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The Importance Of Spiritual Journeys In Charles DickensGreat Expectations

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Spiritual journeys dramatically alter the course of one’s life and lead to newly found self-discovery. Pip, the main character in Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, a small boy living in a tiny, impoverished town receives money from a mysterious benefactor where he will become a gentleman. On his excessively arrogant course to becoming a gentleman he believes his benefactor is Miss Havisham and is sure that he is going to court the beautiful, yet manipulating, Estella. Upon receiving the news that his actual benefactor is Magwitch, an escaped convict, he encounters an epiphany that he has been living off a convict’s money and is not going to marry Estella. He then realizes that social standing and money does not help as much as he thought it would and begins go back to his old ways of treating everyone equally. Pip comes to understanding that he, and the upper class, is not morally above the rest of society. Pip experiences a vacillating journey with spiritual highs and lows, such as when he gives back his time when writing letters, rather than his money, a materialistic item. Because of this journey, Pip comes to an understanding that materialistic articles cannot be a substitute for spiritual relationships. Pip’s journey mainly starts when he becomes attached to the upper class living style after his tenure with Miss Havisham. He begins to develop a mindset that common people are living a horrific life and the rich live lavishly with no problems whatsoever. Before he develops this mindset, he cares and loves Joe and hopes to be his apprentice. Pip states, “I took the opportunity of being alone in the courtyard to look at my coarse hands and common boots” (Dickens 63). He begins to be ashamed of Joe and his common environment and yearns to spend every moment with Estella. This mindset continues to develop into an infatuation with upper class living when a benefactor expresses great expectations for him and wants him to become a gentleman. Realizing he is now rich, he begins to display arrogance to Joe and Biddy, who is Mrs. Joe’s caretaker. This arrogance continues throughout the novel due to his lavish lifestyle, which propels him into troubling amounts of debts. At the peak of his confidence, he receives

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