Second Stage, Becoming a Gentleman

In the second stage of Great Expectations, Pip's life takes a new course when he arrives in London to pursue his new found dream of rising from his place as a blacksmith's apprentice and becoming a gentleman. Although, sadly, his hopes of entering into a high class city of aristocrats who will help mold him into what he hopes to become, he finds a dark, dirty, and mildly depressing city that I doubt is what he was hoping to see. Upon his arrival, he narrates, "While I was scared by the immensity of London, I think I might have had some faint doubts whether it was not rather ugly, crooked, narrow, and dirty." (161). Apparently, Dickens' opinion on that particular city and it's aristocratic reputation was less than high. The reader can infer that he felt living as one of  the "upper class" wasn't all it was cracked up to be... that it was instead rather gloomy.

Pip has high hopes for his new life in London, thanks to a mysterious benefactor who is willing to sponsor his ambition. After being around people such as Miss Havisham and Estella, how could one be happy living the life of a rough blacksmith? Becoming a gentleman is a common theme throughout this novel.But now that the opportunity is being presented to him, it seems like his dreams of living a pampered, proper life are becoming less and less of a reality. His new surroundings (such as the dank, filthy Bernard's Inn he's living in) and the new people that are surrounding him (i.e. the menacing, impolite, cruel Mr. Jaggers) give the reader a clear idea of what becoming a gentleman (at least in Dicken's mind) really entailed: a joyless, cruel, and unfulfilling life of living in a twisted, ominous city.