Analysis Of The Book ' Great Expectations '

Great Expectations tells the ultimate rags to riches story of the Orphan Pip. Dickens takes his readers through life changing events that ultimately mold the identity of the main character. Dividing these events into sections will provide the basis for interpreting which events had the most profound effect on Pip’s identity towards the end of the novel. These life-changing events provide the catalyst for the development of Pip’s character from childhood, his adolescence, maturing into a social gentleman, and finally becoming a self-aware man of society.

hard to say goodbye to Joe. He has never parted from Joe before and it

In “Great Expectations,” Pat Mora's essay on the stereotypical sexualization of Latina women, she states, “We often are too busy playing the game of Great Expectations”.(Mora.162) Oftentimes, society places the greatest expectations on women's outside appearance. Women are often categorized as either skinny, fat, plain, or beautiful regardless of how graceful they are on the inside. Knowing they will be categorized, puts an unrealistic pressure on them to look a certain way. Hooters is one such example of a company using subtle marketing to put unfair expectations on the appearance of women.

From pages 100 to 199 many different things happened to our young protagonist Pip. He became closer to Miss Havisham, and continued his complex relationship with Estella, until he was asked to leave the Satis House and become Joe’s blacksmith apprentice. Pip also begins to disregard his common lifestyle, and those within it, to continue his search for wealth and knowledge. Until he is prompted by the attack on his sister, who becomes brain damaged and incapacitated, to remember where he came from.

After being released from Ms. Havishams service, Pip becomes Joe’s apprentice. Four years into his apprenticeship, Pip is approached by a man who he vaguely remembers meeting once at the Satis House. This man is Jaggers, a lawyer, who proceeds to tell Pip that an anonymous benefactor has made Pip

Although Pip undergoes a dramatic personality change, Joe does not significantly change throughout the novel. When Pip finally visits the forge again, he finds that Joe is still as kind as he was when Pip young. This final insight shows that Pip has finally learned that he can be happy with a modest social class, despite what society may try to convince him otherwise. Joe’s static characterization constantly reminds the reader of Pip’s humble beginnings. In this way, Joe inadvertently teaches Pip that happiness can be found where money is not. Pip’s struggle to compromise his past and his present is ultimately resolved when he reconciles with Joe at the end of the

Pip displays selfishness by wanting to advance in society and no longer become a blacksmith like Joe. He accepts to leave to London in order to become a gentleman, but selfishly wants to lose all connection with the common world and when Joe visits, in Chapter XXVII, Pip states that “if I could have kept him away by paying money, I certainly would have paid money” (Dickens 197). Pip’s selfishness and ambition are what causes him to grow distant from Joe, whom he once saw as his closest friend. Exploitation is shown by how Pip is sent to see Miss Havisham when he is young in hope that she will pay Mrs. Joe Gargery back with money. He is being exploited in order for his sister to gain social status.

3. Why has Joe not learned to read as a child? What makes him marry Pip’s sister?

Once he comes into wealth, however, he selfishly asks Biddy to teach Joe how to write because Joe is “backwards in some things” (143) and needs improvement. When Pip comes into his expectations, Pumblechook, who had treated Pip as an inferior before, continuously asks “May I?” (148) to shake Pip’s hand and treats him well in the hopes of gaining something from Pip. When Pip becomes bankrupt, however, Pumblechook disregards him, leaving Pip bewildered at the difference in the way he is treated. Pip comes to understand the value of friendship when everyone has left him except Joe, who faithfully remains at Pip’s side, still assuming them to be “ever the best of friends” (454). Touched by Joe’s continual and never-ending support despite his pompous and condescending treatment of him, Pip recognizes that friendship is more important than being a

Charles Dickens uses his own opinions to develop the larger-than-life characters in Great Expectations. The novel is written from the point of view of the protagonist, Pip. Pip guides the reader through his life, describing the different stages from childhood to manhood. Many judgments are made regarding the other characters, and Pip's views of them are constantly changing according to his place in the social hierarchy. For instance, Pip feels total admiration that, later, turns to total shame for the man who raised him, Joe Gargery. The primary theme in this novel questions whether being in a higher social and economic class helps a person to achieve true happiness. This idea is shown through Pip's innocence at the forge, visits

Great Expectations is a novel by Charles Dickens that thoroughly captures the adventures of growing up. The book details the life of a boy through his many stages of life, until he is finally a grown man, wizened by his previous encounters. Dickens’ emotions in this book are very sincere, because he had a similar experience when his family went to debtor’s prison. Pip starts as a young boy, unaware of social class, who then becomes a snob, overcome by the power of money, and finally grows into a mature, hardworking man, knowing that there is much more to life than money.

Once he encounters misfortune he accepts the aspects of his life that he attempted to forget. Pip’s emptiness once distanced from his past is what physically brings him back. The loss of his benefactor and love interest leaves Pip with no motivation or strife to be a gentleman. It is this visible emptiness that brings him back to the mundane marshes. He does not fully understand and appreciate his past, until he neglects the remnants of his life in London. It is Pip’s immense loss of wealth that helps him acknowledge the aspects of his life that he took for granted during his short-lasting fortune. Next, the absence of Joe draws Pip back to his life prior to his great expectations. At the peak of his posh lifestyle, Pip’s arrogance deters him from seeing how much Joe cares for him, to put their newly established class divide aside. While Pip is entranced by his superficial mindset, he openly expresses his irritation towards Joe’s habits, “ I felt impatient of him, and out of temper with him; in which condition he heaped coals of fire on my head” (222). As the novel progresses, when Pip has lost everything he once had, with his past being the only piece of his life that he can grasp fully, he is not oblivious to his faults, “ I too had fallen into the old ways, only happy and thankful that he let me. But imperceptibly, though I held by them fast, Joe’s hold upon them began

The theme of family is shown mainly through Pip’s relationship with his brother-in-law, Joe Gargery. In the beginning of the novel, Pip makes it obvious that he dislikes his sister, and takes more of a liking to her husband Joe because Pip is able to sympathize with him (Dickens 40). Joe becomes his confidant, a fact that becomes apparent when Pip comes home to face a harsh interrogation by Mrs. Joe and Uncle Pumblechook after his first visit to Miss Havisham’s. Pip lies to the both of them about his experience, but feels guilty about doing the same to Joe and confesses his wrongdoing. Joe shows understanding towards Pip, and instead of sternly rebuking him for lying, he simply but seriously Pip about the dangers of lying, saying “if you can’t get to be oncommon (uncommon) through going straight, you’ll never get to do it through going crooked” (Dickens 100). While Pip’s relationship with Joe is being tested by his desire to gain a higher social standing, Pip shows significant guilt over his mistreatment of Joe ( Dickens 296), proving that deep down, Pip never loses his deep love for Joe. It can be safely assumed that the point that Dickens wants to make through Pip and Joe’s relationship is that family is not necessarily determined by biological connections, but by who a person is closest to and feels most comfortable sharing their life with through the best and worst times.

“I wanted to make Joe less ignorant and common, that he might be worthier of my society and less open to Estella’s reproach” (111). This quote shows how Pip’s need for Estella’s approval and affection outweighs his love for the man that raised him. The reader begins to understand from Pip’s statements that Pip has a skewed perception of which people are good to him and which are bad to him. Joe never hurts Pip in any way and Estella thrives on Pip’s pain. Yet, Pip chooses Estella over Joe. He does the same concerning Biddy. “Biddy was never insulting, or capricious, or Biddy to-day and somebody else to-morrow; she would have derived only pain, and no pleasure, from giving me pain; she would far rather have wounded her own breast than mine” (130). Even though Pip knows this about Biddy, he still yells at her, saying how envious she is of his fortune and rise in status (148). Biddy allows Pip to yell at her and even tells him that she will not let his hurtful words affect her view of him. Biddy really cares for Pip. Being away from Joe and Biddy just helped Pip forget about them more easily. The only time that the two of them even crossed his mind is when they would contact him. When Biddy writes a letter to Pip saying that Joe will be in town, she even reinforces how much she is sure that the gentleman Pip is not too prestigious for an old friend. Pip’s reaction says something else though. “Not with pleasure, though I was bound to him by so many

In this novel, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Pip is a common boy whose expectations arise once he encounters an immensely “rich and grim lady” (Dickens 56) who appears as a “wax-work and skeleton seem(ing) to have dark eyes that only moved (to) look at (Pip)” (57). This first simple encounter sparks a collection of decisions and manipulations that kickoff the plot to the story. This all pulls to the theme that life is a pure game of chance –just as cards are to the game of poker - it is how you take advantage of those opportunities that define your character. This benefit of chance can be seen through the view of Pip and Miss Havisham due to their differences in social rising, ambitions, respect for the world around them, and their actions towards each other.