Dickens' Life Expressed Through Pip in Great Expectations Essay

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.

In the novel, “Great Expectations” by Charles Dickens, the main character Philip Pirrip, who is known as “Pip” throughout the novel, has a series of great expectations that he goes through. The title of the novel, as many other great book titles, comes with various meanings that are present in the story. In the literal sense Pip’s “great expectations” refer to the 19th century meaning, which involve receiving a large inheritance. Meanwhile, on a deeper level Pip sets goals that he hopes to accomplish in the future which could also be referred to as his “great expectations”. The title, with these multiple meanings that are attached to it, ends up being ironic after all is said and done at the end of the novel.

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.

Charles Dickens, author of Great Expectations, provides a perfect example of the hope of class mobility. The novel portrays very diverse and varied social classes which spread from a diligent, hardworking peasant (Joe) to a good-natured middle class man (Mr. Wemmick) to a rich, beautiful young girl (Estella). Pip, in particular, elevates in the social pyramid from a common boy to a gentleman with great expectations. With his rise in society, he also alters his attitude, from being a caring child to an apathetic gentleman. During this process, Pip learns how he should act and how to become a real gentleman. Social mobility and wealth, furthermore, carves a disposition and how a character is looked upon.

Dickens' View of the World Shown Through the Narration of Pip in Great Expectations Reading the opening chapter of Great Expectations demonstrates something of the extraordinary range and power of Dickens language. After a brief statement about his self-naming, which in itself is important as it instigates the whole debate about identity in the novel, Pip goes on to entertain us with an amusing description of his family graves, their inscriptions, and what he, as a small boy, made of them. The older, more sophisticated narrator explores the imaginative but essentially innocent mind of his younger self with a wit and vocabulary that is anything but childlike.

She plays a great part in the rearing of Pip as she was a very close

Impressions Gained of Pip's Character from Great Expectations 'Pip' is very much a child in the the first chapter. However, it is Pip narrating it as an adult ( retrospective narrator). You know he is a child by his 'childish' thoughts and his rather odd imagination. He manages to come up with the 'childish conclusion' that his father is a 'square, stout, dark man, with curly hair' just by looking at his fathers tombstone. Also, that his mother was 'freckled and sickly'.

Dickens makes the reader feel sorry for Pip because we find out that, apart from his sister all his family is dead. Pip tells us as “I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of them...” Pip is shown in a very sad light and the reader wonders why Pip is so alone. We also learn that he had five little

sister’s husband; he has taken up the role of caring for Pip and is a

As a boy, Dickens himself grew up with a father who didn’t make a lot of money and lived a lower class lifestyle. When we was only 12 he was forced to work in a factory so he could make the money he needed to bail his dad out of jail. Therefore in Great Expectations, he shows how he sympathizes with the lower class. The main way Dickens shows how he feels about the classes is through pip. One example of Dickens's expressing his feelings towards the class differences is through Pip’s realizations towards the end of the book. “...pondering, as I went along, on all I had seen, and deeply revolving that I was a common labouring-boy; that my hands were coarse; that my boots were thick; that I had fallen into a despicable habit of calling knaves Jacks; that I was much more ignorant than I had considered myself last night, and generally that I was in a low-lived bad way.” (113). By Pip realizing that being accepted into the upper class depends on how he actually lives not just how he appears, Dickens shows his belief that class is determined by more than just surface qualities. Similarly, this shows how Dickens believes that the class status of a person doesn’t always show a person's true personality. To illustrate his view of class education differences Dickens uses Pip’s transition from a uneducated blacksmith to a gentleman. Dickens also shows how he feels about the class wealth difference through a difference between Miss Havisham, and Joe and Pip. Miss Havisham had plenty of money but didn’t live the happiest life. On the other hand, Pip and Joe were rather poor and didn’t have a lot of money, but always found a way to pay off debts and live a decently enjoyable life (36). This proves how Dickens thinks that, while the classes might be determined by things like money, wealth isn’t a necessity to having a good life. While some

Great Expectations’ main character, Phillip Pirrip- generally known as Pip- had a rough upbringing as a child. His sister, Mrs. Joe had “brought him up by hand”, after their parents and five brothers had all been laid to rest many years ago. Another character, Herbert Pocket experienced a bizarre childhood, though in a different manner. Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations develops through the novel following Pip, a young “common boy” who grew up in the countryside. As he matured so did his love for a girl of higher class, Estella. However, being a common boy, Pip was not good enough for his Estella, thus once he was given an opportunity to become a gentleman in London he seized it without much hesitation. Charles Dickens’ had his own

One of the most important and common tools that authors use to illustrate the themes of their works is a character that undergoes several major changes throughout the story. In Great Expectations, Charles Dickens introduces the reader to many intriguing and memorable characters, including the eccentric recluse, Miss Havisham, the shrewd and careful lawyer, Mr. Jaggers, and the benevolent convict, Abel Magwitch. However, Great Expectations is the story of Pip and his initial dreams and resulting disappointments that eventually lead to him becoming a genuinely good person. The significant changes in Pip's character are very important to one of the novel's many themes. Dickens uses Pip's

be seen when Joe covers for Pip when he is late home or when he says

Great Expectations was one of the first British soap operas, published in a weekly magazine showing the minimum of one or two chapters. “Great Expectations’’ appeared in a weekly magazine called “All the year round”. The story ran for thirty six weeks. Plus another reason is so that the poor can get a chance to read something and later it was published as a book. The story is about Pip whose name was Phillip Pirrip. Pip is the narrative voice of the story as he starts the book by saying “my fathers family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Pirrip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So I called myself