Great expectations when was it set

Wemmick at one time on an excursion into the prison where he checks in on Jaggers' clients. Crime and reminders of crime are all around Pip. When Pip arrives at his new bungalow, Barnard's Inn, he's shocked by how dark, dirty, and rundown the place is. Wemmick assumes Pip's shock is happiness at finding an inn that resembles the country life due to all of the grime , but in Pip's mind, the Blue Boar his hometown inn is like a palace by comparison:.

A frowzy mourning of soot and smoke attired this forlorn creation of Barnard, and it had strewn ashes on its head, and was undergoing penance and humiliation as a mere dust-hole. Thus far my sense of sight; while dry rot and wet rot and all the silent rots that rot in neglected roof and cellar,—rot of rat and mouse and bug and coaching-stables near at hand besides [ Rather than being a gentlemanly paradise, London is gross, dirty, and criminal.

But it's also full of life: the hilariously bad play that Mr. Wopsle is in, Wemmick's funny little castle, and the wharfs and ships that eventually give Pip a career. Dickens loved London and wrote about it a lot: he's not saying that it's the big bad city, but he's definitely enjoying crushing Pip's great expectations. It's not like the country is all that, either. Pip's hometown is in Kent, twenty miles from the ocean and sees the Thames river flow through it and widen on its way to the ocean.

He rejects his common upbringing in favor of a more refined life in London, unaware that his benefactor is actually the convict. Joe Gargery A simple and honest blacksmith, and the long-suffering husband of Mrs. He loves and supports Pip unconditionally, even when Pip is ashamed of him and abandons him. Miss Havisham A bitter and eccentric old lady who was long ago jilted on her wedding day. She continues to wear her faded wedding gown, though it is old and yellowed.

The cake, rotted after all these years, still adorns her dining room table. Twisted by her own hatred and resentment, she lives in cobwebbed darkness with her adopted daughter Estella, whom she has raised to be a man-hater. Estella The beautiful adopted daughter of Miss Havisham. Haughty and contemptuous, she is a girl with a very cold heart. She has been brought up to wreak revenge on the male sex on Miss Havisham's behalf. She is honest with Pip when she tells him she is incapable of returning his love.

Magwitch also known as Provis and Campbell An escaped convict who initially bullies Pip into bringing him food and a file. Unbeknownst to Pip, the convict later rewards him by bequeathing him a large amount of money anonymously. She is a short-tempered woman who resents Pip because he is a burden to her.

She is attacked with a leg-iron and spends the rest of her life unable to communicate because of a brain-injury. The setting of a story can further or support the theme. One theme in Great Expectations is that even a good person will do evil things when exposed to evil. Pip is a young innocent boy who is scared into stealing from his family by an evil convict. This happens on the graveyard, an evil place, where a good young boy begins to loose his innocence.

Estrella is a young girl who lives with Miss Havisham, an evil person. Miss Havisham's home is dark and the only light comes from a candle that Estrella carries. This symbolizes that Estrella is the only good in the house even though she is now almost fully corrupted by the dark enveloping her candle, Miss Havisham.

She enjoys abusing Pip even when she realizes he likes her. She hits him and puts him down, telling him that he is common. Miss Havisham tells her to break his heart and she accomplishes this goal. Miss Havisham corrupts the innocent Estrella. The setting supports the theme of a good person will do evil acts when exposed to evil. The setting is an important part of a novel. Pip's adventures in Great Expectations occur between Christmas Eve, , and the winter of In , King George III was still England's monarch, but his madness -- obvious to everyone since -- had hastened a transfer of power to the Prince Regent.

The action of Great Expectations thus occurs against the backdrop of rapid political change -- four monarchs in as many decades. At the same time, England was undergoing major social and cultural changes as a result of the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution, which took place chiefly in England and America in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, was a period of significant technological development. The invention and implementation of steam power -- especially in steamboats and railroads -- revolutionized transportation, and permanently changed the English landscape.

Steamboats began running on the Thames River in , and passenger railroads spread all over England in the late s and early s.