Fiction performs a number of functions and among these it helps us understand the world and helps us understand the human condition. What is taken from a work of fiction depends, however, on who is reading it at the time. In the case of Great Expectations there are a number of themes running through the text including improvement through education, what it means to be a gentleman, respectability and criminality, parental/family bonds, industry and idleness. Many of the original readers of the work did not bother to analyze these various themes and how Dickens put the work together. Rather, it was appreciated as a piece of populist fiction that simply told the story of a young orphan from humble origins who becomes a wealthy gentleman. Critical analysis of the text, both contemporaneously and retrospectively, reveals further depths of the novel. For the purposes of this assignment I will discuss the autobiographical elements of the novel, the influence of Dickens's life on the novel's characters and narrative, and some of the themes that run through the novel, which will illustrate how Great Expectations allows us to look inward to understand ourselves . In this work Dickens also makes a number of points about the world, with particular attention to childhood, religion, education and the role of women in Victorian society. The type of novel, a Bildungsroman, can also tell us about the world at the time Great Expectations was written. Great Expectations, in serial form, is a novel that was printed in weekly installments in Dickens' magazine, All The Year Round. The nineteenth-century series was a story that continued with each installment, written so that the interruptions didn't feel like a drastic cut... mid-page... introduction to literary and cultural theory. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Brooks, P. (1992). Reading for plot: Design and intention in fiction. New York: First Harvard University Press. Cronin, D. J. (2010). Unit 12 Charles Dickens: Great Expectations. Oscail Course Notes Literature 1, 12-7.Dickens, C. (2000). Great expectations. London: Wordsworth Editions.Hamilton Buckley, J. (2001). The season of youth: the Bildungsroman from Dickens to Goulding. Bridgewater, NJ: Replica Books.John, J. (2011). Dickens and mass culture. New York: Oxford University Press.Kaplan, F. (1998). Dickens; A biography. New York: Morrow Publishing.Orwell, G. (n.d.). Charles Dickens. Retrieved йил February 16, 2011, from The Literature Network: http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/orwell_dickens/Slater, M. (1983). Dickens and women. Suffolk: The Chaucer Press.