In search of the “tranquil light” : resolving the spiritual crisis in great expectations.

• Main Author: Kwan, Truda Yue Ming.
• Other Authors: Tamara Silvia Wagner
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: DRNTU::Humanities::Literature::English
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/44240
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Great Expectations, one of the most famous novels written by Charles Dickens, criticises society's obsession with social mobility and materialism. However, underlying this obsession is the more important theme of spiritual crisis, which refers to an individual's personal lack of or search for identity, certainty, and purpose in life in this paper. Many changes and developments occurred during the mid-Victorian period when this novel was written, such as the rise of evolutionary theory, German biblical criticism, industrialism, and capitalism. These factors, combined together, caused both a declining faith in the divine as well as an increasing sense of uncertainty and restlessness within the individual. In the same light, Pip loses faith in the divine and thus looks towards the material, hoping to resolve the spiritual crisis in his life, not realising that the material only serves to deepen his spiritual crisis. Pip has to look elsewhere to resolve his crisis. This paper explores Pip's hope in the material, his eventual disappointment with it, and, finally, his decision to embrace love and human connectedness in his quest for spiritual fulfilment.