Social class has been a central theme in many famous literary works, and it is almost a shock to anyone to read about it. Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice," Scott FitzGerald's "The Great Gatsby," Leo Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina" and Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations," for example, are just a few of the many novels that centralize social class. However, the strong, yet subtle implications that Charles Dickens introduces in his novels, especially “Great Expectations”, have left a strong impression in his time and even in the present day. Dickens explores the wide gap between the "meanest criminals (Magwitch), the poor (Joe and Biddy), the middle class (Pumblechook) and the very rich (Miss Havisham)" (Gupta, 18), a social hierarchy resulting from the postindustrial revolution. “Great Expectations” demonstrates the role of social class in society by emphasizing that social class does not define the character of the individual, the relationship with the characters, and the value of the characters. Perhaps the most important message that Dickens emphasizes in the book is that social position has no correlation with a person's inner character. Pip, the protagonist of the book, cannot see this until he successfully avoids the most important people in his life and wastes most of his time chasing his dream of becoming a gentleman. Pip goes from living in the marshes of Kent, destined to become a blacksmith, to the busy streets of London, as a wealthy gentleman in a large house. The low class people, Joe, Biddy and Magwitch were kind hearted while Miss Havisham and Estella was rich, but cold and heartless. Joe always had Pip's best interest in mind; giving him advice and supporting his decisions, good or bad.Geo...... middle of paper......re Resource Center. Detroit: Gale, 2014. Literature Resource Center. Network. June 4, 2014."Satire and Mr. Pumblechook." Study mode. Studymode.com, 2006. Web. 05 June 2014.Shores, Lucille P. "'Estella's Character in Great Expectations." Massachusetts Studies in English (Fall 1972): 91-99. Rpt. in Novels for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski. vol. 4. Detroit: Gale, 1998. Literature Resource Center. Network. June 9, 2014.Stone, Harry. "Fire, Hand and Gate: Dickens's Great Expectations". The Kenyon Review 24.4 (1962): 662-91. JSTOR. Network. 02 June 2014."The theme of social class in great expectations of Jotyftyhdesg." Study mode. StudyMode.com, November 2012. Web. 06 June 2014.Wilson, William A. "The Magic Circle of Genius: Dickens's Translations of Shakespearean Drama into Great Expectations." Nineteenth-Century Fiction 40.2 (1985): 154-74. JSTOR. Network. 03 June 2014