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Pip in Charles Dickens' Great Expectations
After reading the compelling ‘Great Expectations’ by the famous writer
Charles Dickens, I can gather that it is based upon his own
psychological insight to life. He makes connections in relation to a
specific character or event in the storyline, which were critical in
his own expectations. Also Dickens moulds his selection of characters
very well into the desired settings he’d created, that matched what he
knew only too well throughout his childhood.
‘Great Expectations’ not only satires the issues of Victorian society,
yet centres on the rites of passage that marks an important change in
a person’s life. Dickens’ issue of contentment is something that
concerns many human beings; this is what Pip wants most. However he
never really accomplishes this until the closing stages of the book.
So what exactly is contentment? The dictionary defines it as a ‘peace
of mind’, where the person is ‘satisfied with things as they are.’
Therefore contentment means to be happy and in Pip’s case, happy with
his life. The purpose of ‘Great Expectations’ is how contentment is
achieved, with it being linked to Jeremy Bentham’s answer of this.
Bentham was a well-known philosopher and he said: ‘humans strive to
achieve self-fulfilment through the seeking of pleasure and the
avoidance of pain.’ Dickens relates this to Pip, in the sense that Pip
wants to become a gentleman, who need not work and who can avoid the
certain stresses of life.
Dickens’ early life is reflected by his main character in the novel.
Through Pip, he presents a young and innocent boy, who changes his
aspirations whilst growing up. Pip is often indirected by the themes
of identity, love, money and class when ...
... middle of paper ...
...elates Pip’s struggles to the ones he faced in his own life,
in order to achieve contentment such as family problems, debt and
education. Problems like these are overcome by sticking to a moral set
of values, dispelling all the materialistic values which in the end
leave a person unhappy. There is a clear message in the novel that the
best way to achieve contentment is to live your life and learn from
the positive and negative experiences of it. You must listen to the
people who are close to you and their advice that they give, because
this was one of Pip’s downfalls. Even though ‘Great Expectations’ was
written almost two centuries ago; we as readers know how to achieve
contentment with our own lives, by controlling and getting rid of our
fantasies and phobias whilst being aware that wealth and higher class
doesn’t necessarily mean a better way of life.
‘Great Expectations’ showcases the variety of ways in which Pip discovers a sense of belonging and makes us question our own choices in life and how belonging is not always apparent at the time. Relationships and places are closely intertwined with a person’s sense of acceptance and can make all the difference in being fulfilled mentally in life which is shown in both a negative and positive note in ‘Great Expectations’ and ‘Pleasantville’.
As humans grow up, they must all experience the awkward phase of the teen years, as they leave behind childhood for adulthood. In these times of transformations, one often finds themselves marred by the wicked ways of naïve love and the humiliation many experience. In Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations, one is able to watch an innocent boy’s transformation into a mature gentleman who is still a child at heart. Pip is plagued with the daunting responsibilities of adulthood and deciding where his loyalties lay. Torn between the alluring world of the rich and his roots in a destitute village, Pip must make a decision.
As Pip grows throughout the novel, he develops and matures from a young boy that doesn’t know what to do to a young man who has a great outlook on life. In the first stage of Pip's life he is young and does not understand what it means to be a gentleman and how it can affect his life. During the first stage of Pips life, he only wants 3 things. He wants education, wealth, and social advancement. These three wishes are mostly so he can impress Estella, who is the symbol of this first stage. Pip does not want to be just a blacksmith like Joe. He wants to be intelligent and considered a person of high importance. At the end of this stage he moves to London and begins to have a different outlook on his future.
Many people strive for things that are out of their reach. In the novel Great Expectations, Charles Dickens shows the themes of personal ambition and discontent with present conditions. The main character, Pip, shows early on in the story that he is unhappy with his current situation. Throughout the story he strives for the things that are beyond his reach, and is apathetic to the things that he can obtain. Pip demonstrates this by striving for Estella when he could have Biddy, and yearning to be a gentleman when he could be a blacksmith.
Charles Dickens utilizes his life for inspiration for the protagonist Pip in his novel Great Expectations. They both struggle with their social standing. Dickens loved plays and theatre and therefore incorporated them into Pip’s life. Dickens died happy in the middle class and Pip died happy in the middle class. The connection Dickens makes with his life to Pip’s life is undeniable. If readers understand Dickens and his upbringing then readers can understand how and why he created Pip’s upbringing. Charles Dickens’ life, full of highs and lows, mirrors that of Pip’s life. Their lives began the same and ended the same. To understand the difficulty of Dickens’ childhood is to understand why his writing focuses on the English social structure. Dickens’ life revolved around social standing. He was born in the lower class but wasn’t miserable. After his father fell into tremendous debt he was forced into work at a young age. He had to work his way to a higher social standing. Because of Dicken’s constant fighting of class the English social structure is buried beneath the surface in nearly all of his writings. In Great Expectations Pip’s life mirrors Dickens’ in the start of low class and the rise to a comfortable life. Fortunately for Dickens, he does not fall again as Pip does. However, Pip and Dickens both end up in a stable social standing.
After being very ill Pip realises that being a gentleman means more than having money and an education. Many of Dickens books are about childhood difficulties. Perhaps this is because he was drawing on the experience of his own difficult childhood and his own desire, like Pips to become a gentleman. Dickens books are also about the class struggle, cruelty, inequality and injustice. Punishment was harsh such as deportation to do hard labour in Australia for small crimes or public hanging.
does so she can break his heart and the pain will be even worse. This
In the novel, Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens the principal character, Pip, undergoes a tremendous change in character. I would like to explore with you the major incidents in Pip’s childhood that contribute to his change from an innocent child to someone consumed by false values and snobbery.
As a bildungsroman, Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations presents the growth and development of Philip Pirrip, better known as Pip. Pip is both the main character in the story and the narrator, telling his tale many years after the events take place. Pip goes from being a young boy living in poverty in the marsh country of Kent, to being a gentleman of high status in London. Pip’s growth and maturation in Great Expectations lead him to realize that social status is in no way related to one’s real character.
The main character, Pip, is a gentle character. His traits include humbleness, kindness, and lovingness. These traits are most likely the cause of his childhood poverty. In the beginning of the story, Pip is a mild mannered little boy who goes on with his own humble life. That, though, will change as he meets Magwich, a thief and future benefactor. Pip’s kindness goes out to help the convict, Magwich when he gives food and clothing to him. Magwich tells Pip that he’ll never forget his kindness and will remember Pip always and forever. This is the beginning of Pip’s dynamic change. Throughout the novel, Great Expectations, the character, Pip gradually changes from a kind and humble character to a character that is bitter, then snobbish and finally evolves into the kind and loving character which he was at the beginning of the story.
Shades of Dickens' childhood are repeatedly manifested throughout Great Expectations. According to Doris Alexander, Dickens "knew that early circumstances shape character and that character, in turn, shapes reactions to later circumstances" (3). Not coincidentally, then, the novel is initially set in Chatham and the action eventually moves to London, much like Dickens did himself. The "circumstances" that young Pip experiences a...
On the surface, Great Expectations appears to be simply the story of Pip from his early childhood to his early adulthood, and a recollection of the events and people that Pip encounters throughout his life. In other words, it is a well written story of a young man's life growing up in England in the early nineteenth century. At first glance, it may appear this way, an interesting narrative of youth, love, success and failure, all of which are the makings of an entertaining novel. However, Great Expectations is much more. Pip's story is not simply a recollection of the events of his past. The recollection of his past is important in that it is essential in his development throughout the novel, until the very end. The experiences that Pip has as a young boy are important in his maturation into young adulthood.
Firstly, the title of Charles Dickens’ work, Great Expectations, directly suggests the idea of a process of anticipation, maturation, and self-discovery through experience as Pip moves from childhood to adulthood. Charles Dickens begins the development of his character Pip as an innocent, unsophisticated orphan boy. Looking at his parent’s tombstone, Pip draws the conclusion: “the shape of the letters on my father’s gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair” (1). Here, Pip is in a sense self-taught. He does not have much communication with his sister Mrs. Joe Gargery (who adopted him) about the background and history of his parents; in fact, they do not talk much at all about any...
At the start of the novel, Pip is a poor uneducated orphan boy unaware of social classes, or even the existence of such things. As a result, he is content with what he has and who he knows. Moving on in life, he comes across new people from all spectrums of social classes, and his content turns to shame and greed, as he longs to be “better”. All of a sudden Pip becomes ashamed of both his family and his social class. As Pip begins to understand the true meaning of life, his childish attitude does however change. “Pip learns as he grows older, however, that having money and power and being of a higher social class is not necessarily better than having true friends that care about him - even if they are of a lower social class” (Bloom, “Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations” 236). As the aforementioned quote suggests, in the final stages of the story Pip’s mindset changes for the better and Pip is able to give up having the “money and the power” and focuses ...
Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations (1861) has great significance to the plot. The title itself symbolizes prosperity and most importantly ambition. The main character and the protagonist, Pip (Philip Pirrip) was born an orphan and hand-raised by his sister Mrs. Gargery and her husband Joe Gargery. Pip was a young boy when he was threatened by a convict, Magwitch, at his parents’ grave to aid him. Pip nervously agreed to lend him a hand and was haunted day and night of the sin he committed which involved stealing food and tools from his Mr. and Mrs. Gargery’s house. Later on, he is called for at the Satis Manor by a rich woman, Miss Havisham. There he met a beautiful young girl, Estella, to whom Pip falls in love with. The novel being divided into three volumes, Pips great expectations arise soon after visiting the Satis Manor.