Charles Dickens and Marriage

Published in early 1860s, Great Expectations raises a variety of questions regarding the state of marriage at the time.

            Anthropologically speaking, marriage at the time was designed for financial stability and to fulfill cultural expectations. Instead of being driven by those desires, Pip is driven by romantic love, even though he sees how it has cost Miss Havisham. Throughout the novel, the reader is able to see that Dickens defines love somewhere along the lines of obsessive and necessary, making the reader question Dicken’s own beliefs.

            According to Angus Wilson’s book The World of Charles Dickens: “Dickens's […] [viewed] that a father should rule the family, a mother find her proper sphere inside the home. "I never afterwards forgot, I never shall forget, I never can forget, that my mother was warm for my being sent back." His mother's failure to request his return was no doubt a factor in his demanding and dissatisfied attitude towards women.”

            Dicken’s views towards marriage are shown in the novel, as Pip’s blindness in his love and self-deceiving cause his own undoing. Pip tries to become a gentleman for Estella, but she knows where Pip has truly come from. Through the book it becomes apparent that Pip’s sole reason for life is Estella, even though she is entirely wrong for him.

            Dickens himself had issues with his marriage, separating from his wife (since divorce was scandalous at the time) after falling in love with actress Ellen Ternan, whom he met in 1857 while producing a performance of Wilkie Collins's The Frozen Deep. Dickens was dissatisfied in his marriage and blamed his wife for cursing him with 10 children. His wife’s family spread rumors of Dicken’s adultery, which Dicken’s denied whole-heartedly. It is not a long shot to assume this novel is Dicken’s stand against love and marriage because of the pain it caused him.

            Dickens rewrote the ending of Great Expectations to tie up the story as to not disappoint his readers. The original ending had Pip seeing Estella; she had aged, been abused, and remarried to a poor doctor after her first husband died. This original ending truly summarizes how Dickens feels about love and marriage, that it is painful and better to be without, much better than the fluffy, romantic one that he wrote so he could be paid.