If the video doesn’t load please try refreshing the page. If the problem persists make sure you have the latest version of the Flash player or watch the videos on our RecAPP iPhone and iPod application.

The title gives it away: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens is about Pip’s great expectations. “Great” not just in scope and ambition, but also in their aspirations for self-improvement. That’s right. More than century before anyone had heard of self-help books, Charles Dickens chronicled the lives of Victorian strivers.

Video Transcription:

OK, so Dickens’ themes in Great Expectations weren’t all about criticizing the society of his times. The good news from Charles … coming up!

I didn’t want you to think that Dickens is a downer, so I’m tossing in one more theme: it’s the theme of self-improvement.

Pip is a guy who wants to improve. And not just his social standing. Sure, when he first encounters Estella, he wants to become a gentleman. But Pip has deeper desires of self-improvement, too. He can’t read and wants to learn how. And when he recognizes the problems in his character, Pip wants to change them. He wants to be good!

To state Pip’s desires more generally, he sees all the areas of his life as areas for improvement: he has “expectations” for himself socially, morally, and educationally.

Oh, but Dickens, the man with the message, has news for Pip—and for us all.

Don’t be alarmed. Dickens doesn’t think that ambition is a bad thing. But his theme of self-improvement helps us see that there is a right kind of ambition. A truly productive kind.

If you’re thinking, “It’s moral ambition—the ambition to improve one’s character,” you must be a genius.

Either that, or you just watched the last seven recaps.