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Class and the gentleman in Great Expectations — theme analysis
Great Expectations · Charles Dickens · Set text on AQA GCSE English Literature (8702), and these notes are written for it. Pearson Edexcel International GCSE (4ET1) also lists the novel as a Literary Heritage option, which Incandio does not yet teach · Grade 9 Notes
In one sentence. Pip wants to be a gentleman; the novel asks what a gentleman really is.
This study ends with Charles Dickens. Build your reading of class and the gentleman in Great Expectations, teach it, then defend it against Charles Dickens.
How class and the gentleman works in Great Expectations
Estella's mockery of Pip's hands and boots, and his word 'Jacks', make him ashamed of being common. He tells Biddy he wants to be a gentleman, and the expectations seem to grant it. But the novel shows gentility as manners and money cut off from goodness: Pip becomes a snob ashamed of Joe; Compeyson, the swindler, looks like a gentleman and is sentenced lightly; Joe, the uneducated blacksmith, is the novel's real gentleman.
“I want to be a gentleman” — Pip, Chapter 17
Pip confides his wish to Biddy; it is born of shame, not admiration for anything gentlemen do.
Methods: direct statement
Context that changes the reading. Victorian society was intensely conscious of rank, and new wealth from trade and industry made the question of who counted as a gentleman a live one. Dickens's own family knew sudden falls: his father was imprisoned for debt in the Marshalsea in 1824, and the boy Charles was sent to work in a blacking factory.
Use this in an essay. Frame: 'Dickens gives Pip the gentleman's life and Joe the gentleman's heart, and lets the novel decide between them.'
The characters who carry class and the gentleman
An essay on class and the gentleman is built from the characters. Each line below is from that character's own study — follow it for the full analysis.
- Pip (Philip Pirrip) — 'It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home.'
- Joe Gargery — Joe as true gentleman.
- Estella — the convict's daughter as lady.
- Abel Magwitch — the convict who made a gentleman.
Quotations on class and the gentleman, analysed
Each of these is analysed in full in the character's own study, where it belongs.
“what coarse hands he has! And what thick boots!” — Estella, Chapter 8
Her mockery of Pip's hands and boots makes him see his own body as a sign of class.
Methods: exclamation · physical detail
More class and the gentleman quotations, from the Great Expectations quote bank
Each is analysed in full — speaker, scene, techniques, structure, context and essay use — on the Great Expectations key quotes page; the line here is what the words are doing.
“my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip”
His name shrinks from the very start of his story. Full analysis →
“I was so humiliated, hurt, spurned, offended, angry, sorry”
His shame after Estella's mockery. Full analysis →
“It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home.”
His ambition has made him despise the forge. Full analysis →
“He calls the knaves, Jacks, this boy!”
Estella mocks Pip's common word. Full analysis →
“I'm wrong out of the forge, the kitchen, or off th' meshes.”
He knows he does not belong in Pip's London. Full analysis →
“Look'ee here, Pip.”
His rough, direct way of addressing Pip. Full analysis →
Essays on class and the gentleman in Great Expectations
Read the extract from Chapter 8 in which Pip visits Satis House. How does Dickens present class here and across the novel?
Thesis: Satis House teaches Pip to see himself as common, and the rest of the novel tests whether being a gentleman is worth that shame.
- Extract: Estella's mockery — 'Jacks', 'coarse hands', 'thick boots'; class as language and body.
- Extract: the list of Pip's feelings; shame born.
- Whole text: 'I want to be a gentleman' and 'ashamed of home'. Context: Victorian class consciousness.
- Whole text: Joe in London and Compeyson's lighter sentence.
- Whole text: Magwitch's money and Joe's goodness — the true gentleman.
Thesis statements that argue it
- The novel gives Pip the gentleman's life and Joe the gentleman's heart, and lets conduct decide which is the true gentleman.
- Magwitch's return reveals that the gentleman's fortune rests on a convict's gratitude, exposing the hollowness of class distinctions.
Think you understand it?
Reading is the start. On Incandio a topic counts as mastered only once you have taught it and defended it — the two things a revision guide cannot ask of you.
Incandio this topic → Prove it. Teach it. Defend it. What does “Incandio it” mean?
- Teach it — Explain your reading of class and the gentleman in Great Expectations to Ember, an AI pupil who has not made one, and answer the awkward question. Understanding is credited; wording is not required.
- Defend it — Hold your reading of class and the gentleman in Great Expectations against Charles Dickens in a short, structured debate marked against descriptors you can read first.
- Then the exam — exam-style practice, marked on Incandio.
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Carry on through Great Expectations
- Previous: Abel Magwitch
- Next: Expectations and ambition
- Grade 9 Notes: Great Expectations — every character and theme, context, craft, theses and full essay plans on one page.
- The Complete Guide to Great Expectations — the whole text, chapter by chapter.
- Great Expectations key quotes — every quotation in the bank analysed, by character and theme.
- Great Expectations · All set texts · The 4ET1 specification
Every study of Great Expectations
- Pip — character
- Miss Havisham — character
- Joe Gargery — character
- Estella — character
- Abel Magwitch — character
- Expectations and ambition — theme
- Crime and justice — theme
- Love and loyalty — theme