Charles Dickens Mistakes Essay

490 Words2 Pages

Many people make mistakes and wish they could restart everything and backtrack to the beginning when everything in their life was perfect. The novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and the poem Birches by Robert Frost share this as a central idea. Charles Dickens creates a character in his book who has made many mistakes. He doesn’t realize until the end of the novel that those mistakes may have harmed people, and in the poem by Robert Frost, Frost describes himself in the first person by stating that he wishes he could take a break from the earth and start at the beginning again. This common idea does not only relate to fictional characters but also nonfictional characters.

In the novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Dickens creates a main character who makes countless mistakes throughout his lifetime. Some of these mistakes include taking advantage of the people around him, being greedy once he becomes a higher classman, and not being grateful for the things he already has. At the end of the novel, this main character later realizes that maybe he should’ve been more appreciative of the things he already had instead of being greedy and trying to gain more by taking advantage. This story was written to convey an …show more content…

Frost expresses, “I’d like to get away from Earth awhile and then come back to it and begin over” (49-50). Later in the poem, Frost states, “I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree” (55). A birch tree is a symbol of peace, Frost finds comfort in birch trees. These quotes also illustrate how everyone makes mistakes but only a few people can realize when and how they made these mistakes and Frost is one of those people. However, not all errors can be fixed, just like how the main character in Great Expectations realized his mistakes could not be fixed. Not only do fictional characters make mistakes and perceive them, but nonfictional people do the same