The Lost Prodigal Son's Corporal Works of Mercy and the Bridegroom's Wedding. The Religious Subtext of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations

The essay deals with the religious subtext of Dickens' essay and discusses all the obvious as well as the hidden allusions to the Bible. Particularly, it shows that the book is structured according to the list of the corporal works of mercy in Matthew 25 – Pip feeds Magwitch and gives him to drink, later he hosts and clothes him, finally he takes care of the ailing man and visits him in prison (while the burying, absent in Matthew, is deliberately ignored). By doing so, Pip deserves Joe's love – Pip is a prodigal son, as allusions at the beginning and at the end of the novel show, but he does not simply experience redeeming grace, he has proven worthy of it, even if the object of his care was not Joe himself. Joe's final wedding, from which the false Christian Pumblechook is excluded, is compared to the bridegroom parables of the Gospel. Final reflections put Dickens' work into the context of 19th century appropriations of the Bible and distinguish various types and intentions of such appropriations.