Social and financial status play an important role in our environment today. The rich tend to get more recognition because they have more money and the lower classes tend to get a bad reputation for being uneducated and without rights as citizens. Social status in a big city is related to how people treat a person and view them as they represent themselves in the community. In his book Great Expectations, Charles Dickens explains that wealth and popularity in the 19th century were key factors in life. It allows the reader to see how important it is to be in the upper class, but it also makes the reader understand that whether rich or poor, that person is always judged in their life and sometimes being judged can ruin who she's really inside. In the 1800s, lower-class citizens were depicted as good-hearted people who took whatever they could and made the most of what they had. Joe has been described as a man of many words and a craftsman and skilled in his work. He worked as a blacksmith and made the best possible living from his small income. He became a victim of Mrs. Joe's abuse and also became a long-lost friend of Pip's. His status in this particular book was depicted as that of an unpopular person, but someone who would give his shirt for the man who strove to live more than he was. Joe never let Pip down even when Pip erased Joe from his memory. During Mrs. Joe's funeral, Pip returned to a saddened Joe without a word. Joe was a strong person at that time, but he also had a tight heart, thinking deep down that he would never become anything to Pip. Pip being now rich, thought he would surround himself with rich humans, but in reality he never understood the friendship that Joe cherished and he also took for granted what Joe had taught him in life. During Pip's period of debt, Joe came to his aid and nursed him back to a stable condition. Pip had no money, yet was considered upper class. Joe paid all of Pip's debts out of the kindness of his heart and left Pip these words on page 439: "Not wanting to intrude, I left as you are well again dear Pip and will do better without.