What is the setting of Great Expectations?

The novel begins in the early 1800s in a small village outside of London that has built up along the marshes. Pip lives in this small village with his sister, Mrs. Joe, and her husband, Joe Gargery. As the novel continues, the setting expands to include the city of Rochester, referred to as market-town in these early chapters, where Miss Havisham lives with her adopted daughter, Estella. Finally the novel moves into the busy streets of London, as Pip moves there to become a gentleman.

The setting of the novel creates a world in which a poor boy is stuck in a certain fate unless something comes along to drastically change his circumstances. England was still a place ruled by the caste system during the time period in which this novel was set, suggesting that a blacksmith’s child would always be uneducated and dirty. However, as the setting of this novel expands, expanding the child’s horizons, the child’s prospects in life begin to expand. Pip first meets Miss Havisham and she shows him what it might be like to be educated and wealthy while keeping those things out of his reach. Later, Pip receives the wealth necessary to fulfill his desires, taking him into the large city of London, a world so drastically different from his home village that his beloved brother-in-law, Joe, refuses to visit him but once.

The setting of this novel fits with the plot of the novel because of the way in which the author uses it. The time period is important because it is a time in English history that makes it possible for a young blacksmith’s apprentice to aspire to greater things and achieve them with the help of a benefactor. At the same time, the setting of a small village that grows slowly larger with a move into the larger market-town and finally London seems to parallel the changes taking place in Pip’s life, thereby working together with the plot to create a fuller, rounded story. For this reason, the setting of this novel is essential to the overall plot.