Keeping Up with the Great Expectations

In the Enlightenment Era, periodicals became more common. At the same time, the novel was on the rise. Charles Dickens used both of these forms of media to create something akin to today's reality television.

Instead of tuning in each week in order to keep up with the Kardashians, people would buy the next periodical to see the next chapter of Dickens' new novel Great Expectations to keep up with Pip and his adventures.

This way of slowly feeding the story to the public changed the face of an already new idea of the novel. It changed the way characters were formed. Because you couldn't read it in one sitting and had to remember the characters without reading for a week, their characteristics and idiosyncrasies had to be particularly memorable.

It also affected the types of stories portrayed. The readers' attention needed to be held over until the next installment. This meant that each short chapter had to end with a slight cliff-hanger.

We see this in today's reality TV even down to the pieces of episodes between commercial breaks, leaving cliff-hangers to keep the audience watching. Just my personal opinion, but having seen an episode of "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" for "research", I'd say this form of media has taken a turn for the worse since the Enlightenment.


Image Credit: Vimeo "Keeping Up With the Kardashians"