Editing Great Expectations (section)

=== Wealth ===
When the money secretly provided by Magwitch enables Pip to enter London society, two new related themes, wealth and gentility, are introduced.

[[File:(ch.20) "Say another word--one single word--and Wemmick shall give you your money back".jpeg|thumb|Chapter 20, outside Bartholomew Close, Jaggers threatening a woman with a shawl called Amelia, by F. A. Fraser]]

As the novel's title implies, money is a theme of ''Great Expectations''. Central to this is the idea that wealth is only acceptable to the ruling class if it comes from the labour of others.<ref>{{harvnb|Henri Suhamy|1971|p=8}}</ref> Miss Havisham's wealth comes not from the sweat of her brow but from rent collected on properties she inherited from her father, a brewer. Her wealth is "pure", and her father's profession as a brewer does not contaminate it. Herbert states in chapter 22 that "while you cannot possibly be genteel and bake, you may be as genteel as never was and brew".<ref>{{harvnb|Charles Dickens|1993|p=160}}</ref> Because of her wealth, the old lady, despite her eccentricity, enjoys public esteem. She remains in a constant business relationship with her lawyer Jaggers and keeps a tight grip over her "court" of sycophants, so that, far from representing [[social exclusion]], she is the very image of a powerful landed aristocracy that is frozen in the past and "embalmed in its own pride".<ref name="Suhamy9">{{harvnb|Henri Suhamy|1971|p=9}}</ref>

On the other hand, Magwitch's wealth is socially unacceptable, firstly because he earned it, not through the efforts of others, but through his own hard work, and secondly because he was a convict, and he earned it in a penal colony. It is argued that the contrast with Miss Havisham's wealth is suggested symbolically. Thus Magwitch's money smells of sweat, and his money is greasy and crumpled: "two fat sweltering one-pound notes that seemed to have been on terms of the warmest intimacy with all the cattle market in the country",<ref>{{harvnb|Charles Dickens|1993|p=77}}</ref> while the coins Miss Havisham gives for Pip's "indentures" shine as if new. Further, it is argued Pip demonstrates his "good breeding", because when he discovers that he owes his transformation into a "gentleman" to such a contaminated windfall, he is repulsed.<ref name="Suhamy9"/> A.&nbsp;O.&nbsp;J. Cockshut, however, has suggested that there is no difference between Magwitch's wealth and that of Miss Havisham.<ref>{{Citation|author=Anthony Oliver John Cockshut|title=The Imagination of Charles Dickens|location=London|publisher=Methuen|year=1965|pages=192, 164}}</ref>

Trotter emphasizes the importance of Magwitch's greasy banknotes. Beyond Pip's emotional reaction the notes reveal that Dickens's views on social and economic progress have changed in the years prior to the publication of ''Great Expectations''.<ref name="Dickens_xiv">{{harvnb|Charles Dickens|1996|p=xiv}}</ref> His novels and ''Household Words'' extensively reflect Dickens's views, and his efforts to contribute to social progress expanded in the 1840s. To illustrate his point, he cites Humphry House who, succinctly, writes that in ''[[Pickwick Papers]]'', "a bad smell was a bad smell", whereas in ''[[Our Mutual Friend]]'' and ''Great Expectations'', "it is a problem".<ref name="Dickens_xiv"/><ref>{{harvnb|Humphry House|1941|p=135}}</ref>

[[File:"Pip's a gentleman of fortune, then" said Joe, "and God bless him in it!".jpeg|thumb|Joe commenting on Pip's good fortune, by John McLenan]]
At the time of [[The Great Exhibition]] of 1851, Dickens and [[Richard Henry Horne]], an editor of ''Household Words'', wrote an article comparing the British technology that created [[the Crystal Palace]] to the few artifacts exhibited by China: England represented an openness to worldwide trade and China isolationism. "To compare China and England is to compare Stoppage to Progress", they concluded. According to Trotter, this was a way to target the [[Tory]] government's return to [[protectionism]], which they felt would make England the China of Europe. In fact, ''Household Words''' 17 May 1856 issue championed international [[free trade]], comparing the constant flow of money to the circulation of the blood.<ref name="Dickens_xv">{{harvnb|Charles Dickens|1996|p=xv}}</ref> In the 1850s, Dickens believed in "genuine" wealth, which critic Trotter compares to fresh banknotes, crisp to the touch, pure and odorless.<ref name="Dickens_xv"/>

With ''Great Expectations'', Dickens's views about wealth have changed. However, though some sharp [[satire]] exists, no character in the novel has the role of the moralist that condemn Pip and his society. In fact, even Joe and Biddy themselves, paragons of good sense, are complicit, through their exaggerated innate humility, in Pip's social deviancy. Dickens's moral judgement is first made through the way that he contrasts characters: only a few characters keep to the straight and narrow path; Joe, whose values remain unchanged; Matthew Pocket whose pride renders him, to his family's astonishment, unable to flatter his rich relatives; Jaggers, who keeps a cool head and has no illusions about his clients; Biddy, who overcomes her shyness to, from time to time, bring order. The narrator-hero is left to draw the necessary conclusions: in the end, Pip finds the light and embarks on a path of moral regeneration.<ref>{{harvnb|Henri Suhamy|1971|pp=9–11}}</ref>