Great Expectations - Themes / Motifs / Symbols

Affection / Loyalty / Conscience

are more important than

Social Advancement / Wealth / Class

THEMES

• Ambition and Self-Improvement - Education / Morally / Socially
• Social Class -Wretched criminals ( Magwitch)
•                                 Poor Peasants in marsh (Joe and Biddy)
•                                 Middle class ( Pumblechook)
•                                Very rich ( Miss Havishaw)

• Crime, Guilt, Innocence

MOTIFS (Recurring structures, contrasts and literary devices that can help to develop and                                    inform the text's major themes)

• Doubles
• Comparison of Characters to Inanimate objects.

SYMBOLS ( Symbols are objects, characters, figures and colours that used to represent                                             abstract ideas or concepts)

• Satis House - Miss Havisham's wedding dress ------- Death/ Degeneration
•                                   Wedding ---------------------------------- Past
•                                   Clock-freezed -----------------------------Refusal to Change
•                                   Brewery next to house -------------------Commerce and Wealth

• Mists in the marsh - Danger

• Bently Drummle -  Class distinctions