Who Is Pip's Shadow Parents In Great Expectations By Charles Dickens?

Pip's Shadow Parents in Charles Dickens' Great Expectations

Both Miss Havisham and Magwitch are powerful influences on Pip's life, in a psychological, and to some extent physical, manner. In this essay, I hope to explore these influences, and investigate what affects they have on Pip's development. Naturally, the fact that Pip is an orphan, and never knew his parents, means there is space for characters to come in and exact a definite, parental control. The novel echoes many of Dickens's own life experiences- he had a strained relationship with his parents when they were condemned to imprisonment for debt difficulties. The sense of abandonment and sudden awareness of the fragility of class distinctions

The opening chapter gives the reader a powerful idea of how Pip is suffering from having no identity, as Pip seeks to find his role in an inhospitable world. The windswept, barren place of mud, mist and water provides the perfect setting for a frantic convict to emerge. In his search for his origins, Pip seems to have created "a second father" in Magwitch, who turns him upside down metaphorically as well as literally, and places him on his parents' tombstone. In the short term, the introduction of Magwitch gives Pip a sudden responsibility, which makes him confront the violent methods of discipline employed by Mrs Joe as he steals the food and file. In chapter three, we have an adult reconstruction of a child's experience centred in a child's innocent world. Pip's guilty fears, his concern for the convict and the convict's own self-pity and anger are all well conveyed in this manner. By comparing the click in the convict's throat to the internal workings of a clock-"Something clicked in his throat as if he had works in him like a clock, and was going to strike"-Dickens

Despite the scene being experienced through Pip's viewpoint, Dickens ensures that our sympathies are equally divided between the appalled Pip and the proud, emotional convict. The chapter also reveals the convict's mixed motives. He considers himself Pip's "second father" and wishes to show gratitude for his act of kindness but he also wants to, "own" a gentleman. This is illustrated when Magwitch declares, " 'Yes, Pip, dear boy, I've made a gentleman on you! It's me wot has done it!" The convict is clearly proud that despite having a treacherous, criminal background, he has managed to bring a son-like figure to prosperity. This is emphasised when Magwitch begins to point out Pip's wealthy attributes- "A diamond all set round with rubies; that's a gentleman's, I hope! Look at your linen; fine and beautiful!" He is almost gleeful in his inspection of Pip's riches, and the reader experiences delight similar to that of a father witnessing his flourishing son.

Throughout the novel, until the revealing of his