Institute of Foreign Languages Faculty of Languages and Cultures

2. Characteristics of English society based on the novel "Great Expectations"by Charles Dickens

To reveal this topic, I studied the history, everyday life, and customs of the English people. I set myself the task of analyzing the work of Ch. Dickens ' Great Expectations, as an ethnographic source for describing the life of townspeople, artisans, and the bourgeoisie in England.

And now a little bit about the work itself. The writer describes the life of a journeyman village blacksmith Fillin Pirrin. He wanted to become a gentleman , leading a private and pleasant life, full of pleasure and, as Pip thought, real happiness. This dream was born in Pip, a poor orphan, after he accidentally fell into the house of a rich and ancient lady-the spinster Havisham, who invites him to her house to hide her dull leisure. Unexpectedly, he is informed that he has a rich patron who wants Pip to move to London, get an education, and lead the carefree life of a "real" gentleman who has received a large fortune.
In Great Expectations, Charles Dickens painted a broad picture of the mores of the propertied classes of English society.

1. 2.1 Housing

Throughout the UK, the traditional vertical layout of apartments on two floors prevails. Our hero Pip Pirrin also lived in such a house. On the first floor there was a kitchen and a living room, on the second, two bedrooms.

"Meanwhile, Mrs. Jo had put up clean curtains for the windows, changed the rich flowered frill over the hearth, and opened up the little front drawing-room, where no one ever went in the rest of the year, and everything lay motionless in the cold gleam of silver paper - then four white china dogs on the mantelpiece, all alike with their black noses and little baskets in their hands. in my teeth."
Due to the heavy rainfall in England, Eel houses usually had very high and steep gable roofs.
Miss Havisham's house looked very different.
"We came to her house, which was a gloomy brick house, covered with iron bars, some of the windows were bricked up; the ones that still looked out into the light of day were all covered with rusty bars on the ground floor; in front of the house was a courtyard, also surrounded by bars. There was a big brewery at the back of the yard."
Miss Havisham, a great rich lady, whose fate was deeply unhappy, and therefore her house looked shabby and old.
"A fire had evidently just been lit in the old-fashioned, damp fireplace, but it was more apt to go out than to get up, and the smoke hanging lazily over it seemed colder than the air - like the fog on our marshes. From the high mantelpiece, a few candles, like bare branches, barely illuminated the room, or rather, barely dispelled the darkness that reigned in it. It was a large room, probably once richly decorated, but now all the objects I could make out in it were completely dilapidated, covered with dust and mold. In the most prominent place, there was a table covered with a tablecloth. In the middle of the table was a sort of vase, so thickly hung with cobwebs that it was impossible to tell what shape it was; and looking at the yellow expanse of the tablecloth, from which it seemed to grow like a large black mushroom, I saw large spiders."
Miss Havisham's house looked so abandoned, not because she didn't have the money to renovate the walls, furniture, and various utensils, but because she didn't want to do it. She didn't have the energy or inclination to do it.
I would like to present to your attention a few more descriptions of the English house. My attention was drawn to the house of Mr. Wemmick (Jaggers ' secretary). Wemmin lived in Walkworth. Walkworth has a lot of alleys, canals and gardens - a very quiet and boring place.
"Wemmin's house was a small wooden house set in a garden, the front of which was cut down and painted like an artillery battery. I don't think I've ever seen such a small house, such funny pointed windows (mostly false ones), and a pointed door so tiny that it was barely possible to pass through.
A bridge was built in front of the house. It was a plank spanned across a moat four feet wide and two feet deep, which rose and fell.
At ten o'clock in the evening, a cannon is fired, which was installed on the roof of the fortress, built of plywood bars. It was protected from the rain by an elaborate canvas umbrella-like structure.
"...I keep a pig and some birds and rabbits in the back of the house, and I've built a greenhouse and planted cucumbers, " said Wemmick.
Then he led me to a gazebo that stood on the shore of an ornamental lake. In the midst of this round pool Wemmick has made a fountain."
Wemmick collected criminal memorabilia: a pen; two or three famous razors. All these trinkets were tastefully arranged among the porcelain and glass figurines, a variety of products, skillfully made by the owner of the museum. The exhibition was located in a chamber of the castle that, judging by the pot in the fireplace and the elegant bronze hook over the fire, obviously intended for a spit, served not only as a living room, but also as a kitchen.
The walls of the castle were a little rotten, and the small bedroom at the top of the tower, whose ceiling was extremely thin,did not leave much to be desired.
The home of Mr. Jaggers, who took care of Pip, on behalf of Pip's guardian, is also of ethnographic interest to us. Jaggers, the lawyer, lived on Gerrard Street, Soho, in a mansion on the south side of the street. The mansion was quite impressive, but with dirty windows and a badly peeling facade.
"Taking a key from his pocket, he unlocked the door, and we entered a stone vestibule, gloomy and roan, like an old house, and from there went up a dark oak staircase to a suite of three dark oak-paneled rooms on the second floor. Garlands were carved into the wood paneling on the walls.
Dinner was served in the best of these three rooms, the second being Mr. Jaggers ' wardrobe and washstand, and the third being his bedroom. He hardly used the rest of the rooms.
The table was richly laid - although there was no silver on it, but a bookcase was drawn up to the owner's table, on which a whole set of bottles and decanters was displayed.
There was a bookcase against the wall, and I could see from the titles on the spines that they were biographies of criminals, works on criminal law, acts of parliament, treatises on witness statements.
All of Mr. Jaggers's furniture was solid and solid. However, she looked very businesslike, and not a single object in the room was just for decoration. In one corner was a small bureau littered with papers, and on it was a shaded lamp.
The house in which Miss Estella, Pipi's lover, and Miss Havesham's intellectual, vain pupil, lived, was somewhat different.

It was different from the houses I described above. The house was located on Richmond Green in London. It was an important, old-fashioned house, full of tansy and flies, powdered wigs and embroidered doublets, knee-length stockings and swords. A few very old clipped trees still had the unnatural shape of wigs and robrons.

2. 2.2 Clothing

English folk clothing has long been out of use. Both in the city and in the village, a dress of a pan-European cut is popular, but it still has some peculiar features. English costume is characterized by strict lines of cut. It is characterized not by colorful, bright colors, but by calm tones.

Of course, the clothing of the common people, such as artisans, differs from the clothing worn among the bourgeoisie.
First, I want to give you a description of the clothes of Mrs. Jo, Pip's sister.
"She was a tall, bony woman and almost always wore a thick apron with straps on the back and a square breastplate like a shell, all studded with needles and pins."
Mrs. Jo's husband, in his blacksmith's work dress, looked like a smart man. But when he wore a formal suit, then he looked like a decked-out scarecrow in the garden. Everything he wore on holidays did not fit him, as if from someone else's shoulder, everything stung and pulled him.
The hero of the novel Pip was just an ordinary village boy, his hands were rough, and his shoes were rough... Even when a new dress was ordered for him, the tailor was required to make sure that it was something like a pair of shoes and did not leave any freedom of movement.
But when Pip got the news of his guardian, and had the opportunity to go to London and become a gentleman, he immediately went to order a new and fashionable suit. Pip went to the shop of Mr. Grabb, who advised him to choose a light summer material, which is very popular with the nobility and aristocracy. The new suit was very becoming to Pip. He looked elegant in it. The suit consisted of dark skinny trousers, a dark jacket, and a bowler hat.
It is a very interesting sight to see the costume of Miss Havisham, this rich and strange young lady.
"She was dressed in rich silks, laces, and ribbons, all white. Her shoes were also white, and a long white veil hung from her head, and orange blossoms were pinned to her hair, but her hair was white. Jewels glittered on her neck and arms, and some glittering jewels lay on the table in front of her. Dresses not quite as gorgeous as the ones she'd been wearing were scattered around her, and trunks were piled halfway up. Her toilet was not quite finished - one shoe was still on the table, her veil was badly arranged, her watch and chain were not on, and some lace, a handkerchief, gloves, a bouquet of flowers, and a prayer book were thrown in front of the mirror along with her jewelry. She looked like a skeleton or a wax figure, seemed to have acquired dark eyes that looked at me."
Wemmick, Pip's friend and Jaggers ' secretary, looked quite ordinary.
"Judging by the ragged collar and cuffs, I guessed that he was unmarried; he must have suffered a lot of losses in his life - he had at least four mourning rings, and a brooch with the image of a maiden and a weeping willow bent over a funeral urn. I also noticed that there were several rings and seals hanging from his watch chain."
As for the hero of the novel, he began to dress at the best tailor, take lessons in politeness and "basic sciences". He became a real gentleman. Pip even got himself a servant, who was also dressed in the latest fashion, in a blue tailcoat, canary waistcoat, white cravat, cream pantaloons and high boots.

3. 2.3 Food

In the diet of the British, there is a national specificity. Dickens in his work "Great Expectations" vividly describes English cuisine. Dickens shows the differences in the nutrition of the bourgeoisie and the middle classes of English society from the common people, for example, the family of artisans. Naturally, there was a difference in nutrition on holidays and on ordinary days. This difference is particularly striking in the case of the nutrition of the family of Pip (our hero).

Pip's family was getting ready to celebrate Christmas Eve. Mrs. Jo was working hard to get the house ready for the holiday feast.
"We were going to have a truly sumptuous meal of salted ham with a side dish and stuffed chickens. Fruitcake, and the pudding was already on the fire."
On weekdays, of course, Pip's family couldn't afford such a fancy meal. Their dinner consisted of soup, a meat dish of some sort (and not always), and sometimes Mrs. Jo made pudding, but this was very rare. Most of the time Mrs. Jo gave Pip and Joe a slice of bread, as if they were a regiment of soldiers on a field trip, and a drink of milk and water.
Sometimes Pip and Joe could afford to go to a " pub " (called a caba) and eat chicken and tongue.
When Pip got an unknown guardian and went to London, Pip's lifestyle naturally changed, including his diet.
"It was an excellent dinner-a feast that, by my own standards at the time, would have been appropriate for Lord Mere himself - and it was particularly charming that we were carousing alone, without our elders, and in the heart of London. Here every last salt shaker had been brought from the inn, and the surrounding area was somewhat desolate and barren, so that the inn's servant had to put the lids on the floor, put the melted butter on the chair, the bread on the bookshelf, the cheese in the coal shovel, and the boiled chicken in the next room."
Pip's life changed dramatically when he arrived in London. He began to enter the world. He began to be invited to dinners by wealthy townspeople. Pip was invited to dinner with Mr. Jaggers, Pip's guardian.
"We sat down at a round table. The first course that the housekeeper brought to the table was a fine fish, followed by an equally excellent roast mutton, and then an equally excellent game. Sauce, wine, and all the necessary seasonings, and of the best quality at that, were taken from our host's bookcase, passed around, and then put back. In the same way, he gave us clean plates, forks and knives for each dish, and put the used ones in two baskets that stood on the floor next to him. Except for the housekeeper, no one served at the table. At the very end of the meal, cheese was served."
Pip had also been to dinner at Wemmick's. Pip had a chance to compare his guardian's home environment with that of his cashier and clerk.
"Let me tell you what I'm having for dinner, Mr. Pip. I'll have a home - made steak for dinner, and a cold roast chicken from the cook's shop. I don't think the chicken is wiry, because the owner of the cook shop was a juror the other day. I reminded him of that when I bought the chicken."
As ethnographers, we will certainly be interested in the utensils that are placed on the table when meeting guests in England.
Gradually, the table was filled with: "a tray, cups and saucers, plates, knives and forks (including the largest ones used for laying out roasts), spoons (of all sizes and shapes), salt shakers, a single pancake safely covered with a heavy iron lid, a piece of half-melted butter hidden in a thicket of parsley, like the baby Moses in the reeds a scrawny loaf with a powdered head, two triangular slices of bread with impressions of the grate of the kitchen hearth, and finally a pot-bellied family teapot on alcohol, under the weight of which the footman literally bent over, expressing all his submissive suffering. Then there was a long intermission, after which he still brought a precious-looking box with some twigs, which I poured boiling water over."

4. 2.4 Funeral rite

In his novel, Charles Dickens also described the funeral rite, which also highlights the ethnographic features of English society in the middle of the IX century.

Pip's sister dies and he goes to his own city. In front of his house, he sees Grabb and K^O running the place, taking on the role of funeral director. At the front door, like sentries on duty, he sees two grotesque, despondent figures, each holding a crutch in front of her, wrapped in something black, as if such an object could bring comfort to anyone. The children and almost all the women of the village came running to admire this sight.
"As I entered, one of the guards knocked on the door, as if I was too exhausted to knock on it myself. Another mourning guard opened the door and ushered me into the front parlor. Here Mr. Grabb, having taken possession of a large table, spread it out to its full length, and covered it with black pins, organized a sort of black bazaar. When I entered, he had just wrapped someone's hat in black calico like an African baby, and he immediately reached out for mine.
Poor Joe, wearing a ridiculous black cloak and a huge bow tied around his neck, was walking alone at the far end of the room, where Grabb had placed him as the main character of the day.
I caught a faint smell of muffins in the air, and I looked around for the table of treats, which I hadn't noticed immediately when I stepped out of the light and into the darkened room. Now I saw a sliced plum pie, sliced oranges, biscuits and sandwiches, and two decanters that I knew well as decorations for the sideboard, but had never been used before for as long as I could remember. One of them was filled with port, the other with sherry.
Then they must all follow the coffin to the cemetery, for which purpose Grabb individually wrapped and tied it in an incongruous black knot. Mr. Grabb arranged us in pairs in the drawing-room, as if we were about to perform some sinister dance, and ordered us to prepare our handkerchiefs! Grabb shouted at that moment, " Get your handkerchiefs ready!" We are performing!
So we all put our handkerchiefs to our faces, as if our noses were bleeding, and went out in pairs. The remains of my poor sister had already been carried out of the house by the kitchen door, and as the funeral ceremony required six pallbearers to be suffocated under a hideous blanket of black velvet with a white border, the whole structure looked like a clumsy, blind monster with twelve human legs, crawling along under the supervision of two postilion drivers and a horse. the carpenter. So we reached the cemetery and came to the grave where my parents were buried - Filin Lydrin, a resident of this parish, and also Georgianna, the wife of the met. Here my sister's body was quietly lowered into the ground."

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