Philip Pirrip as grandes e as perdidas ilusões

Abstract

This article explores the acclimatisation of the paradigm of the Bildungsroman in the English literary tradition, discussing its resonances in the novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. It argues that the decisive changes resulting from the process of industrialisation and urbanisation, as well as the rise of the middle classes, imprints specific features in the narrative of the hero’s trajectory, which embodies the contradictions of its own time.