Social and Historical Background to Great Expectations Essay Example For Students

Social and Historical Background to Great Expectations Essay When the book Great expectations, was written a real education was unachievable. Miss Woples School, which dickens uses in his book is a prime example of parents sending their children to school, to a teacher who knows little more than the child, Dickens is trying to indicate how negative the educational system was, maybe because it failed him. Any crime had severe sentencing, which indicates that the legal system was still evolving. The character Magwitch, who played a role in Pips life, was sentenced to Australia, returned to England to help his savoir Pip, but is then executed for returning. In Victorian times, family life for the middle and upper class was extremely important, as the families were large and living together in big houses, life was very comfortable for them and enjoyable. Poor and working class families, such as Dickenss were forced to work in factories doing dangerous jobs. Children were being exploited, into doing harsh dangerous work, for little pay and no gratitude. Families were forced to eat scraps of food and to drink water from drains. The mother of the family was in charge of the organisation of household and social events, such as dinner parties. She was in charge of the upbringing of the children, by using any means necessary, this included whipping and canning of the child, to teach the child the differences of right and wrong, a power which some mothers obviously would have abused. There was a social divide between the rich and the poor, the poor not having enough food and starving to death in gutters, while the looked down upon the poor, this had a big impact upon dickens, because he saw the world in a unique way, where people who were equals in life treated each other so badly.