Money and its effect on individual is so
much serious that it can change everything and deviate a man from his own right
track of life as is found in Great
expectations, a renowned novel of 19th century, written by
Charles Dickens who wrote a lot of novels about the contemporary society. Money
is the most corrupting power which
can corrupt individual, community, nation even the whole country. In our
selected novel, Great Expectations,
Dickens deals with money and its effect on individual according to the then
society. Money has been shown in this novel negatively. But, it has also some positive effects. It can make a man
generous. It affects almost all characters of this novel. This novel presents
social classification on the basis of money. It is one of the causes of
relationship deterioration, selfishness, snobbery. So money can be said as a
new gate of a man’s life whether positive or negative. So effect of money on
every individual is tremendous.
Pip,
an orphan and protagonist in this novel, is the most influenced person who is
totally changed with the getting and losing of money. Charles Dickens enforces the danger of money, by
granting Pip his wishes at becoming a gentleman, but only for him to become
miserable and have his life corrupted. Deterioration of blood
relation, snobbery, self-prides, egoism all are the effects of money on Pip. We find
tremendous effect of money on him as an individual. Pip is, at the very
beginning of this novel, an innocent, benevolent, honest and hardworking boy.