Social class has been a central theme in many famous literary works, and it's hard to shock 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” are just a few of the many novels centralizing social classes. The implications that Charles Dickens introduces in his novels, especially “Great Expectations,” made a strong impression in his time and even today. Dickens explores the wide divide between "the most miserable criminals (Magwitch), the poor (Joe and Biddy), the middle class (Pumblechook) and the very rich (Miss Havisham)" (Gupta, 18), a social hierarchy resulting of the post-industrial 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 worth of the characters. Perhaps the most important message that Dickens emphasizes in the book is that social status has no correlation with a person's inner character. Pip, the book's protagonist, doesn't realize this until he has managed to avoid the most important people in his life and waste most of his time pursuing his dream of becoming a gentleman. Pip goes from life on the marshes of Kent, destined to become a blacksmith, to the bustling streets of London, as a wealthy gentleman in a large house. The lower class people, Joe, Biddy and Magwitch, were good-hearted while Miss Havisham and Estella were rich, but cold and heartless. Joe always had Pip's best interests in mind; give him advice and support him in his decisions, good or bad.Geo...... middle of paper ......re Resource Center. Detroit: Gale, 2014. Library Resource Center. Internet. June 4, 2014. “Satire and Mr. Pumblechook.” » Study mode. Studymode.com, 2006. Web. June 05, 2014. Shores, Lucille P. "'Estella's Character in Great Expectations." Massachusetts Studies in English (Fall 1972): 91-99. Rep. in student novels. Ed. Marie-Rose Napierkowski. Flight. 4. Detroit: Gale, 1998. Information Resource Center. Internet. June 9, 2014. Stone, Harry. “Fire, Hand, and Door: Dickens’s Great Expectations.” » Kenyon Review 24.4 (1962): 662-91. JSTOR. Internet. June 2, 2014. “Social Class Theme in Great Expectations by Jotyftyhdesg.” » Study mode. StudyMode.com, November 2012. Web. June 6, 2014. Wilson, William A. “The Magic Circle of Genius: Dickens's Translations of Shakespearean Drama in Great Expectations.” » Nineteenth-Century Fiction 40.2 (1985): 154-74. JSTOR. Internet. June 3 2014