Crime and Punishment in Great Expectations

Throughout Great Expectations, Charles Dickens's attitudes toward crime and punishment differ greatly
from his real-life views. Dickens, according to Phillip Collins in Dickens and Crime, "had strong and
conflicting feelings about criminals" (1), which explains why he was known to refer to criminals as both
"irreclaimable wretches" and "creatures of neglect" (33). The author's contradictions toward crime stem
from the fact that Dickens was constantly torn between his childhood memories of prison and poverty and
the legal training he gained as an adult. According to Robert Coles in "Charles Dickens and Crime":

Dickens knew how hard-pressed life was for thousands of English families in mid-ninteenth century
England, and he knew the legal side of such desperation--a jungle of suspicion and fear and hate. He was
especially attentive [if] . . . hungry, jobless men, women, children with few if any prospects became
reduced to a fate not only marginal with respect to its "socioeconomic" character but also with respect to
its very humanity. (575)

As a result, an ideological dichotomy is created within Dickens that reveals a more liberal stance towards
crime in his fiction, than in his non-fiction writing.

If there is one common thread between his fictional and non-fictional writing, it is a deep obsession for
crime and law. As Collins suggests, Dickens's "concern for crime was . . . more persistent and more
serious than most men's" (1). He then adds that crime during the Victorian age, like today, "was an
inescapable social problem" and that "Dickens is conspicuous among great novelists for his passion for
dramatizing and commenting upon the outstanding topical issues of his day" (2). The majority of Dickens's
writing - both fiction and nonfiction - focuses on "social questions such as crime andpunishment" (Collins
12). However, it is the stance that he takes against criminality in real life that tends to differ from his
fictional writing. As a novelist, Dickens tends to take a more liberal view on crime. This is evident
throughout Great Expectations which "expresse[s] clearly enough a reaction against penological
reformism" (Collins 90). Dickens's dissatisfaction with the prison system is evident when Wemmick is
giving Pip a walking tour through the streets of London:

We were at Newgate in a few minutes, and we passed through the lodge where some fetter were hanging

up on the bare walls among the prison rules, into the interior of the jail. At that time, jails were much
neglected, and the period of exaggerated reaction consequent all public wrong-doing . . . was still far off . .
. and a frouzy, ugly, disorderly depressing scene it was. (246; ch. 32)

Further evidence of Dickens' concern can be found in Pip's reaction to the Debtor's Door of Newgate
Prison,

out of which culprits came to be hanged: heightening the interest of that dreadful portal by giving me to
understand that "four on 'em" would come out at that door after to-morrow at eight in the morning, to be
killed in a row. This was horrible and gave me a sickening idea of London. (163; ch. 20)

Using Pip as a vessel to express his latent views of criminals, Dickens expresses his deep-rooted
memories of poverty and a father sentenced to debtor's prison. This contradicts the fact that in real life,
Dickens "believed the 'model prisons' to be too lenient to their inmates and extolled instead the virtues of
hard and unrewarding labour . . . a regime which relied more upon punishment than moral improvement"
(Ackroyd 377).

This suggests that in real life, Dickens felt that it was more important to focus on the punishment of
criminals, rather than giving them a second chance to redeem themselves. Further evidence of Dickens's
concern for maximum punishment can be found in this statement regarding the punishment of a local
street ruffian: "I would have his back scarified often and deep" (Collins 17). This attitude most likely stems
from the fact that Dickens' legal training gave him a far stricter outlook on prisoners. Dickens is often
credited for being influential in the passing of the Capital Punishment Act of 1868, which banned public
executions (Collins 254). The reason Dickens was against public executions was because he felt they only
made people sympathize too much with murderer, rather than the victim (Collins 254). This nullifies the
"horrible" and "sickening" feelings Pip has towards capital punishment, as indicated in the previous
passage.

As a journalist, Dickens' writing took a more conservative stance towards crime, as indicated by Collins:
"the harsher side of his attitude to criminals came not from the novels, but from his journalism" (90).

Further evidence of Dickens's harsh view toward criminals is demonstrated in this statement: ". . . it is a
satisfaction to me to see that determined thief, swindler or vagrant, sweating profusely at the threadmill or
the crank" (Ackroyd 377). Once again, this contradicts the "horrible and sickening" concern Pip shows
when he observes the Debtor's Door, reflecting the subconscious tendency of Dickens to feel a certain
degree of sympathy towards criminals. His sympathy more than likely stems from the fact that his father
was placed into debtor's prison when Dickens was 12 years old. Fred Kaplan, in his biography of Dickens,
suggest that passages such as these "link specific incidents with the spectacle of [Dickens's] own
abandonment and unhappiness," and as a result, need "to be examined rather more closely" (15).The
passage where Pip is "sickened" by the Debtor's Door demonstrates how Dickens was constantly torn
between his own childhood perception of crime, and his later legally educated, adult views. In "Charles
Dickens and the Law," Robert Coles points out that:

No acclaim, no amount of achieved influence seemed enough to . . . prevent him from going back, time
and again to the memories generated by an earlier life: the child in a debtor's prison, the youth struggling
with a harsh and mean life, the young man observing lawmakers at their shilly-shallying or corrupt worse,
and, above all, the apprentice writer taking note of lawyers - who, of course, are right there when men and
women go to prison, or lose whatever rights or privileges they may have had, or find themselves in severe
straits because the laws work this way rather than that way or on behalf of these people rather than those.
(566)

Dickens's personal experiences with each side of the legal coin allowed him to show the variety of ways
crime and law fit into society, which put Dickens at an advantage when it came to telling stories that were
more often than not centered around crime, violence, and law.

Crime, a topic which was often the focus of Dickens's journalism, maintains a continuous presence in
Great Expectations. Even casual conversations in pubs are centered around crime, such as the scene at
the Three Jolly Bargemen when Mr. Wopsle reads a newspaper article about "a highly popular murder"
(136; ch. 18). Pip, himself, is aware of the presence of crime in both his life and London society, following
his second visit to Newgate Prison:

I consumed the whole time in thinking how strange it was that I should be encompassed by all this taint of
prison and crime; that, in my childhood out on our lonely marshes on a winter evening I should have first

encountered it; that, it should have reappeared on two occasions, starting out like a strain that was faded
but not gone; that, it should in this new way pervade my fortune and advancement. (249; ch. 32).

The "taint of poison and crime" encountered "out on our lonely marshes" is referring to, of course, the
novel's opening chapter when Pip first meets the escaped convict Magwitch. In fact, Pip's first line of
dialogue is shrouded in violence: "'O! Don't cut my throat sir!'" (24; ch. 21). But Dickens isn't just using
violence for violence's sake. It's actually setting the stage for the change in opinion Dickens wants his
audience to feel towards Magwitch who proves to be less criminal-- at least in heart and mind--than
originally meets the eye. Dickens uses Magwitch to persuade his audience not to judge somone on first
impressions, representing a more liberal viewpoint of criminals. This isn't to suggest that Dickens wants
his readers to view Magwitch as the model of charity and perfection. After all, he commits numerous
illegal acts of violence and theft. What Dickens does want is for his readers to realize is the generosity
and love that lies hidden beneath Magwitch's criminal exterior.

Between the novel's opening chapter and the closing chapter, Dickens succeeds in altering both Pip's and
his audience's perception of Magwitch. According to Collins, "Dickens is interested in him, and wants us to
share--indeed, to anticipate--Pip's later affection for him, after the terror and revulsion he had excited
earlier" (92).

Both Pip's and the reader's first impression of Magwitch leaves a lot of to be desired. He's dirty, rude,
threatening, and violent. Pip's first impression of his future benefactor is:

A fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes,
and with an old rag tied round his head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud,
and lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who limped, and shivered,
and glared and growled; and whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin. (24; ch.1)

On the surface, the way in which Pip originally describes Magwitch is that of an animal - a savage beast.
Upon closer inspection, however, one may find this passage loaded with Christ-like imagery, as suggested
by the stones, briars, and torn clothing. Magwitch is "in the New Testament patriarchy of the novel to

become the ultimate good father, the combination of Jesus and Jehovah, of love and power, and of power
redeemed by love" (Kaplan 435). The significance of the Christ imagery gives a further clue as to how
Dickens wants his audience to interpret the character Magwitch. Dickens wants his audience to view
Magwitch as martyr-like. He sees Magwitch as a victim of society's ills, forced to carry the burden of
poverty on his shoulders. According to Bloom, "Magwitch's abandoning father originates and society
corroborates his resulting poverty, criminality, and alienation" (194). Dickens wants us to believe that
Magwitch has little to do with his criminal existence, and should therefore not be blamed. This does not
seem consistent with Dickens' harsher real-life attitudes toward criminals, which basically suggest that
criminals have no redeeming qualities and should therefore be punished to the maximum extent of the
law.

By the novel's end, Pip has reason to see Magwitch in a way he never would have expected, based on his
first impression of the growling "fearful man." As Magwitch lies on his deathbed, Pip recalls:

For now, my repugnance of him had all melted away, and in the hunted, wounded shackled creature who
held my hand in his, I only saw a man who had meant to be my benefactor, and who had felt
affectionately, gratefully, and generously, towards me with great constancy through a series of years. I
only saw in him a much better man that I had been to Joe. (406; ch. 55)

Pip can now see beneath Magwitch's unsavory exterior and see a man of good heart and generosity. In
fact, Pip sees himself as a worse person than the career criminal Magwitch, strengthening the argument
that Dickens is making against judging a person on first impressions.

Another example of how Dickens urges his readers to feel sympathy towards Magwitch follows the scene
in which Magwitch is captured by authorities and apologizes to Joe for eating the pie which Pip has
brought him: "So, you're the blacksmith, are you? Then I'm sorry to say I've eat your pie" (56). Accepting
his humble apology, Joe states: "God knows you're welcome to it--so far as it was ever mine . . . We don't
know what you have done, but we wouldn't have you starved to death for it, poor miserable felllowcreatur" (56; ch. 6). After all, Magwitch is only stealing for his survival. This demonstrates Dickens'
tendency to write fiction with a compassionate bleeding heart, contrasting with the views he expressed in
his journalism that criminals are "a far lower estimation than a mad wolf" (Collins 255).

Even though Magwitch is not by any means a model citizen, he displays many traits that makes him - in
many aspects - a much better person than most of the law-abiding characters in the novel. This includes
Pip, who turns his back against those who loved and cared for him most. First, he turns his back against
Joe and Biddy out of shame for their poverty. Then he turns against Magwitch when he finds out that he's
Pip's benefactor. Although his repulsion towards Magwitch is somewhat justifiable, Dickens' point still
comes through clearly, which is that a person should not be not be judged for the clothes one wear, or
even always for the crimes one commits. This epitomizes the dichotomy Dickens felt towards both the
treatment and perception of criminals.

Works Cited
Ackroyd, Peter. Dickens. New York: Harper, 1990.
Coles, Robert. "Charles Dickens and the Law." Virginia Quarterly Review 59 (1983): 564-586.
Collins, Phillip. Dickens and Crime. New York: St. Martin's, 1962.
Kaplan, Fred. Dickens: A Biography. New York: Morrow, 1988.

How to Cite this Page

MLA Citation:
"Crime and Punishment in Great Expectations." 123HelpMe.com. 22 Apr 2015
<http://www.123HelpMe.com/view.asp?id=16221>.