Negotiating Ethical Transformation and the Quest for Identity in Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations and K.S. Ravikumar’s Baashha
Author : Dr. Basavana Gowda OG
Abstract :
Comparative literary studies increasingly examine texts across linguistic, national, and media boundaries to uncover shared human concerns. Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations (1861) and K. S. Ravikumar’s Tamil film Baashha (1995) emerge from radically different historical and cultural contexts, yet both engage deeply with questions of identity, social mobility, moral transformation, and the relationship between individual aspiration and social responsibility. Dickens explores the complexities of Victorian class consciousness through the development of Pip, an orphan who seeks to transcend his humble origins and become a gentleman. Ravikumar presents Manickam, an apparently ordinary auto-rickshaw driver who conceals his former identity as the feared underworld leader Baashha. Both protagonists negotiate fractured identities shaped by social expectations, personal histories, and ethical obligations.
This paper argues that Great Expectations and Baashha challenge dominant ideologies of status and power by demonstrating that authentic human worth derives not from wealth, class position, or public authority but from moral integrity, loyalty, and self-knowledge. Through comparative analysis of characterization, narrative structure, class discourse, family relationships, heroism, and redemption, the essay shows that despite differences in medium and context, both works articulate a universal critique of social hierarchy and affirm the primacy of ethical responsibility.
Keywords :
Comparative Literature, Great Expectations, Baashha, Identity Formation, Social Mobility, Class Consciousness, Moral Redemption, Tamil Cinema, Victorian Literature, Cultural Studies.
