What would be an essay analyzing the setting in Great Expectations?

Setting is extremely important to Dickens. The word "Dickensian" for many conjures images of a bustling, crowded London full of factories, men in top hats, child laborers, and soot. Although this is an oversimplification of Dickens's world, the very fact that something so specific comes to mind when people think of Dickens is a testament to the importance of setting in his novels.


Great Expectations takes place in England in the first half of the nineteenth century. The novel was published in 1861, and while the narrator (Pip) is telling the story in what was then the present day (1861), he is writing about his childhood, a couple of decades earlier. The novel's action takes place in London and in Pip's childhood home in the countryside, which was modeled after the countryside of Kent, where Dickens lived in his later life.

Here are some ideas for questions/ideas you could explore in an essay analyzing setting in Great Expectations:


How is the setting like a character in the novel? Does London have character traits? Is it, for example, mean and unforgiving like the many criminals Dickens describes as living in it? Take a look at chapter 19 when Pip first arrives in London.



Compare and contrast London and Kent. Even though Pip goes to London to chase his "great expectations," London is not necessarily portrayed in a more positive light than the countryside.



How do changes in setting coincide with changes in Pip's character? How does Pip change when he leaves the forge for the village in his first visit to Satis house? How does he change when he first arrives in London? Does he act differently when he returns home to the forge?



Consider historical context. In the early nineteenth century, London was a center of invention, population, industrial development, and, as Dickens shows in Great Expectations, crime and filth. You could explore how Dickens uses the novel to express his criticism of Victorian London and city life.