How Does Mrs. Joe's Role Change Throughout The Novel

The female characters throughout Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations affect Pip’s mental and emotional development – and so the overarching Bildungsroman – in various ways. Mrs. Joe, and her treatment of Pip, strongly influences his early life, and affect most of the relationships he develops throughout the novel. Miss Havisham and Estella both play a large part in inciting Pip’s class aspirations, and so are a driving force behind his mental and emotional development throughout the novel. Biddy is a direct opposite to these women, and represents a positive feminine influence in Pip’s life. Mrs. Pocket, while only playing a minor part in the plot, is representative of an inadequate mother, further highlighting the lack of a maternal relationship

She bullies and demeans him, and is demanding and domineering – “given to government”, as Joe puts it (48). This is a clear example of the ‘nagging wife’ stereotype present in the Victorian era, and also provides Pip with little in the way of a mother figure in his life. Mrs. Joe also represents a subversion of the traditional gender roles of Victorian Britain, in which women were expected to fit the ideal of ‘the Angel of the House’ (Ciugureanu, 349), maintaining the sanctity of the home. In the case of Mr. and Mrs. Joe Gargery, it is Joe himself who “had sanctified it” (106). This relates to a noted trend in Dickens’s works of his protagonists lacking a nurturing mother figure, whether through absence or neglect (Isba, 24) – leaving Joe to step into this role, acting as a nurturing figure for Pip, and so fulfilling the roles of both father and mother. Mrs. Joe’s lack of a first name – always being referred to as ‘Mrs. Joe’ – further detaches her from her femininity (Ciugureanu, 348), as does her appearance, described as rough and rugged, “almost always [wearing] a coarse apron … having a square impregnable bib in front, that was stuck full of pins and needles” (8) – very much a masculine appearance, in stark contrast to Estella, who is described as “beautiful and self-possessed” (56), and clad in fine clothing – an example of the standards of physical beauty Victorian women were expected to aspire to, and

This mockery and abuse is the thing that initially kindles Pip’s desire to become a gentleman, breeding the great expectations which go on to drive Pip throughout the course of the novel. This is also a clear example of the theme of class inequality present throughout the novel, with Estella and Miss Havisham looking down on Pip, whilst Pip aspires to reach their position in the class hierarchy – therefore, these women serve to further a major theme of Pip’s Bildungsroman. Miss Havisham also teaches Estella to “deceive and entrap [men]” (311), in order “to wreak revenge on all the male sex” (177) – an outlook which dictates most of Estella’s interactions with Pip, often disturbing him, and, as a result of his fixation on her, strongly influencing his development throughout his