There are many similarities in the themes of Great Expectations and The Night Angel Trilogy. Kylar’s life experiences are almost identical. One of the connecting themes between these two books is social class. Kylar is just a small boy in the beginning of The Night Angel Trilogy and is growing up in a guild off the streets. Life for him is tough and isn’t about to get better anytime soon. Just like Pip, he dreams of being something better, something higher in social status.
Kylar only dreams, until one day he catches the eye of Durzo Blint. Durzo can easily be compared to Mr. Jaggers: well known, feared, and high on the social ladder. Durzo tells Kylar that he has great expectations. Durzo adopts Kylar into a higher social class, and trains him to take up his profession. This change in social status brings many changes in Kylar’s character, just as it brought many changes in Pip’s.
Another theme that can be connected between the books is guilt and innocence. Like Pip, being adopted by Durzo made Kylar lose most, if not all, of his childhood innocence. By the time Kylar was about Pip’s age, he had no feeling of guilt at all, just like Pip had stopped acting on account of his guilty conscience. The only difference is that Kylar was raised to be that way. Being adopted into new families and social classes had big affect on both the characters Kylar and Pip.
Through all of this, you can see the imperfection of humanity. These novels have characters that go through phases of being very condescending upon others, yet not feeling like enough. Of course, wanting to become more is a universal feeling that most humans get at some point. Pip and Kylar are examples of the flaws of humanity. In both novels, that is still subject to change, though.
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