Three Stages of Pip's Expectations in Jane Austen's Great Expectations

Three Stages of Pip's Expectations in Jane Austen's Great Expectations

When Pip was a child, he was a contented young boy. He wanted to grow

up to be apprenticed to Joe and "had believed the forge as the glowing

road to manhood." He was a very sensitive child and afraid of doing

something wrong this was shown when his guilty conscience along with

his imagination haunted him with images of him being caught after he

stole food for the convict. His fear of doing wrong was made clear

when he referred to the time they took to discover the stolen items as

"prolonging my misery." The way his conscience had to wrestle with the

idea that he had done a good deed showed insecurity as well as being

afraid of doing wrong. He was an insecure child and would do anything

but lose Joe's love such as when he would not tell Joe about the

stolen file.

"The fear of losing Joe's confidence, and thenceforth sitting in the

chimney-corner at night, staring drearily at my forever lost companion

and friend, tied up my tongue."

After visiting Miss Havisham's and meeting Estella, Pip began to think

about things he would not before. Estella insults him about his thick

boots and coarse hands, before he would not have even thought that he

had had thick boots let alone the fact that it was a bad thing. Pip

became upset by the fact that he was ignorant and inadequate. He was

ashamed of being a common labouring boy and he now thought everything

to be coarse and common. As Estella looked down upon him, he did to,

however Estella was attractive, and he confessed "She's more beautiful

than anybody ever was, and I admire her dreadfully, and I want to be a

gentleman on her account." This was the cause of his new discontented

disposition and so he looked down on things and people that prevented

him becoming a gentleman, and even started to feel "disaffection to

Joe and the forge." He begins to despise the things that kept him at