Great Expectations Theme of Wealth
All you need is love, but in Great Expectations love doesn't get you far without a little money. To Pip, there's no question that Estella might love him as a poor blacksmith's boy: he has to make his fortune (or have a fortune made for him). From the outside, though, all this money stuff doesn't look too appealing. Miss Havisham had a fortune, and still appears to have enough of it to set Estella up in style, but she's miserable—and all the people who want her money are miserable too. Meanwhile, the poor blacksmith seems to have plenty of money to settle Pip's debts, and Pip and Herbert are happy making a "sufficient living" by working hard. Is Dickens saying that the only wealth worth having is the money you earn yourself?
Great Expectations Theme of Contrasting Regions
Pip is just a small town boy wandering up and down the boulevard—and, like a lot of small-town boys (or girls), he finds that big city life isn't all it's cracked up to be. And, like those small-town boys, he finds that you can't go home again, because his time in the city has changed him for good. Not that it's much different at home: marsh country may be worlds away from London, but it's full of corruption and decay just like London's stinking's alleys. Great Expectations sets London and Kent against each other, and then asks us to consider what, exactly, is so different about these regions anyway.
Great Expectations Theme of Innocence
Children are our future, right? Well, someone needs to tell the adults ofGreat Expectations, because, for the most part, they seem to see children as little savages who need to be beaten, abused, and maltreated into submission. From Mrs. Joe's Tickler to the casual cruelty of Mr. Pumblechook and his multiplication tables to the outright emotional abuse of Miss Havisham, innocence doesn't stand a chance. Or does it? Does Pip manage to stay innocent and pure in spite of his childhood?