Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Great Expectations is a semi-autobiographical book written in the mid-19th century by Charles Dickens, the novel follows the life of the orphan protagonist Pip who we see change from childhood to mature young adult. Through this essay I intend to show how GreatExpectations fits into the Bildungsroman genre but also how Charles Dickens writes beyond traditional criteria. Charles Dickens writes about controversial issues of class through the Bildungsromangenre. At the beginning of the book Pip is young and innocent, but as the interactions with the cold Estella occur, I feel that he begins to lose himself and by the end he has become conceited and quite spoiled. We see Pip's moral sense change throughout the book, for example, right at the beginning we see Pip describing what he thinks his parents were like. We see in him the innocence of a child and the reader knows how imaginative Pip is "unreasonably derived from their tombstones". Charles Dickens presents us with the setting, makes us feel sympathy for Pip but doesn't even dwell on the tragedy of Pip being an orphan. Charles Dickens quips: "I drew a childish conclusion." As Pip steals for the convict, I feel he is starting to change, even though he still has a sense of morality because he has a conscience. “Conscience is a terrible thing when it confuses a man or a boy.” From these first two chapters we see the contrast of Pip as every innocent child becomes a maturing child. Through the first few chapters we are given an insight into how Pip lives, as we know that he is an orphan who is being "hand-raised" by his devilish sister and her angelic husband Joe. We feel sympathy for Pip because of the lack of love in his life. The family's social class is established quite quickly as we hear that Pip seems quite happy with his life and his desire to be