature of Magwitch s unknown crime, Joe remarks that he wouldn t have [him] starved to death for it and describes the convict as a poor miserable fellow-creatur . Although he is by no means equal in wealth or social standing, Joe recognises his equality in humanity with the word fellow . Magwitch has been stripped of his human refinement while Joe maintains his. Joe s generosity can therefore be seen as a recognition of this fundamental commonality.

    Theme Two: It is expected that generosity must flow from a higher class to a lower class, from those that have to those who have not. Throughout the novel, Dickens redirects this flow.

    In the extract above, Magwitch s confession can be seen as an act of generosity in return for Pip s having brought him the broken wittles and dram of liquor . In this instance, Dickens explores the insinuation that the flow of generosity from those that have to those who have not does not necessarily automatically involve class. Here, for example, Pip is Magwitch s social superior, but Magwitch is more circumstantially powerful, as he has the ability to out Pip as a thief. His choice not only to retain Pip s secret but to furthermore protect him by taking responsibility for the stolen food is an act of generosity that is not linked to material wealth.

    The interweaved themes of generosity and class between Magwitch and Pip come into play again later in the novel in a more material way when Magwitch reveals himself as Pip s benefactor. Pip reacts with repugnance in response. It is undoubtably Pip s advancement in class that instinctively rejects Magwitch s generosity, as having unknowingly accepted patronage from a criminal undermines his social expectations. Here the relationship between class and generosity is fraught, as rather than a person of low status accepting generosity from a person of higher status (as was acceptable and socially encouraged), Pip as a gentleman has been accepting generosity from a vagrant-class criminal. When Pip assumes Miss Havisham to be his patron, the flow of generosity seems far more socially acceptable, here however, the flow has been redirected.

    Theme Three: Generosity is dubiously transactional. Though one should not expect recompense or reciprocal generosity in return, gratitude is the expected response to generosity and failure to behave gratefully is shunned by various characters throughout the novel.

Ingratitude is presented as a flaw in the novel, to which no class is immune. Pip later expresses regret for his aforementioned repulsion, and rather than seeing a criminal in Magwitch, he remarks I only saw a man who had meant to be my benefactor, and who had felt affectionately, gratefully, and generously, towards me with great

constancy through a series of years. That Magwitch is described as both grateful and generous connotes a further biblical tone in the notion that generosity breeds generosity, with gratitude functioning as the intermediate.

However, the expectation of gratitude could itself be seen to undermine a benefactor s generosity, as generosity that obligates a certain behaviour from its receiver is transactional, not simply charitable. When Estella is described as an ingrate by her benefactor Miss Havisham after she behaves indifferently towards her, she retorts that I have said that I owe everything to you. All I possess is freely yours. All that you have given me, is at your command to have again. , the implication being that she did not ask for Miss Havisham s patronage, and therefore is under no obligation to serve her in any particular way, despite Miss Havisham s desires. Conversely, when Magwitch reveals himself, he assures Pip, Do I tell it, fur you to feel a obligation? Not a bit , merely to know that he had made him a gentleman . Generosity with strings attached is arguably not generosity at all, but rather investment, and it seems throughout the novel that Dickens presents the characters of higher classes as being far less willing to give without hope of return.

Conclusion: Ultimately, the relationship between class and generosity is a complicated one, and a relationship Dickens explores throughout Great Expectations, challenging assumptions of the flow of generosity between classes and the expectation of generosity solely concerning material redistribution.

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