English Essay - Mr Pip

He set higher goals. At Miss Havisham's house Pip starts on the idea of self improvement and education for success. Pip grows on Miss Havisham and falls in love with Estella, whom she is raising. Miss Havisham taunts Pip with Estella's coldness to him.

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.

Throughout Dickens’ novel Great Expectations, the character, personality, and social beliefs of Pip undergo complete transformations as he interacts with an ever-changing pool of characters presented in the book. Pip’s moral values remain more or less constant at the beginning and the end; however, it is evident that in the time between, the years of his maturation and coming of adulthood, he is fledgling to find his place in society. Although Pip is influenced by many characters throughout the novel, his two most influential role models are: Estella, the object of Miss Havisham’s revenge against men, and Magwitch, the benevolent convict. Exposing himself to such diverse characters Pip has to learn to discern right from wrong and chose

The first character to play a big part in shaping Pip’s personality is his sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery. His sister’s vicious attitude and harsh punishments force Pip to have an unfriendly childhood. This bringing up “by hand” has caused him to be a “sensitive” boy. The constant threat of being beaten with the Tickler has also instilled the fear of speaking out against adult’s treatment of him because it would send his sister into a “terrible Rage.” However, her brutality has also made Pip able to feel when something was a “keen injustice” because he himself feels so about her actions and words towards himself.

The class system becomes a focal point in young Pip's life. Pip first began to think about his place in society when he was sent to visit the wealthy, old lady, Miss Havisham at her mansion. Through these visits Pip becomes socially conscious and begins to dislike his commonality. Almost instantly he wants to become uncommon. The adopted daughter of Miss Havisham, Estella, becomes a focal point and goal for Pip to obtain. Any morality Pip used to have slips away with each visit. Pip walks in circles in a barely lit room with Miss Havisam holding onto his shoulder and in doing so, Pip is somehow leaving behind all the values he was raised with. Miss Havisham and Estella end up corrupting Pip with the rich life. Greed, beauty and hubris are Pips downward spiral into an immoral life. Pip finds Estella very attractive, but Estella calls him common and this does not sit well with Pip. All of Pip's expectations of becoming a rich gentleman are due to this love of Estella.

She spent all her time doing household chores and creating a barrier between herself and her daughter. Through introspection she realizes that she needs to spend more time with her daughter hugging and showing her love, but she is too late.

In the end she escapes her life in the island and, follows her devotion with Mr Dickens and carries on studying him for her PhD in which she says ‘Pip was my story, even if I was once a girl, and my face black as the shining light’. Here Matilda says ‘ even if I was once a girl…my face black’ this clearly demonstrates how Matilda feels transformed by studying Dickens and coming to London ‘ even if’ implies that she now fully accepts that she  is not the person she was before. Dickens and her formal education have changed her, even made her view herself as a white person as she says ‘even if… my face as black as the shining night’. Despite this, it could still be argued that the colonial tinge in this novel is not intended by Jones even if he himself is from New Zealand, we cannot forget the fact that Australia did invade Papa New Guinea and colonise it. However, in the end of the novel Matilda wants to come back to her home, she wants to leave London and return to Bougainville. She wants to ‘try where Pip had failed… (She) would return home’. Here Matilda realises that her home us where her heart and she belongs there, suggesting that she now sees the negative aspects of her formal education as it had ‘failed’ her in the

Pip’s journey reinforced towards self- discovery by saying “As I had grown accustomed to my expectations, I had insensibly begun to notice their effect upon myself and those around me. Their influence I disguised from my recognition as much as possible, but I knew very well that it was not all good. I lived in a state of chronic uneasiness respecting my behaviour to Joe.” (P.243 chapter 34) Pip discovered his rudeness and snobbishness towards Joe. Pip was influenced by the wealthy Miss Havisham because she is on the top of the societal hierarchy and Pip trusted her fully. This is an affair nowadays that people are mistreating their love when they are being on top of the social class. “Great Expectations, is a story about how pride separates a young man from the people who love him best, and from his own best instincts. Pip, who rejects the honest and simple man who raises him, and then the even less lofty man who turns out to be his benefactor, calls up every conflict we’ve ever felt between yearning for the larger world and wishing to remain loyal to the smaller one we came from.” A quote stated by a reviewer. He thinks that Pip is separating himself from true love that was offered by Joe. This quote can effectively shows the attitude of people towards their love when it comes to money issue. Another book reviewer commented that “The lesson that Pip learns comes in his

“‘Take nothing on looks; take everything on evidence. There’s no better rule.’” (339) Do not make judgements based on appearances, because appearance is not all there is. Here Pip, the main protagonist of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, misses the important message that his guardian is trying to convey to him, and will only come to learn his lesson at the end of the story. Pip is the recipient of a great fortune from an anonymous benefactor and is left to wonder who this mysterious person is throughout the novel. He has an idea as to who his benefactor may be, but as he is sworn to secrecy, he cannot discuss the idea with his fellow acquaintances and is left to his own thoughts and assumptions. This later on leads him to create many ideas as to what his life will turn out to be, and only leads him to his own suffering. Pip’s suffering throughout the novel is a result of his self deception and falling victim to his love for a particular, cold-hearted lady, but ultimately learns through his suffering the value of one’s actions and character.

However, as time goes on and civilisation seems further away, as hope- and want- of being rescued fades, their system degenerates. The ever-present violence succeeds peace: originally it starts of as being a game, Ralph “returned as a fighter-plane, with wings swept back, and machine-gunned Piggy”; when they eventually hunt their first pig, Jack boasts, "You should have seen the blood!"; the boys kill Simon in a frenzied ritual dance, even Jack and Piggy are not innocent as they too were present though they try to forget it; Piggy is killed; then Ralph is hunted like an animal, by the “savages” of Jack’s dictatorship, he only survives because he runs into the British Navy on the beach. In Great Expectations, Pip is an innocent boy to start off with. The reader sympathises him, from the outset he is identified as an “orphan” and Mrs. Joe, his sister- who many adults keep spitefully reminding Pip- “brought [him] up by hand”, abuses him. She is always shouting at him and punishes him with things such as the “Tickler.” Pip is also berated at the Christmas dinner: Mrs. Hubble ‘asked, "Why is it that the young are never grateful?" This moral mystery seemed too much for the company until Mr. Hubble tersely solved it by saying, "Naterally wicious."

In the book Great Expectations, the story is about how a young orphan boy named Pip starts out homeless and poor and shows how his life gradually got better and he became rich in the end with the help of anonymous benefactors. Pip lived his whole life believing that Miss Havisham was his benefactor, when she really wasn’t. Miss Havisham played a huge part in this story, she practically raised Pip since he was a little boy and she stayed in the story until the end. She helped him in many ways but also breaks his heart by using her adopted daughter Estella. Estella is Pips crush whom he falls in love with and spends his whole life trying to get with but never does because she was raised not to love because of Miss Havisham’s bad experience with

Pip is a young orphan boy living with his sister Mrs. Joe and her husband Joe Gargery in the marshes of Kent. One evening Pip sits in the nearby graveyard staring at his parent’s tombstones, when out of nowhere a convict pops up from behind the tombstones and grabs Pip. The convict orders Pip to get him food and a file for his leg irons. Pip obeys in fear, but when he comes back with the items the convict has been captured. The convict also defends Pip by saying he stole these items from him. Days go by and Pip gets picked up by his uncle Mr. Pumblechook to play at Satis house, the wealthy Miss Havisham. During his visit he meets this young girl named Estella, although she treats him poorly on his visit. Pip falls in love with her

There are many different unique relationships but the most notable are his portrayal of characters that have outright dislike of each other. Jones portrays negative acknowledgement between characters such as Matilda’s mom, Dolores, and Mr. Watts. He is thoroughly disliked by Dolores because he is for one, white and second, does not believe in God or the Devil. Nonetheless, despite the hate, Mr. Watts doesn’t seem to mind one bit about this and carries on through life without feeling ashamed or distraught. He takes it upon himself to educate the children of the village and to open their minds to the world around them. Ultimately, Dolores’ dedication to the Bible is what draws the line between Mr. Watts and her. The quotes: “At the end of the story, my mum looked across to Mr. Watts, and the two of them held each other’s eye until they remembered us” and “When she showed up in class the next morning it was obvious she hadn’t come to speak to us. She had come to pick a fight with Mr. Watts”. These two quotes exemplifies the fact that tension has been created between the two individuals as a result of their own personal beliefs. Dolores explicitly expresses hatred and dislike towards Mr. Watts and does not want him to educate her girl Matilda. Although Mr. Watts was negatively acknowledged by Dolores, he does not falter off of his life path and continues to educate and be kind to all the people around him.Sadly, by the end of the book, he pays the ultimate price, sacrificing himself for the village that never really accepted his presence. Evidently, through this example, Lloyd Jones’ shows that dislike and negative acknowledgement is not nearly as severe as if one was being disregarded or

So from the start Pip is in awe of Estella because of her beauty. It

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