Highlight the sociological problems in Great Expectations with respect to one's position in society affecting an individual's ambitions.

The very title of Charles Dickens' novel strikes at the
dilemma of moving from one's place in society in the Victorian Age:  Great
Expectations. Certainly, a trope of Dickens is that society is a prison. 
For, to rise from one's social status in nineteenth century London is a virtual
impossiblity, as Dickens demonstrates in Pip's efforts to become a
gentleman.

Threading through Dickens's novel are various
characters of different social levels who either aspire futilely to rise in their social
class or they are "imprisoned" in their position in London society, whether it be
upperclass or lower. For instance, Miss Havishamis as much a prisoner in her
dungeon-like Satis House as poor Magwitch has been in the streets of London.  Each is
exploited by others in attempts to reach happiness and quality to life.  When Miss
Havisham is abandoned at the altar by the subterfuges of Compeyson and Arthur, she
realizes that she has been stigmatized and, thus, imprisoned in her life as ineligible
in her aristocratic society.  Magwitch, a gamin of the streets who subsists on whatever
he can steal, perceives an opportunity to attain some money with the nefarious
Compeyson.  However, he, too, is exploited both by Compeyson and by society when in his
impoverished and dingy appearance he is summarily judged as being more criminal than the
true criminal Compeyson, who passes himself as a gentleman.  Magwitch, then, is given a
more severe prison sentence.

Attempts to alter one's social
standing are not only portrayed in Great Expectations as
insurmountable, but foolish.  The attempts of the sycophantic Pumblechook and
the ludicrous Sarah Pocket are petty and inanely supercilious. Pumblechook suspiciously
spies upon the other merchants who is turn eye him with envy.  His fawning to Pip after
Mr. Jaggers's visit and his bragging for the newspaper that Pip reads at the Blue Boar
that he is the mentor of Pip cast a laughable doubt upon his character.  Mrs. Pocket's
continuous reading of a book about titles while her children tumble under foot or nearly
choke to death demonstrate the superficiality and selfishness of her character,
especially when she becomes angry and disdainful toward her servant who continually
rescues the children from harm.

As a further example of the
futility of rising from one's socialogical position, Dickens takes Joe Gargery from the
forge where is a respected man to Pip's apartment in London where he appears foolish and
awkward in his suit of clothes and hat.  Telling Pip that he will not return to London
to visit, Joe expresses his awarenss of the folly of trying to be other than what one
is,

"Pip,
dear old chap, ....Wivwisions among such must come, and must be met as they come....You
and me is not two figures to be together in London; nor yet anywheres else but what is
private, and beknown, and understood among friends....I'm wrong out of the forge, the
kitchen, or off
th'meshes....

Pip remarks
that there is a "simple dignity" in Joe for this
realization:

The fashion of his dress could no more come in
its way when he spoke these words than it could come in its way in Heaven.  While one's
ambitions to rise in class are foolish, Dickens tells the reader, the character of a man
in any sociological level, can possess a dignity apparent even by
Divinity.