Within life there is constant struggle, some will say the most present in our everyday life is connected with class struggle. It is no mystery that there has been a type of class ladder around sense the beginning of time. There are many things that lie within class and how it breaks down. Within every different rung of the class ladder people gain their respective identity of whom they feel they are by way of the social construct. Along with this is what is expected of people, or what is the social understanding, on how they should behave. It is quite apparent that society also plays a great role in building a structure in how people from the different classes will perceive each other. This is the basis of social stereotypes.

Karl Marx the father of materialist and class analysis broke down the class structure into three different categories. The aristocracy, which represent the top of the top, the next level the bourgeoisie was considered the middle class, shop owners and the like. Finally the most important in relation to these to books would be the proletariat that is the workingman, who ultimately has the least amount of pow

Down a couple of paragraphs we get a bit of insight of how Catherine first views “it”, as Nelly calls him, "showed her humor by ginning and spitting at the stupid thing" (37). But by the very next page a revolution has taken place. For Cathy has come to like Heathcliff. I see here, as I did call it a revolution, a representation of Cathy breaking the social taboo treating Heathcliff as an equal.

The class theme is apparent throughout both Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations and Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. In both of these novels the reader sees a person that represents the lower class, which will rise up through the ladder but will then fall as a result of the misguidance.

After Cathy spent five weeks with the Linton’s she gotten a sense of what, as we will see later, she sees to be greatness. When Catherine states, “if Heathcliff and I married, we should be beggars.” (81). I believe this is the moment in which Heathcliff, in his somberness, becomes aware that his lacking in social status, or wealth, will not get him the person that he loves.

In Great Expectations we get more background about Pip and his life and how he fits into the social strata. When both Pip and Joe are out on the marshes we see an interesting occurrence. Where Joe is speaking with the convict the reader gets a sense of class solidarity. The convict has just told Joe that he ate his pie, in response to this Joe states, “God knows your welcome to it- so far as it was ever mine.” (40). Even as the man is being locked up Joe has complete passion for this man. I see this as Joe seeing himself with a plain level to the convict, the reader gets an idea of where Pip is on the social ladder.

Some topics in this essay:
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte, Expectations Pip, Pip Joe, Estella Pip, Class Identity, Miss Havisham, Karl Marx, Linton’s Cathy, Pip Estella, wuthering heights, miss havisham, main characters, social ladder, heathcliff pip, heavy fall” 473, heathcliff enters, fall” 473, uneducated starving, lower class, linton’s dog, uneducated starving helpless, fortunes heavy fall”, tidings fortunes heavy, “the tidings fortunes,