A Great Expectation out of Expectation

---Analysis of the Gothic Elements

in Great Expectations

意料之外的”远大前程”

#8212;#8212;析《远大前程》中的哥特元素

Purpose and Significance of the Study

As an English writer and social critic, Charles Dickens was a fierce critic of the poverty and social stratification of Victorian society. His works were mostly about nobody who lived in the bottom of the society which deeply reflected the complex social reality in Britain. What#8217;s more, Dickens disclosed the greed, hypocrisy, mean and fierceness of the leading class and the bourgeoisie through serious and prudent description.

In Great Expectations, a village boy with a dream picked up an opportunity to receive upper-class education. Little by little, the boy became a upper-class gentleman who have slided into evil practice. Finally, his fantasy became disillusioned because of several fatal reasons. In this novel, Dickens depicts the acute problems between every stratum and level by using gothic elements.

Gothic literature originated from the late 18^th century in Britain and thrived in Victorian society. Most gothic literatures ultimately pursue the darkness, depression, death aesthetics and religious plots. We can always feel the solitary, alienated and gloomy elements in these novels. The dramatic gothic elements include terror, mystery, transnature, misfortune, death, decadence, old house with ghost, insanity and curse, etc. The romantic elements in Dickens were deeply affected by the British tradition of gothic literature. Great Expectations is the typical of his late gothic novels. By adding gothic elements to the settings, plots, characters, themes and other elements, Charles Dickens successfully realized the intertexture of all the themes.

The story begins with the description of churchyard and a fearful man who escaped from prison. With the grotesque protagonists and the grotesque atmosphere of the story, it indicates the disillusionment of protagonist#8217;s dream of becoming a gentleman of fashion. After reading the full-length novel, we can find the gothic elements everywhere and figure out the inevitability of the seemingly-comedic-but-tragic ending. Therefore, we can also understand the themes of the novel and appreciate the aesthetics of the gothic elements in it.