Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,3, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, language: English, abstract: This essay is based on "Great Expectations" by Dickens. The life of Abel Magwitch was determined by his social position, lack of education and good manners. Dickens did not call him directly a ‘victim of society’, but Magwitch surely was one. The consequences of it were among other things his hard and unjust sentence when he had been tried together with Compeyson as well as his wish to take revenge on society by creating a ‘gentleman’.