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In Great Expectations, Charles Dickens shows Pip’s disillusionment with the odd folks he encounters in London’s upper social tier. In Dickens’ view, those Pip left behind—the earnest laborers of Victorian England’s working class—represent all that is good. Pip’s journey in Great Expectations played off the seething class resentments of the Victorian era, but in Dickens’ characteristic style: With humor!

Video Transcription:

Class, class, and … did I mention class? How Dickens dealt with social standing … coming up.

It’s hard to go more than a chapter in this book without encountering some commentary on England’s social classes.

Here’s the bottom line: Dickens didn’t think that class had anything to do with real worth.

In fact, the majority of the most good-hearted characters in this book—Joe, Biddy, Magwitch—are of the lowest social standing.

Meanwhile, Drummle is rich but horrid. And who could forget the scenes with Herbert’s mother, Mrs. Pocket, in Chapter 23? She’s rich and thoroughly obsessed with social standing but she’s so useless that she doesn’t even know how to properly hold her own baby.

So why is Dickens so obsessed with this topic?

It’s the point of his whole book! Ultimately, Pip must learn that class isn’t important—but that good character is.

And since there isn’t a single wealthy personality in this story who isn’t ridiculous … I think Dickens got his message across.