Dickensian Archetypes

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it. It was the money left me, and the gains the first few year wot isn’t home to Mr. Jaggers- all for you- when he first come arter to you, agreeable to my letter”(Chap. 39). Nearing the end of the book, Magwitch reveals his mission to initiate Pip’s rise to become a gentleman, sparked by his inspiration from Pip’s compassion at the start of the novel. Similarly, David Copperfield’s Mr.Wilkins Micawber- David’s warm and friendly guardian while he is in the city- differs from Magwitch as he technically did nothing legally incorrect, however is evicted to debtor’s prison in his struggle with money, becoming a victim of law as well. This element of the novel is a possible piece of social commentary prodding at the rigid principles of Victorian law, driven by Charles Dickens’s bitterness, as he lost his father to his eviction to debtor’s prison.

An additional Victorian literary trope demonstrated by Dickens is the broken-hearted elderly woman who has been deceived and cheated by men in her past, and has sworn off accepting anything but their untrustworthy and harmful qualities. Great Expectations’s Miss Havisham resents the existence of all men after being left at the alter by her fiancé who is later revealed as Compeyson, and plots to destroy Pip in encouraging his unconditional love for Estella. “‘Abroad’, said Miss Havisham; ‘educating for a lady; far out of reach; prettier than ever; admired all who see her. Do you feel that you have lost her?”(69). Miss Havisham continuously taunts Pip, recreating her tragic past romances through Estella, treating her as simply a mannequin in her plot to achieve vengeance for her own broken heart. Havisham increases Pip’s anxiety regarding his role within high society, and causes his shameful past to threaten his qualifications as a gentleman. In correlation to the ghostly Miss Havisham, David Copperfield’s Betsey Trotwood, David’s aunt, obtains a similar perspective on the male gender as Miss Havisham, being left by her husband early in their relationship, and in the beginning of the story struggles to accept that David is not a girl. However, these two women differ, as Trotwood bears many redeeming qualities, neutralizing to the male gender throughout the storyline, while Miss Havisham becomes increasingly more insane and bizarre. Nevertheless, these two women illustrate the classic bitter old woman trope, and are significant in the climax of both novels.

Illustrated by Charles Dickens’s use of common literary tropes such as the noble and ambitious orphan, the ineffectual motherly figure, the empathetic victim of a stagnant and inhumane legal system, and the bitter old woman; both Great Expectations and David Copperfield are populated by characters built upon classic archetypes of Victorian literature. 
Throughout the two novels, Dickens creates characters that illustrate various archetypes through often exaggerated traits, thus building distinctive individuals that embody the particular trope. In many ways Dickens creates overblown and fantastical characters that are able to operate in the socially rigid world of the novels because they are based on recognizable literary types, and it is Dickens’s artful and memorable characters that keep readers engaged with his works all these decades later.