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How Do Pip's Views Of Expectations And How They Affect Him?

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Great Expectations – Discuss Pip’s views of expectations and how they affect him.

The novel Great Expectations is focused around the theme of a young male’s expectations and how they rule his life. It tells us the effects they have on people and the negative impact they have on Pip’s life. The Title to the novel “Great Expectations” totally contradicts the main theme in the book, as the expectations turn out to be not so great after all. The book is split up into 3 sections of Pip’s “Great
Expectations”, all of these sections show us how Pip’s life has been affected by these expectations.

Throughout the novel we see how expectations have left their mark on
Pip’s life. Chapter one is were we are introduced to the main …show more content…

Firstly Joe, Joe is Pip’s sister’s husband; he has taken up the role of caring for Pip and is a character that shows us all that is good in the book and what a true gentleman is. During the beginning of the book Pip’s expectations are fairly small and unnoticed by many of the characters; however as the novel progresses Pip’s expectations have a big effect on Joe. They seem to make the two characters drift away from each other, even Joe himself notices this as he says, “life is made of ever so many partings welded together,” however earlier on Pip tells Joe that they will be together forever. His expectations even make Joe fell uneasy and too “common” for Pip, “I want to be right as you shall never see me no more in these clothes.” The character and personality of Joe is a warm but relaxed and down to Earth, in a way this drives Pip to become obsessed with becoming a gentleman and he see Joe as, even though loving, a not very wealthy man or popular man. As I said earlier Joe is the real Gentleman but Pips expectations blind him from seeing this. Herbert Pocket or Handel is a very similar character to
Joe, acting as a second Joe when Pip is in London. He is, although unintentional to Pip, treated as a man who is enslaved by Pip instead of is best friend. The role of Joe and Herbert in relation to Pip’s expectations is that they are the kind of people who act as a fallback to Pip if his expectations don’t work out. They help Pip realise that

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