Essay on Great expectations ch 1-7

When Pip was a small boy, he felt close to Joe, as Joe was like a

that he, the convict Pip met at the marshes, is the man who gave Pip

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.

1. Why does Pip feel the need to lie about Miss Havisham when he is questioned about her by Mrs. Joe and Mr. Pumblechook? Why is he confident Mr.Pumblechook will not correct his story? Pip feels the need to lie about Miss Havisham because he feels that they won’t believe him and doesn’t want to publicly humiliate her. He is certain Mr. Pumblechook will not correct his story because he does not know her.

Home in today’s society can be described in many ways, but is ultimately expressed as more of a feeling of safety and love. Sonsyrea Tate claims "You can leave home all you want, but home will never leave you." In essence, the feeling of home is a part of the character and who he/she will become. In Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, Pip examines the true meaning of home and how the subjective opinion of home can reflect who a person becomes. He illustrates this idea using recurring appearances of home-like symbols, the way Pip’s definition of home changes throughout the novel, and how he shows Pip’s acquired feelings after moving into higher society.

Pips life however is not turning out as he wants and he becomes an apprentice to his brother in-law Joe, until one fateful day, a lawyer named Jagger’s informs him that a secret benefactor has left Pip with a large fortune. Excited with the news Pip agrees to go to London immediately so he can learn the ways of a gentleman. In hope that it is indeed Miss

Pip is an honest boy who can barely live with himself after what he has done, but never tells Joe his good friend, or Ms. Joe, Joe's wife.

All of this Pip did for his best friend; he took money out of his own pocket and used it to make his friend's life better. The friends cared deeply for each other and loved each other sincerely. Every incident they found themselves in served to deepen their friendship.

Throughout the book Pip was not happy with his life and wanted to become something more; his name meant “seed”, like a seed Pip was “planted” and the reader watches him grow. Estella told Pip that he was just a common-labouring boy. (chapter 8) Pip had never thought as himself as common, but now he wanted to become a gentleman so that he would be worthy of Estella. However once Pip becomes a gentleman he realizes that it is not what he thought it would be. Consequently he starts to neglect Joe and Biddy, however in the end, Pip starts to change back to the person he used to be and tries to repair his relationship with Joe and Biddy. In addition he gives his money to Herbert so that he can go to merchant school and Herbert ends up giving Pip a job in the end. This shows that you gain from giving, if Pip would not have gave Herbert the money he would not have gotten the job offer.

The entire story is told through the eyes of an adult Pip, even though Pip is a small child during parts of it. In his early years, Pip was strongly influenced by his guardians, Joe Gargery and his wife, Mrs. Joe. Joe instills a sense of honesty, industry, and friendliness in Pip, while Mrs. Joe does a great deal to contribute to his desires and ambitions through her constant emphasis on pomp and property. Pip is generally good-natured and thoughtful, and very imaginative. His false values, which are bolstered by his love of Estella, decrease the amount of respect that he has for Joe. His alienation from Joe and Joe's values builds through the second part of the novel, as Pip becomes selfish, greedy, and foolish. During the period when his expectations are intact, his only morally positive act was to secretly help Herbert Pocket into a good position. Upon discovering that Magwitch is his benefactor, a new phase begins in Pip's moral evolution. At first, Pip no longer feels the same human compassion for Magwitch that he did the first time he saw him out on the marshes. Gradually, Pip changes his perception of Magwitch, unlearning what he has learned. Pip becomes concerned with the man, and not the expectations that he could provide. When Jaggers presents the thought that there may be a way for Pip to get his hands on Magwitch's property, the idea sounds hollow and utterly empty to Pip. Pip learns about Estella's parentage through

They both felt the wrath of Mrs. Joe; she frequently “knocked his (Joe) head…against the wall” or the Tickler for Pip. Knowledgeable critics have referred to Pip’s experience as that of a "Dickensian childhood - stripped of his rights, found guilty of being himself, and rendered invisible by all those around.

4). Even though he aids the convict, the reader's sympathy for Pip soon increases, as his robbery of his own home weighs greatly on his conscience. For example, when Mrs. Joe leaves the Sunday dinner to retrieve the "savoury pork pie," which Magwitch had enjoyed heartily, Pip is tortured by the thought of his actions, while his mind screams, "Must they! Let them not hope to taste it!" (p. 27). He seems to sincerely regret his actions and the fact that he "had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong" (p. 40). Approximately one year after his encounter with the convict, Pip is still shown to be an innocent, caring boy. One night, when Pip and Joe are alone at the forge, Joe explains his various reasons for enduring Mrs. Joe's constant abuse. After their conversation, Pip realizes that he cares deeply for Joe and appreciates everything that the blacksmith does for him. Also, he develops "a new admiration of Joe from that night" and "a new sensation of feeling conscious that I was looking up to Joe in my heart" (p. 48). Unfortunately, as Pip develops unrealistic hopes and expectations for his life, these positive characteristics are replaced by undesirable ones.

There are salient junctures in Pip’s upbringing that make him who the person he was; this is a tale that in which Pip was soliciting for awareness of himself, as well he realized that his life had major elements of obscurity; due to the fact, he was presented clearly, two radical different lifestyle choices; one, involving a life as a blacksmith and the other; involving the path as life as am affluent prosperous gentleman. Dickens carefully wrote in the periods of Pip’s life and how those set of circumstances; affected by choice, as well affected Pip’s later choices he had made. The temptation of class and wealth perverted the actions of Pip and other people around him; Pip is therefore contemplating on how he was saved by reminiscence of the stages of his life. In the first stage; Pip encounters Magwitch; by accident, this affects the outcome of later events of his life; Pip is than introduced to Miss Havishism and Estella, he fell in love with Estella, and was dramatically persuaded by the promises he made to himself, from his encounters with Miss Havhishism and Estella. Dramatically; Pip than learned the truth about his wealth and that Magwitch was Estella 's father; this collapsed Pip’s vision of reality and forced him to alter his exceptions concerning the truth; Pip than had to save himself from his own selfishness, as well as his malice actions, to the ones who were faithful to him; finally, at the end Pip is a full grown adult and had gain

Harshly administered punishment and conformity to order was emphasized from an early age, as indicated in Pip’s conflicted conscience in his choice for the lesser of two evils; robbing and lying to his sister, or risking potential bodily harm from an escaped convict. The dilemma renders Pip distressed, as if he “ had to make up [his] mind to leap from the top of a high house, or plunge into a great depth of water” (16). His perpetual guilt is attributed to his sister’s deontological

The literary criticism “Patterns of Communication in Great Expectations” is an effective literary criticism, it proves there is evidently more communication between characters in the novel than most critics let onto. Ruth M. Vande Kieft, who is the author of this piece, suggests that the majority of the characters in Dickens novels have a substantial amount of communication among themselves. But, the dialogue in the novel depicted is not what we typically observe in the majority Victorian novels. Vande Kieft uses evidence in her writing from Dorothy Van Ghent, who suggests there is little interaction and the majority of the main characters attempts fail when they do try and communicate amongst each other. This article is effective in showing examples of certain patterns between the many characters in the novel. The article was also effective because it showed a different way of looking at communication in the way writers aim for when writing stories. This literary criticism was an interesting because it made me think about other novels that I have read and how Vande Kieft would have depicted them. In Great Expectations, we saw a different pattern in how characters communicate. Most family communication patterns are usually easy to follow. Although this novel was easy to read, I understand where critics state the contrary. I valued this work because of the examples stated throughout, and I will analyze some of the examples stated in my paper.