How Does Magwitch Change In Great Expectations

After gaining his wealth, Pip becomes snobby and lets everything go to his head. Now, after losing his wealth, we, as readers see a new change in Pip's personality. As for himself, Pip appears to feel ashamed of himself and his new class. In ​Great Expectations​, explaining Pip's feelings, Pip thinks, "Next day, I had the meanness to feign that I was under a binding promise to go down to Joe; but I was capable of almost any meanness towards Joe or his name." (Dickens, 391) Pips thoughts here, represent how he starts to realize how he has changed since moving to London. In his childhood, Pip was practically best friends with Joe, then becoming a gentleman, he has this sense that he is above Joe and essentially wanted nothing to do with

Soon after the incident in the graveyard, Pip is introduced to a class of people deemed superior to his own only by virtue of their wealth. From them, Pip learns to judge others, and himself, by the quantity and quality of their material possessions, rather than the quantity and quality of their humanity. Thus blinded by the tangible, or material, Pip adopts the values of this better class and goes off in blind pursuit of such possessions as will make him an acceptable member of their numbers.

            In both of the novels, Pip and Gatsby receive, or earn their great quantities of money and do not realize at first the money is tainted. Pip’s benefactor was none other than Abel Magwitch, a known felon who he encountered at a church graveyard and who threatened Pip for food and a file. In appreciation of Pip’s deed in fetching the items for him, Magwitch nobly decides to endow Pip with a large sum of money. The money was gained through evil deeds. Since Compeyson and Magwitch acquired the money through fraud, and conning people out of their hard-earned money, it rendered the money evil, or tainted. Even though Pip’s relationship with Magwitch progresses and he virtually becomes a father to Pip, the money remains blemished due to the way it was obtained.

Joe brought a moral side to the novel and gave the readers relief from tough characters in the novel. To show a contrast between Joe and the other characters in the novel, Dicken made Joe a simple, content guy, who does not focus on money nor society’s standards during his time. No matter how Pip treats Joe, he is always there and continues to show Pip how much he cares and loves him. After Pip has grown up, Joe still listens to him and he still confides in Joe. As the theme of social class continues to rise in the novel, Joe excluded himself, by being true to himself and doing good, despite having little money. To demonstrate, in the novel, Joe states, “But if you think as Money can make compensation to me for the loss of the little child—what come to the forge—and ever the best of friends.” Here Joe lets Jagger know how much Pip meant to him and how little he cares about money.

This quote introduces where Pip spends a great deal of his time as a child. The Satis House is the home to two main characters in this novel; Miss Havisham and Estella. Miss Havisham, a frantic yet wealthy woman is Estella’s adoption mother. She is raising Estella, a beautiful young girl to become a weapon against men as revenge against the Compeyson, the man who deserted her on her wedding day. As soon as Pip sees the stunning Estella, he completely falls in love and ignores the fact that she is a cruel girl who is just using him. In fact, most of Pip’s life decisions are based upon Estella. Pip first meets the two in their rotting mansion, the Satis House when he is asked to come over and play with Estella. This house is (very) symbolic of Miss Havisham. They are both decaying from inside and out. The house is filled with objects that symbolize Miss Havisham. As an example, her wedding cake from her wedding with Compeyson is on the feast table rotting. In addition, all the clocks are stopped at twenty minutes to nine- the time she found out that Compeyson fled from her. Pip remembers the house as a dark prison. This house also brings the theme self-improvement. As soon as Pip sees the house along with Estella, he longs to be a wealthy

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.

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

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.

Once Pip learns that he has a benefactor, he goes to London to become a gentleman. Pip no longer wants to identify himself as a lowerclassman; he desires to be a gentleman. It was the “simple act of stealing food” and the file that led Pip to his gentleman identity (Markley). The file that represents Pip’s innocence is one of the causes for him identifying himself as a gentleman as an adult. Pip’s experience of bringing the file to Magwitch is what helps him find out who he is as a

For instance, as Mr. Jaggers was telling Pip about his great opportunity of getting to go to London and becoming a gentleman, Joe said, “‘Lord forbid that I should want anything for not standing in Pip’s way… ’” (138). Here, Joe is happy to hear that Pip gets to go to London. He does not want anything to get in the way of any chance that Pip has to be successful. Joe treats Pip with positivity and supports him throughout his life and through the opportunities he receives. Joe is obviously a very kind person and wants only the best for Pip. Furthermore, as Magwitch was admiring all of Pips wealth in his apartment, he exclaimed, “‘Look at your linen; fine and beautiful! Look at your clothes; better ain’t to be got! And your books too,’ turning his eyes round the room, ‘mounting up, on their shelves, by hundreds!’” (321). Pip clearly has a lot of materials including clothing and books. Now as an adult, Pip has a large fortune and he would not have been able to get where he is without Joe’s support. If Joe was not positive about Pip going on the trip, he never would have become the young man he is and probably would still be trapped at the forge. Because of Joe's positive reinforcement on Pip as a child, he was able to become a successful adult. Clearly then, Joe's positive relationship with Pip critically developed the child's

In the novel, it is clear that Pip is affected by his rise to fortune in a negative way. He treats the people who truly care about him the most, poorly, such as Joe and Biddy. He puts his efforts in impressing the people of higher social status. Pip’s transition into the negative personality that arose from expectations of being a gentleman can be used as a lesson in twenty-first century society. Parallels can be drawn from this novel and life today. People now in our society continue to value money and status and often times leave the people that care about them behind and in the dust. Great Expectations allows us to take the lessons learned by Pip and Joe and apply them to society today. Money and status should never trump the love and care of genuine people around

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

Her intention is to set him up to have his heart broken. Second, Pip’s great expectations pull his strings. After going to London and becoming a gentleman, Pip tries to shut out everyone from his life on the marshes. This is most prominent at two points in Chapter 27. The first point is when Pip hears that Joe is coming, he feels annoyed and embarrassed.

However, when Pip turned twenty three years old, Magwitch returned into Pip’s life and revealed he was his benefactor. This was a shock to Pip who then wanted nothing to do with the fortune that had been given to him. This is a turning point in the novel because Magwitch’s actions force Pip to stop living a lie and see the truth. He inherited his money from the convict from his childhood who Pip saw in his “childish eyes to be a desperately violent man” (Dickens, 254). As the novel progressed, Magwitch’s character was further revealed and it changed Pip’s perspective of him, thus it enhanced Pip’s character growth.