BookRags.com Literature Guides Literature
Guides
Criticism & Essays Criticism &
Essays
Questions & Answers Questions &
Answers
Lesson Plans Lesson
Plans
My Bibliography Periodic Table U.S. Presidents Shakespeare Sonnet Shake-Up
Research Anything:        
History | Encyclopedias | Films | News | Create a Bibliography | More... Login | Register | Help

Not What You Meant?  There are 14 definitions for Handel.

Great Expectations

Print-Friendly  Order the PDF version  Order the RTF version
Charles Dickens
About 17 pages (5,154 words)
Great Expectations Summary

Bookmark and Share Questions on this topic? Just ask!

Events in History at the Time the Novel Takes Place

Economic anxiety and social mobility. Dickens set the substance of Great Expectations at roughly the time of his own childhood; the action of the novel begins in 1812, the year Dickens was born, when Pip is seven. This was a time of great economic anxiety in England; the American Revolution, Napoleonic wars, and the War of 1812 had caused a drain on the national economy, and industrial developments were putting agricultural as well as other manual laborers out of work. The development of the threshing machine in farming (patented 1788; in widespread use by 1830) and mechanized looms in clothmaking (patented 1786; in widespread use 1815- 1840) were two significant changes in labor practice; both inventions increased production, which led to greater economic security for their owners and managers, but also reduced the need for unskilled laborers, which created unemployment at the lower ends of the economic scale. Manual labor, always a marker of lower social status, was giving way to industrialized forms of doing business, and the new industrial elite was reshaping the English class system.

This is a free page. This page contains 181 words. This article contains 5,154 words (approx. 17 pages at 300 words per page).

Read the rest of this Article with our Great Expectations Access Pass.

View all | View only answered questions | View only unanswered questions
What is the plot, setting, point of view, conflict, symbol, theme, style, tone and irony of "great expectation"?
30

What Points Mean

The best answer to this question will earn 30 points. All other answers will earn 1 point. Click for more information.
In College Courses & Majors | Asked by anna lynyx | 0 answers | Open for 7 more days
Asked from the Great Expectations study pack
(1 question)
Ask any question on Great Expectations and get it answered FAST!
Answer questions in BookRags Q&A and earn points toward
discounted or even FREE Study Guides and other BookRags products!
Learn more about BookRags Q&A
Copyrights
Great Expectations from Literature and Its Times. ©2008 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.



Join BookRagslearn moreJoin BookRags


About BookRags | Customer Service | Report an Error | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy