Disillusionment Of Individualism In Great Expectations

Contrasted with Dickens’s other novels,Great Expectations does not have a typical Dickensian happy ending.On the contrary,it ends with pessimism:Pip does not achieve his great expectations;nor does he get Estella’s love.Many critical works and research papers from home and abroad make studies of this tragic ending;however,there exists little research on this pessimism and the causes of it from the perspective of changing attitudes of Dickens toward individualism.This thesis firstly expounds the origin,development and classification of individualism and then explains the characteristics of individualism in the Victorian era.In the second place,based on the classification of individualism by Daniel Shanahan,the theories of possessive individualism,subjective individualism and romantic individualism are employed to analyze individualism in Dickens’ s works against the background of the Victorian history and the life experience of Dickens.The three types of individualism exactly correspond to the individual’s three kinds of relationships with society,the self and others.The thesis contends that Dickens does not give up individualism in his early novels,while in his works of late periods of his life,his optimism about individualism gradually becomes shattered.More significantly,this thesis further clarifies the thorough disillusionment of individualism in Great Expectations and delves into both the historical and the personal causes of this disenchanted attitude.Historically speaking,the very concept of individualism is in fundamental conflict with the mercenary industrial social structure of Victorian capitalism and the social reality portrayed by Darwin’s theories of evolution,the exploitation by which not only serves as an obstacle to the self-development of the protagonist Pip and other characters,but also deprives individuals of their subjectivity as well as the possibility to establish romantic love relationships with others.Personally speaking,Dickens’s childhood trauma and his tragedy of love and marriage also aggravate the ruin of his hope for individualism.In this sense,it is the combination of these two factors that leads to Dickens’s disillusionment of individualism,which thereby results in the tragic ending of Great Expectations.