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摘 要

查尔斯·狄更斯（1812-1870）是19世纪最杰出的英国作家之一。查尔斯后期所写的《远大前程》是他的代表作之一。这本书讲述的是主人公皮普从一个天真烂漫的小男孩转变为傲慢的贵族绅士，又回归本性的故事。毫无疑问的是，环境对于《远大前程》中角色真的有某些影响，无论是在性格方面，亦或是命运方面。本文的主题是对《远大前程》中环境对人的影响进行分析。根据主题，本研究可以得到以下发现。首先，皮普和赫薇香小姐代表着不同的性别，导致他们在维多利亚时代（男权时代）遭受到不同的待遇。其次，他们也有着和不同的社会地位，从而需面对不同的处境。最后，作品中他们周围的环境显然易见地改变了，进而导致他们性格和命运的转变。

关键词：环境 性格 命运 《远大前程》

1. Introduction

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’t make a change until he falls in love with Estella and he begins to long for the status as an 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’s characteristic. The readers can easily get the conclusion that the environment truly has some effects on our human beings in terms of character or even the destiny. Moreover, Miss Havisham, the tragic character in Great Expectations, shapes her characters under the effect of the environment. The topic of this paper is to analyze the effect of the environment with two examples, Pip and Miss Havisham. As we all know, they comes from different social status since Pip is in the lower class and Miss Havisham lives in the upper class. Moreover, they are two representatives of different genders and they get different treatment in Victorian Age, the male-dominated age. Different environment they live in leads to the differences of their characters and even the destiny. 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 the Impact of home environment characteristics on asthma quality of life and symptom scores. The research is to explore the relationship between home-based triggers, asthma symptoms, and quality of life (QOL) with data from 177 adult and pediatric participants who received a home environmental assessment. Outcomes included the Asthma Quality of life Questionnaire, the Pediatric Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire, the Pediatric Asthma Caregiver's Quality of Questionnaires and the Lara Asthma Symptom Scale. The absence of roaches and the use of dust mite covers were positively associated with QOL in pediatric and adult participants. Frequent bed sheet washing was associated with increased symptoms and decreased quality of life in adults and caregivers of pediatric participants. These findings confirm existing wisdom on roaches and dust mite covers and raise important questions about bed sheet washing recommendations. The research tells us that the home environment truly affects the growth of a person.

The findings of this research are based on the following research questions;

1. Why does Pip transform from an innocent boy to an arrogant ‘gentleman’?
2. Why does Miss Havisham turn to be such a ‘horrible’ woman?
3. Does the environment surrounding other people also affect them?

2. Literature Review

The book has been studied by a lot of researches in terms of different characters, such as Pip, Miss Havisham and so on. This chapter will focus on these characters and find the similarity among them that the environment surrounding them truly has some effect on them.

2.1 Research on Pip

Pip is a boy who lives with his sister and belongs to the people of low class. He lives in the countryside and doesn’t receive good education. Moreover, the women surrounding him truly affect him in terms of his characteristic and the destiny. The environment has something similar with the word “space”. In the paper called Pip’s Cognitive Development in Great Expectations. From the viewpoint of Space, is composed of three realms: objectively physical space, subjectively psychological space and practically social space. The latter one is the unification of the former one. The spatial transition, from the material realm of the external world to the mental space, and thence to the space of social practice, has a thoroughgoing change in Pip’s cognition.

2.1.1 About Pip’s childhood

In the paper, called The Romantic Child in Great Expectations, demonstrates that the environment of countryside is one aspect why Pip is innocent in his childhood. Romanticism promotes country life, connecting the countryside with physical and moral purity, as well as a means of escapism. Therefore, The Romantics believe that a natural or rural childhood is of paramount importance. Dickens is best at child character portrayal. Great Expectations, on one hand is as an outlet for Dickens’ childhood frustration and disappointments. On the other hand, Dickens gives the hero Pip a Romantic childhood and conveys his envy of innocent childhood. The author compares the works of William Wordsworth with the works of Charles Dickens to show romanticism. It says nature wants children to be children before being men. If we want to pervert this order we shall produce precocious fruits which will be immature and insipid and will not be long in rotting. With the changes of the environment surrounding Pip, he enters the adult world from the innocent world of his childhood and soon Pip transforms himself from an innocent child into a selfish and indifferent adult. In the paper called “The Analysis of the importance of the Education on the Growth of Human Beings on the Basis of Character Analysis in Great Expectations”, it tells the readers that different education background can lead to different kinds of characters. Pip lives in a family where his parents have died when he is truly young and he is brought up by his sister who always beats him. As a result, he gradually shapes the character of being sentimental and cowardly.

2.1.2 About the women surrounding Pip

As we all know, there are some women who have some effect on Pip. In the paper called “The Analysis of the Effect of the Women Roles on the Growth of Pip’s Character” demonstrate the effect of four women roles on the growth of Pip’s characteristic, including Mrs. Joe, Havisham, Estella and Beatty. The education from Pip’s sister, Joe, is of dupla aspects. On the one hand, Mrs. Joe always beats Pip, making him become coward and sentimental. On the other hand, Mrs. Joe takes on the role as Pip’s mother. What’s more, the blacksmith always gives assistance to Pip so as to make Pip kind and innocent in his childhood. The effect of Havisham on Pip is doubtlessly negative. Unfortunately, she is cheated by Compeyson in terms of love and money. Thus, she loses hope for true love and makes use of Estella to cheat other boys. Pip becomes snobbish and vain after receiving the donation from a mysterious person to chase Estella. As a result, Havisham is the ‘catalyzer’ of the Pip’s changes in terms of character. Then, Pip turns to feel ashamed of his life and the environment surrounding him when he falls in love with Estella who looks down on him. The love for Estella make Pip becomes greedy and extremely long for fame and money. However, Beatty, truly different from Mrs. Havisham and Estella, is a girl who is kind lenient. She gives warmth to Pip, which is associated with the change of Pip from a greedy gentleman to the innocent man. In the paper called “The True Fortune through Pip’s Eyes in Great Expectations”, the readers find out what are the most precious things in our life. That’s not to say that we repel wealth and fame, but to say they aren’t worthwhile to spend too much energy, time or ideas. If we lose consciousness, kindness, love and natural instincts for this reason, that’s too pitiful and not worthwhile, because they are the true fortune. When we are young, we all want to live a better life with more money and status like Pip. But after experiencing some human affairs, the worth of kindness, dignity and love will emerge. Originally, the most valuable fortunes are the unsophisticated beauty of human essentiality which can warm our hearts. We should have strong faith in human virtues and try to avoid being lured by some unrealistic thoughts or objects. This is true to almost everyone. In the pragmatic modern society, it is necessary to seek our living values and guard spirit pure land.

2.1.3 About the social environment Pip lives in

As having mentioned, the background of this book is Victorian Age. In the paper called “Traditional Values on Males in Victorian Age --- a Case study of Oscar Wilde’s the Importance of Being Earnest”, men are valued in terms of both birth condition and economic basis in Victorian Age. Conspicuously, Pip doesn’t have advantage over others in terms of the two aspects. As a result, it’s connected with the plot that Pip turns to feel ashamed of his status and living environment.

2.2 Research about Mrs. Havisham

In the paper called “On the Tragic Character — Miss Havisham in Great Expectations”, Mrs. Havisham is both a poor figure and a cruel and hateful figure. She is a complex character, and the influence of her failure marriage is huge and changes her life completely. From this perspective, she is poor and worthy of our sympathy. However, she always imprisons herself in the past and cannot free herself from the grieve but aims to revenge on all men, which hurts herself, Estella as well as Pip badly, therefore, on the other hand, she is also cruel and cold-hearted.

2.2.1 About her family

In the paper called “The Analysis of the importance of the Education on the Growth of Human Beings on the Basis of Character Analysis in Great Expectations”, Havisham is born in a comparatively rich family and is spoiled by her parents. Her mother has passed away when she is truly young. The lack of the love from mother and the excessive love from her father makes her become indifferent and arrogant.

2.2.2 About the social environment

In the paper called “A Sacrifice in the Male-dominated Society: on the Image of Miss Havisham in Great Expectations”, the author demonstrates that it was also a period when social, political and religious movements flourished. Maybe the period seems strange to the readers, the first thing that was very different was the status of women in society.

Throughout the period, most women have few opportunities for higher education and political professions. A perfect woman in the Victorian Age is described as “the angel in the house”, which is also mentioned in the paper called An Analysis of Female Character Miss Havisham in Great Expectations. In Victorian Age, many aspects are based on money, including the marriage, love, courts, jails, etc. Living in the upper class, the simple and proud Miss Havisham falls in love with Compeyson madly, but how she could know Compeyson just loves her money. So she couldn’t face her jilting. And she suffers greatly from the pain of love and her quest for revenge.

2.3 About other people

In the paper called “The Analysis of the Value of the Middle Class in Victorian Age”, the author analyzes the values of three people in Great Expectations, the representatives of three kinds of people in the middle class in Victorian Age. The blacksmith is the representative of evangelicals who advocate the spirit of equality and philanthropism. Joe Wenmick represents the practitioner of the spirit of “the ideal home”. For one thing, he is astute and indifferent when he pays much attention on working. For another thing, he attaches significance and importance to the family. Abell, the mysterious donator of Pip, is the representative capability. He holds the thought that value of human beings is to earn money or help others earn money.

3.The Redemption of Pip

In Great Expectations, Charles Dickens constructs “a logic mathematical space”. The first space is physical and real, which is geographical. The second space is the ideal space of thoughts and utterances, which is connected with the cultural and geographical imagination. In the third space, contradictory features---subject and object, abstraction and concretization, truth and imagination, reality and representation, are consolidated. “First space”, which is objective, concentrates on how the transition of the external environment influences Pip’s values orientation; “Second space”, which is subjective, is about how his internal world is influenced through the internal monologues and conversations of the narrating “I” and the experiencing “I”; “Third space”, which is social, as a combination of both the first space and the second one, integrates contradictory characteristics, such as object and subject, abstraction and concretization and so on. As a result, the environment surrounding Pip truly has great effect on Pip, including his characters and even the destiny.

• 1. Pip’s Childhood

As is known to all, Pip lives with his sister and sister’s husband in the countryside when he’s young. Although his sister sometimes beats Pip, Pip’s childhood can be portrayed romantic and carefree. The environment of countryside is one aspect why Pip is innocent in his childhood. “Romanticism promotes country life, connecting the countryside with physical and moral purity, as well as a means of escapism. Therefore, The Romantics hold the view that a natural or rural childhood is of paramount importance.” (Liu, 2009: 67) Dickens is best at child character portrayal. Great Expectations, on one hand is as an outlet for Dickens’ childhood frustration and disappointments. On the other hand, Dickens gives the leading role Pip a Romantic childhood and conveys his envy of innocent childhood. The environment of the countryside shapes the character of Pip in his childhood, which is a little bit coward but very kind. That is the reason why he chooses to help the robber so as to change the destiny of Pip in the following days. However, with the changes of the environment surrounding Pip, Pip enters the adult world from the innocent world of his childhood and soon Pip transforms himself from an innocent child into a selfish and indifferent adult.

Moreover, Pip lives in a family where his parents have died when he is truly young and he is brought up by his sister who always beats him. From the literature review, we can easily get the conclusion that different education background can lead to different kinds of characters. As a result, there comes a question that who gives Pip the education. On the one hand, Pip’s parents passed away when he’s very young. As a result, the little poor Pip doesn’t enjoy the love form parents as other kids do. On the other hand, Pip suffers from the unequal treatment from his sister and is always beaten by her. Pip, lack of education and suffering from unequal treatment, gradually shapes the characters of being sentimental and cowardly.

• 1. Women Surrounding Pip

In the novel, there are some women exerting some influences on Pip, including Mrs. Joe, Havisham, Estella and Beatty.

The education from Pip’s sister, Joe, is of duple aspects. “On the one hand, Mrs. Joe always beats Pip, making him become coward and sentimental. On the other hand, Mrs. Joe takes on the role as Pip’s mother to some extent. What’s more, the blacksmith always gives assistance to Pip so as to make Pip kind and innocent in his childhood.” (Zhang Qingfeng, 2012: 72) Then, the effect of Havisham on Pip is doubtlessly negative. Unfortunately, she is cheated by Compeyson in terms of love and money. Thus, she loses hope for true love and makes use of Estella to cheat other boys. She makes all her efforts to “cultivate” Estella so as to make use of Estella to “cheat” men and make the revenge. Although Pip has the knowledge that Miss Havisham makes use of Estella to cheat him, he can’t help falling in love with Estella. Gradually, Pip becomes snobbish and vain after receiving the donation from a mysterious person to chase Estella. “Moreover, Pip turns to feel ashamed of his life and the environment surrounding him when he falls in love with Estella who looks down on him. As a result, Havisham is the “catalyzer” of the Pip’s changes in terms of character and the love for Estella makes Pip becomes greedy and extremely long for fame and money. However, Beatty, truly different from Mrs. Havisham and Estella, is a girl who is kind and lenient. Faced with the misunderstanding of Pip, Beatty still prepares the luggage for Pip with great passion. When Pip returns home after suffering a series of difficulties and setbacks, Pip wants to be received by Beatty. However, Beatty gets married with Joe, which makes Pip feel regretful. Dickens deliberately lets Beatty get married with the other person and cast the role of Pip’s mother. Beatty forgives all the faults made by Pip with kind and munificent nature and names her first child with Pip. We can easily get the conclusion that the character of Beatty imperceptibly affects Pip. Conspicuously, she gives warmth to Pip, which is associated with the change of Pip from a greedy gentleman to the innocent man.” (Guo, 2009: 87-88)

3.3 The Social Environment

The social background of Great Expectations is Victorian Age. Victorian Age is generally thought as the peak of the whole British Empire. After the first Industrial Revolution, the whole country became prosperous so that people living in a solid economic foundation turned to focus more attention on various social phenomena and had some new thoughts under the traditional value system. (Gu Sisi, 2014: 179)

In Victorian age, males are valued in terms of both birth condition and economic basis. Pip, the leading role of Great Expectations, is born in a family where his parents pass away. (Ibid, 180) On the one hand, the birth condition of Pip is conspicuously terrible. Without parents, his sister is poor and her husband is merely a blacksmith. On the other hand, Pip doesn’t have the economic basis to get the respect from others and entitle him to win the love from Estella. As a result, Pip turns to feel genuinely ashamed of his birth after he falls in love with Estella. Moreover, when he knows that he will get a great deal of money, it occurs to him that the mysterious person must be Miss Havisham and she is wiling to let Estella marry him. After stepping into the upper class, Pip betrays his original nature and turns to be more and more swellheaded and greedy.

The social environment of Victorian Age makes people obsessed with the desire and lush for fame and status, which means to earn more money and get higher social status. During that age, poor people who come from the low class are doomed to be underestimated. Those with high social status must be rich. Pip is ‘lost’ in this ‘delusive and fallacious world’.

4. Miss Havisham, the Tragic Character

In Great Expectations, Miss Havisham is the strangest person he ever meets. She has a horrible figure and a sharp tongue. Miss Havisham, abandoned by her fiancé on the wedding day, suffers from great pain mentally. From that second, she refuses to admit the passing of time and never takes off the wedding clothes as if she lets off the hostility by doing this. She never goes out and stays home which is like a tomb. In her opinion, the men are merely the demon playing true love of girls. Meanwhile, she holds the view that love is just blind honesty. The only purpose of her existence is to make revenge to the men all over the world.(Zhang Qingfeng, 2012, 72) As far as I’m concerned, Miss Havisham is like Medea in the Greek myth who kills her son to punish her husband. They are both unfortunate women who suffer from abandonment and attach much more significance to love than rationality and let anger over reason. Moreover, they both belong to tragic figures who take revenge on men.

On the one hand, Miss Havisham is the tragedy because of her characteristic. She is genuinely self-willed and quite stubborn due to her family background. She can’t accept the betrayal from anyone. Moreover, it is conspicuous that she is easy to be knocked down since her character seems to be too arrogant and pretentious. On the other hand, the Victorian Age belongs to a male-dominated society where women suffer from unequal treatment. (Gu, 2012: 75)

4.1 Miss Havisham’s Family Background

Havisham is born in a comparatively rich family and is spoiled by her parents. Her mother has passed away when she is truly young. The lack of the love from mother and the excessive love from her father makes her become indifferent and arrogant. Moreover, her father has great effects on Miss Havisham, so that she becomes genuinely offish just like her father.（Zhang, 2012: 72） Unfortunately, Miss Havisham, abandoned by Compeyson who is a lady killer, is faced with great hit. The hit does abundant harm on the character of Miss Havisham whose character is originally unsound. It is the reason that she is lacking in the love from mother so as to make her turns lonely and terrified. As a result, she loses her rationality and becomes genuinely crazy. The original love for Compeyson tends to deep hatred so that Miss Havisham makes the decision to take revenge on the men throughout the world. (Ibid, 72)

4.2 The Society Miss Havisham Lives in

Great Expectations is set in Victorian England, a time when great social changes occupied the nation. Capitalists and manufacturers could amass huge fortunes due to the Industrial Revolution of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Although social class was no longer entirely dependent on the circumstances of one’ s birth, the gap between the rich and the poor remained nearly as wide as ever. Although the Victorian Age meets a material prosperity, the polarization of wealth is widening and the class contradiction is becoming more serious, which result in the corruption of money to the relationship among humans. All the social aspects are based on money, including the marriages, love, courts, jails, etc. Unfortunately, Miss Havisham is merely the victim of the society. Living in the upper class, the simple and proud Miss Havisham falls in love with Compeyson. However, she doesn’t know Compeyson just wants her money instead of true love. In this novel, Miss Havisham is doomed to be a tragic figure. For such a pretty young lady with high status, her cheating by Compeyson is a dishonored, disgraceful thing. It’s considered that the most suitable female image ought to be the “angel in the house”. (Tang, 2010: 38) In Victorian Age Women were subordinated to man and needed protection and security from them. Husband and family meant the whole world in their eyes as well as in their lives and women were voiceless in their families. So under such a background of man-centered time, Miss Havisham cannot bear the blow and chooses to be self-enclosed and isolated until her death. What’s more, there is no one around Miss Havisham sincerely intends to help her. All the people just want to get benefits from Miss Havisham.

5. About Other People

In Great Expectations, there exists three kinds of people, the representatives of three kinds of people in the middle class in Victorian Age.

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