Social Barriers

“So unchanging was the dull old house, the yellow light in the darkened room, the faded spectre in the chair by the dressing-table glass, that I felt as if the stopping of the clocks had stopped time in that mysterious place, and while I and everything else outside it grew older, it stood still….It bewildered me, and under its influence I continued at heart to hate my trade and to be ashamed of home.” (125)

Although this novel was published roughly 150 years ago, society today can easily be related to this novel. Charles Dickens was way ahead of his years while writing about the barriers between social classes as it still plays a role in today's living. In Great Expectations Pip has a desire to improve his social status or "rank." However, deciding what social class you fall into does not come by choice, it is something you are born into and forced to cope with for the rest of your life. Although today, people can work there way up to different status', they can also just as quickly fall to the bottom level in today's unsteady world and economy.

"Victorian Social History: An Overview." The Victorian Web: An Overview. Web. 05 Jan. 2010. .