GCSE · English Literature · AQA · Spec 8702

Great Expectations: social class

Estella judges a boy by his hands. A convict thinks money makes a gentleman. Joe thinks every man belongs at his trade. Whose measure will Pip live by?

Three ways to measure a person

What makes someone a gentleman — or “common”?

Three characters answer in their own words. Focus each one and ask two things: what do they value, and what do they look down on?

What is a person worth — and how can you tell?

Estella

Chapter VIII, at Satis House

Worth shows in the surface: how you speak, what your hands look like, what is on your feet.
She objects to playing cards with Pip at all, because of his class — before he has done a single thing.
By her measure, a working boy fails on sight.

“Why, he is a common labouring-boy!”“He calls the knaves Jacks, this boy!”“And what coarse hands he has!”“And what thick boots!”

The convict

Chapter XXXIX, when he returns

A gentleman can be made with money: a gold watch, a ring, fine linen, clothes and books.
Being a gentleman means being lifted “above work” — the hard labour he did himself.
When people scorn him, his answer is to own something they don't: a London gentleman of his own.

“Yes, Pip, dear boy, I’ve made a gentleman on you!”“I lived rough, that you should live smooth; I worked hard, that you should be above work.”“which on you owns a brought-up London gentleman?”

Joe

Chapter XXVII, visiting Pip in London

Worth is honest work, done in the place you belong.
He describes the gap between himself and Pip as a difference of trades — something to be met, not fought.
Dressed as a gentleman and away from the forge, he feels he is simply “wrong”.

“one man’s a blacksmith, and one’s a whitesmith, and one’s a goldsmith, and one’s a coppersmith.”“Diwisions among such must come, and must be met as they come.”“I’m wrong in these clothes.”“Joe the blacksmith, there, at the old anvil, in the old burnt apron, sticking to the old work.”

Common ground

Each measure puts Pip somewhere different, so ‘what class is Pip?’ has no single answer. It depends who is doing the measuring.

Tap a name to focus that measure. Then ask yourself: by this measure, what is Pip?

Which measure does Pip choose?

Estella's first — and it turns him against Joe. Joe's is the one he comes to value, too late. The rest of this lesson follows how that happens.

Great Expectations, Charles Dickens

Comparing 3 positions: Estella, The convict, Joe.

Watch out: Don't write about class as if everyone in the novel agrees what it means. The whole point is that they don't.

Chapter VIII · How the shame spreads

Reason it through

How does Estella's contempt end up as Pip's shame about Joe?

Link 1 of 4

First link · your turn

Start at the card table. What does Estella actually attack?

Locked — reveal the link above first

Close reading · Chapter XXVII

Joe comes to London

Pip is now a young gentleman in London, and Joe is coming to see him. These are separate lines from the chapter, not one continuous passage. Focus each underlined phrase.

“Not with pleasure, though I was bound to him by so many ties; no; with considerable disturbance, some mortification, and a keen sense of incongruity.”

“If I could have kept him away by paying money, I certainly would have paid money.”

“So, throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise.”

… “in bondage and slavery” …

“whenever he subsided into affection, he called me Pip, and whenever he relapsed into politeness he called me sir”

“how can you call me, sir?”

“I had neither the good sense nor the good feeling to know that this was all my fault, and that if I had been easier with Joe, Joe would have been easier with me.”

Great Expectations, Charles Dickens, Chapter XXVII

Focus a phrase to see what it does. Then decide: is this young Pip talking, or the older narrator?

Reading “considerable disturbance, some mortification, and a keen sense of incongruity”

List of three, in formal vocabulary

Effect

Cool, careful words for a visit from the man who raised him. “Incongruity” means not fitting: Joe won't fit Pip's new world.

Meaning

Pip isn't sad about Joe coming. He's embarrassed by him.

Focused phrase “considerable disturbance, some mortification, and a keen sense of incongruity”. technique List of three, in formal vocabulary. effect: Cool, careful words for a visit from the man who raised him. “Incongruity” means not fitting: Joe won't fit Pip's new world.. meaning: Pip isn't sad about Joe coming. He's embarrassed by him.

Watch out: Two voices are speaking here: the young snob, and the older narrator judging him. When you quote, say which one you mean.

Pip, before and after

Chapter VIII: after EstellavsChapter XXXIX: after the convict returns

Read across each row: the same question, answered by Pip at two points in the novel.

Focus

What he is ashamed of

Chapter VIII: after Estella

His hands, his boots, being “common”.

Chapter XXXIX: after the convict returns

His own “worthless conduct” to Joe and Biddy.

The insight

The shame flips: from what he is, to what he has done.

How he sees Joe

Chapter VIII: after Estella

As the reason he is common: he wishes Joe had been “more genteelly brought up”.

Chapter XXXIX: after the convict returns

His deepest pain is that, for the convict, he “had deserted Joe”. He now values Joe's “simplicity and fidelity”.

What shocks him

Chapter VIII: after Estella

Estella's scorn, which leaves him hurt and humiliated.

Chapter XXXIX: after the convict returns

The truth about his fortune: the convict fills him with “abhorrence”, as if he were “some terrible beast”, and Miss Havisham as his patron was “all a mere dream”.

Whose judgement is in his head

Chapter VIII: after Estella

Estella's: he repeats her verdicts to himself on the walk home.

Chapter XXXIX: after the convict returns

His own: he judges himself.

What he wishes

Chapter VIII: after Estella

That Joe had been more genteel, “and then I should have been so too.”

Chapter XXXIX: after the convict returns

That he had been left at the forge, “far from contented, yet, by comparison happy!”

Check your thinking

Does money make Pip a gentleman?

By Chapter XXXIX Pip has fine rooms, a gold watch, clothes and books, all paid for by the convict, who tells him: “I’ve made a gentleman on you!”

Which is closest to what you think the novel shows?

Money made Pip a gentleman. The convict paid, and it worked.Pip's rise is a success story: he escapes the forge and does well.The novel laughs at Joe for being common and out of place.Money buys the look of a gentleman, but not respect or worth.

How sure are you?

I'm sureI think soI'm guessing

Money made Pip a gentleman. The convict paid, and it worked.

This is a common misconception

Look at the convict himself. Sent away “for life”, he grew rich abroad as a sheep-farmer and stock-breeder — and people there still sneered that he was “a ignorant common fellow now, for all he’s lucky”. Money bought him possessions, not respect. The convict believes money makes a gentleman; the novel shows that belief failing him.

Pip's rise is a success story: he escapes the forge and does well.

This is a common misconception

Two critics read it the other way. Forster argues that “as unexpected a stroke of good fortune turns the head” of Joe Gargery's young charge, who acts “very shabbily to his early friends” while telling himself he is setting them a moral example. Chesterton, writing in the early twentieth century, calls Pip “the well-meaning snob”. Those are their readings, and you can argue with them — but neither sees the rise as a simple success.

The novel laughs at Joe for being common and out of place.

This is a common misconception

Pip is embarrassed by Joe, but the novel doesn't stop there. After Joe speaks, Pip reflects: “I had not been mistaken in my fancy that there was a simple dignity in him.” Chesterton, in his own period reading, contrasts Joe, who does not assert himself at all, with Trabb's boy, who asserts himself entirely with sarcasm — and argues that Trabb's boy is what Pip really hates and dreads.

Money buys the look of a gentleman, but not respect or worth.

This matches the evidence

Yes. The rich convict is still sneered at as “common”, Forster reads Pip's fortune as turning his head, and the man Pip finds “a simple dignity” in is Joe the blacksmith. Chesterton puts it as a lad of decent instincts made “to care more for rank and pride and the degrees of our stratified society than for old affection and for honour” — his reading, but one the chapters you've studied support.

In Great Expectations money can make someone look like a gentleman. It cannot buy respect — and for Pip, it costs him Joe.

WHAT YOU'VE LEARNED

A quick recap of today's lesson.

Everyone in this novel is judging someone. The question is what they are measuring.

What you need to know

Chapter VIII: at Satis House, Estella calls Pip “a common labouring-boy” and mocks how he speaks, his hands and his boots. Her contempt “became infectious, and I caught it”.
Chapter XXVII: now a young gentleman in London, Pip dreads Joe's visit and would have paid money to keep him away. Joe says he is “wrong” in gentleman's clothes and away from the forge.
Chapter XXXIX: the returned convict reveals he is the source of Pip's fortune (“I’ve made a gentleman on you!”), and Pip's deepest pain is that he “had deserted Joe”.
Dickens planned the novel to be told “in the first person throughout”, so an older Pip narrates and judges his younger self.
Critics: Forster argues good fortune “turns the head” of Pip; Chesterton calls him “the well-meaning snob”. These are their readings, not the only ones.

The big picture

Dickens presents class as a way of judging people, and each character measures a person's worth differently: Estella by speech, hands and boots, the convict by money and possessions, Joe by honest work and knowing where he belongs. Pip catches Estella's contempt and turns it on Joe. By Chapter XXXIX he is judging his own “worthless conduct” and valuing Joe's “simplicity and fidelity” — too late.

Key points

1Class in this novel is a way of judging people, and each character measures worth differently.

2Estella measures speech and appearance; the convict measures money and possessions; Joe measures honest work and belonging.

3Pip adopts Estella's measure and turns it on Joe, the man who brought him up.

4Money doesn't buy standing: the rich convict is still sneered at as “a ignorant common fellow”.

5The older narrator condemns the younger Pip's snobbery, and by Chapter XXXIX Pip values Joe's “simplicity and fidelity” too late.

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Worked example

Problem

Write one analytical paragraph: how does Dickens use the convict's words “I lived rough, that you should live smooth; I worked hard, that you should be above work” to present social class?

⚠ Watch out

Writing that money makes Pip a gentleman, as if the novel agrees. That is the convict's view (“I’ve made a gentleman on you!”), not Dickens's verdict: the rich convict is still sneered at as common, and Pip ends up condemning his own conduct to Joe.

🧠

Memory hook

Hands, cash, anvil. Estella judges your hands, the convict counts your cash, Joe stands at his anvil. Pip picks hands — and ends up wishing for the anvil.

✓

Check yourself

Give one quotation each for how Estella, the convict and Joe measure worth. Which measure does Pip take on in Chapter VIII, and which does he value by Chapter XXXIX?

Flashcards

(13)

Estella's verdict on Pip at Satis House (Chapter VIII)?

“Why, he is a common labouring-boy!” She then mocks how he talks, his “coarse hands” and his “thick boots”.

Pip's own image for how Estella's contempt spread to him?

Infection: “it became infectious, and I caught it.”

What does Pip wish about Joe in Chapter VIII?

“I wished Joe had been rather more genteelly brought up, and then I should have been so too.”

How does Pip feel about Joe's visit to London (Chapter XXVII)?

“considerable disturbance, some mortification, and a keen sense of incongruity” — he would have paid money to keep Joe away.

Who does Pip most fear seeing Joe in London?

Bentley Drummle's, a man he despises. The older narrator: our worst meannesses are committed “for the sake of the people whom we most despise.”

Why does Joe keep switching between “Pip” and “sir”?

Affection makes him say Pip; politeness makes him say sir. The new class gap shows up in a single word.

How does Joe explain the division between himself and Pip?

As a difference of trades: blacksmith, whitesmith, goldsmith, coppersmith. “Diwisions among such must come, and must be met as they come.”

What does Pip see in Joe once Joe has spoken?

“a simple dignity” — which “The fashion of his dress” could not get in the way of.

How does the convict measure a gentleman?

By money and possessions: Pip's watch, ring, linen, clothes and books. “which on you owns a brought-up London gentleman?”

How did people abroad see the convict, even once he was rich?

As “a ignorant common fellow now, for all he’s lucky” — wealth didn't buy him respect.

What does Pip wish in Chapter XXXIX?

That he had been left at the forge, “far from contented, yet, by comparison happy!”

Chesterton's label for Pip?

“the well-meaning snob” — one early-twentieth-century critic's reading, not the only meaning of the novel.

Forster's reading of what the fortune does to Pip?

Good fortune “turns the head” of Joe's young charge, who treats his early friends “very shabbily”.

Tap any card to flip it, or use Study as deck to go through them one at a time. In the full lesson these run as a spaced-repetition deck — you rate each card Hard, Good or Easy and the tricky ones keep coming back until they stick.

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What makes someone a gentleman — or “common”?

Estella

The convict

Joe

Joe comes to London

Does money make Pip a gentleman?

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