Analysis Of Great Expectations, Macbeth And A Passage To India

Social Class in Great Expectations

Question:

Discuss about the Class and Social Advancement Expectations.

Charles Dicken’s second novel Great Expectations is the story of an orphan boy called Pip who has learned how to find out happiness through the rise and fall in life. The novel has explored the idea that wealth, class and social advancement is less important than affection, loyalty, love and conscience. However, Charles Dickens has examined largely the social class system of the Victorian England in his novel. In this text, he has shown a large extent of social class, ranging from most wretched criminal named Abel Magwitch who has fled from the prison and scared the protagonist Pip in the churchyard. Charles Dickens’s portrayal of the social class in the novel has touched the middle class and he has picked up character like Uncle Pumblecook who is arrogant and obsessed with money. Charles Dickens’s novel has also embraced the higher social class and its problems in realistic manner. The representative of the rich and higher economic class in the novel Great Expectation was Miss Havisham who was old, wealthy and eccentric woman. She lived in a manor called Satis House. The author has portrayed each of the social class representatives with the economic context and their life’s incident has orbited centering on their economy.

However, it was Charles Dickens’s artistry and ethics that he was not interested positively in portraying the characters that are related to hereditary aristocracy and nobility. The thrust of the novel was not on the socio-economic factors. The protagonist is not from those rich persons in the aristocracy or nobility whose fortunes were regulated by the means of commerce. The role of Dickens in the novel is more like a social reformer. His has urge to reform the Victorian society and touched upon the ills of the Victorian society.

The way, Charles Dickens has portrayed his protagonist was to show that social class has actually no connection to the moral ethics of an individual. The protagonist of Great Expectation is an orphan named Pip who is the representative of the lower socio-economic class. He started his life as a lonely orphan and eventually became a young man. However, along the path, he has learnt and struggled to cope up with the world and in this way, he found himself. Different experiences helped him to answer his searches.

Pip has learnt an important lesson in this novel and the author has made him to learn it by exploring the idea of conscience, self-improvement and ambition. It became the central theme and topic of the novel. It was Pip’s ethics and morale, which has created a channel for self-improvement. From the core of the heart, Pip was an idealist. He has “Great Expectations” from his life and future. The great expectations of the protagonist acted in three levels, social, moral and educational. The Pip’s moral self-improvement acted on the behavior that when he was immoral, he felt a powerful guilt and wanted to better in the future. For example, when he left for London, he was guilty for behaving wretchedly and wrongly towards Biddy and Joe. In love with Estella, Pip wanted the social self-improvement. He wanted to become a member of the higher social economic class to fulfill his love for Estella. The working out of the fantasies with aim to become rich would be the novel’s central idea and Dickens has used this as an opportunity to satirize the social class system of the post Industrial Revolution of the Victorian England.

Ambition in Macbeth

Importantly, Pip’s life as a rich man was no more satisfying and it was certainly not moral than his previous life as a blacksmith’s apprentice. The educational improvement linked with the wish of the social improvement of Pip.

However, at the end of the novel, through the examples of Biddy, Joe and Magwitch, Pip has learnt that educational and social improvement are basically peripheral to understand the real worth of oneself. He has learnt the worth of conscience, love and affection that should be positioned higher than the social belongings and formal education management.

The great literary maestro William Shakespeare has explored the ambitious nature of the protagonist Macbeth and its destructive forces that could ruin lives around him in the tragic drama called Macbeth. The destruction of the ambition was started when it was out of the moral order. The ambition and greed of the Macbeth has leaded him to commit unjust deeds. In the play of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, which possibly written in 1606, has portrayed the way in which the greed and destructive passion grew in the mind of the hero, which led him to kill King Duncan. The protagonist Macbeth was the representation of his time, that is Renaissance. It was a story of king and queen and gods or any supernatural power did not operate their actions occurred in their life. Macbeth’s life was decided by his own actions. There might be some influencing factors related to Macbeth’s act, like prophecies of three witches or Lady Macbeth’s persuasion to commit the murder. However, it was Macbeth’s ambition and greed for power, which would make him as a tragic hero. Killing Duncan was solely Macbeth’s action for fulfilling his own aspiration and longing to be the king of the Scotland.  Macbeth has the characteristics of Hubris. His great ambition is the reflection of excessive pride.

Macbeth is also affected with the imagination of the future king of Scotland. His characteristics flaw or hubris is excessive ambition. In the first act of the play, he was shown as brave and faithful warrior. When he had communicated with three witches, the reader realized that his physical valor and sweet nature had mixed up with profound ambition of becoming king and self-doubt about his deed. The prediction of the witches actually made him happy but it created an inner turmoil. In other word, the prediction had cast light on the intricate side of his ambitious nature and influenced him greatly to kill Duncan. The maestro William Shakespeare had shown Macbeth as the terrible reflection of ambition, which one had, lacked the strength of personality. 

Colonialism in A Passage to India

Macbeth is responsible for his own deeds and ruins. Macbeth has great ambition to gain power, but their struggle for acquiring power somehow made them corrupted, which is the main cause of their fall. In the play Macbeth, the protagonist has reversed the human nature, led by the super ambition.

When the Renaissance humanism focused on the human being as the image of the God and accepted the divine hierarchy of the universe where each being has its own fixed place, the reversal of nature catered to break the chain management. Therefore, the whole order of the universe is interrupted in the play, which is written in the time of the Renaissance itself. The writer has shown in his play, that the ambition in any form, be it for power in case of Macbeth, has led him to the exploitation of the human virtues and qualities. In a way his ambition became vaulting, he went through a series of occurrences where he was the controller of the happenings but he did these beastly, contradicting the basic human characteristics. The Macbeth lost his humanity by killing Duncan who would consider Macbeth as his son. Therefore, Macbeth’s sin was to kill her father for the throne. His greed for power led him to break the morality of the universe where he only considered achieving the superior position.

In case of Macbeth, he seemed to know that it was his ambitious nature, which controlled his action. In the act one he had said it, he realized it that the ambition within himself is “vaulting”. In act one, scene seven of the drama, it is written “I have no spur /To prick the sides of my intent, but only /Vaulting ambition” (Shakespeare, 2014). Even, in the act one scene three when he was planning to murder king Duncan, he was fighting with the wicked side within him. Actually, Macbeth’s sense of super ambition hided the moral conscience of him and led him to make a murderous plot of how to be the king of Scotland. As long as Macbeth heard prophesies of the witches that he would made thane of Cawdor and eventually the future king of Scotland, a stream of ambition conquered him and he was tempted planning to murder the present king of Scotland, King Duncan. His ambition could not leave him to commit one murder; however, he committed the sin of consecutive murder for securing his throne. He killed chamberlains, Banquo, Lady Macduff and their children. His action of murder for fulfilling his ambition affected him with a feeling of guilt, which constantly followed him. He started hallucinating; he saw the ghost of Banquo and heard voices of unconscious as he murdered the sleeping Duncan. Even, he has hallucinated the bloodshed dagger by which he had killed Duncan. The handle of the dagger pointed towards him and he was scared for this.

Hearing the prophecies and before the murder of Duncan, Macbeth was quite uncertain about his action. However, Lady Macbeth’s desire for kingship persuaded Macbeth to kill Duncan. Eventually, after the killing, Lady Macbeth started hallucinating of blood in her hand and she was started sleepwalking. At the end of the play, Macbeth had to fight with his enemy, his fighting continued until Macduff beheaded him. The play was ended after completing a full circle. The play’s circle was started with the winning of battlefield by Macbeth and ended with the defeat of Macbeth in combat. In the middle of the circle in the play, it became tragical due to Macbeth’s greed for power and ambition. He had to die for whatever and how he wished.

In A Passage to India, E. M Forster has explored the difficulty of the friendly relationship between the ruler and the ruled, the colonizer and the colonized. In another words, the novel has explored the difficulty in establishing a relationship between English and Indian. A Passage to India has been started and ended by stating an important question, which is the possibility for an Indian and Englishman to ever be friends, situating the friendly relationship within the context of British colonialism. Forster has manipulated this question as the basic framework of the novel for exploring the British political control of India associating it in level that is more personal. The power relation of the colonizer and the colonized exists even in the friendship between two individuals who could not free their identity from the ruler and the ruled.

The author has shown it through the friendship between Doctor Aziz and Cyril Fielding. In the first half of the novel, Aziz is dismissive of the English, especially towards Doctor Aziz, desiring only to contemplate them comically and started to ignore them totally. However, Aziz started to feel the intuitive connection with Mrs. Moore when they were in the mosque and this incident has provided him the scope and possibility to build friendship with Fielding. In the first half of the novel, the relationship and friendship between Fielding and Aziz has represented the most positive model of liberal humanism. In this friendship, there is no essence of the power relationship of the colonizer and the colonized. In this section, Forster has suggested that the rule of the British in India could be respectful and successful if only the English and the Indians treat each other as Aziz and Fielding has treated each other. In their relationship, no power structure was there. They treat each other as the worthy individuals and respect each other as equal human being. They both have connected through good will, intelligence and frankness.

However, in the second half of the novel and in the climax of the novel the friendship between these two individuals has broken down. It has started with Adela’s accusation who was also a British woman.  The accusation was that Aziz wanted or attempted to assault Adela in the Marabar caves. Later with the claim of Adela that Aziz wanted to rape her while, she was in the cave. The friendship between the Aziz and Fielding has fallen apart due to anger of the Aziz. Aziz was astonished that Fielding has befriended with Adela after nearly ruining the life of the Aziz by false accusation.

The thrust of both of the individuals’ friendship were external in the form, as both Fielding and Aziz have suffered from their tendencies of the respective cultures. Aziz has tendency to flow his imagination and to let his suspicion become harden into the grudge. Fielding has permitted from an English rationalism and literalism that has bound him to Aziz’s true feelings. It has made Fielding too stilted to reach out to Aziz by the means of the conversations or letters.

In addition to that, their respective English and Indian communities disoriented them apart by the means of their mutual stereotyping. At the end of the novel, the reader can perceive that even the Indian landscape has started to dominate their friendship. The final visualization of the Indian and English friendship by the Froster was the pessimistic in nature.  The friendship could be possible after the end of the British colony as historical perspective became suddenly prominent in the friendship. However, the end of the novel has suggested that the friendship would be possible eventually, but the time has not yet come.

Reference

Connor, S., 2014. Charles Dickens. Routledge.

Dickens, C., 1861. Great expectations. TB Peterson.

Froster, E.M, 2014. A Passage to India. Bloomsbury.

Shakespeare, W., 2014. The complete works of William Shakespeare. Race Point Publishing.