A mutation is a change in DNA, the hereditary material of life. An organism's DNA affects how it looks, how it behaves, and its physiology. So a change in an organism's DNA can cause changes in all aspects of its life.
The Gothic in Great Expectations. Professor John Bowen considers how Dickens uses the characters of Magwitch and Miss Havisham to incorporate elements of the Gothic in Great Expectations. Great Expectations is not a Gothic novel in any simple sense. Like all of Dickensâs writings, and perhaps all writing, it belongs to more than one genre. At times it resembles a fairytale, at other times a realistic or a comic novel, at others a melodrama: most commonly, it blends together the qualities of several genres.
In addition, one of the novelâs most appealing characters, Wemmick, is a law clerk, and the law, justice, and the courts are all important components of the story. Great Expectations is set in early Victorian England, a time when great social changes were sweeping the nation. The Industrial Revolution of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries had transformed the social landscape, enabling capitalists and manufacturers to amass huge fortunes.