A Critical Analysis of the Effect of Environment on the Human Beings in Great Expectations

分析《远大前程》中的环境对人物的影响

1.Introduction:

Charles Dickens, one of the greatest 19^th critical realistic writers, is genuinely a renowned English writer around the world. He and his works have great impact on the entire literary world. Great Expectations is his post-stage work, which is a novel of education and describes the growth and personal development. It shows Dicken#8217;s sharp criticism to the upper-class society of England. Pip, who is the leading role of Great Expectations, experiences the carefree childhood in the countryside when he lives with his sister and her husband. Undoubtedly, the live living in countryside is genuinely poor but carefree. The mentality of pip doesn#8217;t make a change until he falls in love with Estella and he begins to long for the status as a upper-class gentleman to marry Estella. What makes Pip feel extremely surprised and delighted is that a mysterious person offers him large quantity of money to receive better education. Then, the environment surrounding the leading role, Pip, conspicuously changes, which leads to the changes of Pip#8217;s characteristic. We can easily get the conclusion that the environment truly has some effect on our human beings in terms of character or even the destiny. The theme of this paper is to analyze the effect of the environment on human beings in Great Expectations. Throughout the history, great deals of writers who are genuinely outstanding and distinguished have made much effort to make researches on this topic.

2. Structure:

It#8217;s definitely easy for us to get the conclusion that the environment truly affects our human beings. However, the definition of environment can include many aspects. In this paper, the ”environment#8217; includes social environment and personal environment. As we all know, the social background in Great Expectations is Victorian Age. Thus, there is no doubt that the values in this age have effect on the roles in this novel. Then, there comes the question that there are many roles in Great Expectations. My plan is to choose Pip and Miss Havisham since they are the typical representatives of males and females in the Victorian Age; also they represent the people of low class and upper class. In summary, the structure of this paper is analyzing Pip and Miss Havisham in terms of social environment and personal environment. To analyze sip and Miss Havisham in terms of social environment, the literature involving the traditional values in Victorian Age is needed. Moreover, to analyze Pip and Miss Havisham in terms of personal environment, the literature is of much significance, which is about their living environment in different periods of the life, the education they receive, the people surround them and so on. Moreover, the brief analysis of other roles in Great Expectations also should be attached much significance to.

3 Literature review

Doubtlessly, large quantities of writers have been making much effort to explore the effect of the environment on human beings in Great Expectations. To prove that home environment truly has some effect on the characteristics of people, I have found the literature about a research. The research is called