Children and Mrs. Joe Gargery in Great Expectations Essay

Todays Society is almost totally manufactured around children. Children now have rights by law. They have movies, programmes and whole televisions channels dedicated to their life and entertainment. Government money now pays for almost every child in the UK to get an education and also builds play parks and activity centres just for children. This is a vast contrast with the Victorian era in which Charles Dickens lived. Children did not get educated unless they were upper class, they had little if no rights at all, there was no childrens toy industries and orphaned children were left to fend for themselves no matter what age they were. When you comparing the Victorian era with others you will discover than children are treated unbelievably well in our time compared to back then.

Charles Dickens was notorious for writing about children in his novels. In Great Expectations the book was narrated by a child. This had never been done in literature before. He did this to give his Victorian audience an insight into the mind of a child. People in the Victorian era didnt respect children. Their attitude was that children should be seen and not heard.

Children were very vulnerable to violence in the Victorian era, even within the home. They had absolutely not protection under the law. Pip was badly abused by his guardian Mrs. Joe, who was also his sister and because of this he became very sensitive and morally timid She beat him with the cane for almost no reason, threw him against walls treated him like dirt. Mr Joe was also abused by his parents when he was younger. Dickens used Joe's past to show the consequences in later life for victims of abuse. It made Joe Passive and a quick accepter. It made him mental weak for the fear of being hurt in some way. Joe was a Hercules in strength but also in weakness

Children were also not educated in this era (unless they were upper class). For the lower classes this meant that they could never get themselves out of their poverty. Mr Joe was deprived of an education because of his financially circumstances as a child and his parents never bothered trying to teach him anything. Joe's father was a raging alcoholic (Alcoholism was very high in the Victorian era) and extremely lazy so he got no education from his parents. The only ways in which children could be educated is if their were obscenely rich or the government introduced compulsory education.

Children didnt receive an education so instead they were sent out to work as early as 5 years old. Children were very easily exploited in Victorian times because there was no laws protecting them. When Mr Joe was a boy he had to do his fathers job as a blacksmith because he was do drunk or lazy to do it himself. Joe had no choice in the matter. If he didnt work his family wouldnt eat. Pip was also exploited by Miss Havisham and Mrs Joe. Miss Havisham wants Joe to come and play for her and in return she will may Mrs Joe. Mrs Joe cannot and does not want to deny the offer. She isnt fond of Pip and sees it as a way to make some money for doing nothing herself and getting Pip to doing something useful. Miss Havisham also exploits Estella. She adopts her at a young age and brings her up, brainwashing her to be a femme fatal. Miss Havisham is rich and therefore in a Victorian society she can do almost anything she wants. In Estellas upbringing Miss Havisham squashes out all emotion from Estella Just so she can user her to inflict revenge against men. She does not let Estella develop her own personality so she becomes a mannequin for Miss Havisham to use.

In his presentation of Mrs Joe, Dickens uses his skills as a novelist to portray her from a childs viewpoint and so reminds the reader of how insensitive and abusive adults could be towards children in the Victorian era. Dickens wanted his Victorian readers to empathise with the plight of children in Victorian England, so he uses a first person narrator to tell the story from a child's point of view.

Dickens wants to portray Mrs Joe has being an evil character in the book. Dickens contrasts her appearance against Joe's. Mrs Joe is describes as having black hair and eyes where as Joe had sandy hair with blue eyes. Her skin was so red Pip used to wonder whether she washed with a nutmeg-grater instead of soap. She was tall and bony while Joe was an average well built man. Dickens seems to give Mrs Joe an almost witch like Appearance to add to the evil personality that he wants her to have. She is also very vain as she had built up a reputation with herself and the neighbours because she had brought Pip up by hand and that she herself was brought up by hand. She took pride in the fact that she was hard and cruel towards Pip.

Dickens makes Mrs Joe a very violent person both physically and mentally. The first encounter that we have with Mrs Joe is when she starts beating Pip harshly with a cane and then proceeds to through him at her husband Joe. From this, the reader does not have a very good first impression of her. He violently tendencies also extends to her husband Joe and even a loaf of bread. Dickens write a monologue on how Mrs Joe cuts bread to show how angry she was in everything that she does. She jammed the loaf hard and fast against her bib - sawed a very think round off the loaf - hewed into halves. She throws open doors is nosy and drags Pip around by the hair. From her action alone we can TELL Mrs Joe is a very angry and violent person.

Something that almost defines Mrs Joe is her course Apron. She wears it every day of her life. She uses it to boost her self-esteem and make herself feel valued in the house. Since Joe is the one bringing in the money, being an over-worked housewife is her way of validating herself and making her an equal or higher than Joe is in the household. For the same reason she uses it to make Joe feel bad because he thinks he should do more to help his poor wife. She also wear it as a merit in herself so she comes across as a martyr to all women tied down by marriage and children.

She can also be very insulting and hurtful with her words. When wondering what Joe and Pip were looking at each other for she called Joe a staring great stuck pig Pip also tell us that she never was polite, unless there was company. To add to her harsh tongue She also uses threatening language. For example, when she was telling Pip off about being in the graveyard she tells him that he should be dead. If it warnt for me youd have been in the churchyard long ago. From these two quote we can also see how she openly expresses her hatred for both Joe and Pip. Dickens also makes Mrs Joe's sentences very short to make her sound snappy like a small dog. I dont! - Id never do it again! I know that. It makes her sound like she is almost too angry to string a full sentence together.

In Dickens novels he tired to make a point to his audience. His work was fiction with a purpose. In the Victorian Era Dickens work was revolutionary. He was even offered a place in parliament. I think that his work did influence bettering the world for children however I dont think it is relevant today because since the Victorian Era lifestyles have changed so much it would be hard to apply his fiction situations with real life.