Great Expectation Environment Essay

Throughout the novel “The Great Expectations” the Victorian English environment has a great affect on the actions and behaviors of the main characters such as Jaggers, Pip, and Magwitch. The actions of these characters would be completely different if they had been put into any other time periods besides Victorian England. Some of the issues that these characters face only emerge because of the social situation that were established during Victorian English time period.

For an example, one of the major reasons why the story even started with Magwitch escaping prison and finding Pip is because of the very low living standards in prisons during the Victorian era, and how hard it was to officially leave a prison. In many prison during the Victorian era, convicts had to buy all of the belongings in there cells, such as beds and clothing (Citation 1). This could have been a driving force for Magwitch that made him want to escape out of prison. Another driving force for Magwitch could be that the inmates need to continuously pay money while in prison to maintain a normal life, and even when they were finally set free, they had to pay even more money to be allowed to leave. This unfair system of charging money from inmates who have no way of making money, along with the other reasons may be why Magwitch escaped in the first place. If it weren’t for the harsh treatment prisoners had to deal with during this time period, Magwitch may have never tried to escape, meaning that he would have never meet Pip; therefore stopping the story of “The Great Expectations” from even happening. Also the character may not have become as rich as he did if not for the improve wages of silver in the 1800s (Citation Graph 1). Magwitch would have earned a lot more money in the time that he lived in rather than the 1700s or earlier.This is just one of the many ways that a character was directly affected by the environment that they are put in.

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