The Little Big Man in Great Expectations
Many people grow small trying to grow big. This idea appears prominently throughout the novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. This critical lens means that as a person tries to better them self, that have to be careful to be true to their values or they will become what they despise. This is a story about a boy who falls in love with a girl from a higher class. It seems as if these two could never really be together. Yet by some turn of events he gets a chance to rise to her status but there are many complications.
In the beginning Pip, the main character, is happy and very content with his life. He is kind, caring, polite, generous, and companionate. Then everything changes when he meets Estella. She makes Pip miserable. She taunts and belittles him by making fun of his appearance and calling him "common." All the while, she is leading him on to make him suffer even more. Despite all this Pip, obsesses over Estella. It disturbs him the most to think that he and Estella could never be together as partners. For the first time he is dissatisfied with his life.
After a year, Pip leaves to become a blacksmith, at the forge. To make matters worse, Estella leaves town for London so that she can learn to be a lady. With this separation always on his mind, Pip tries to go back to living his normal life; but he can't get the idea out of his head that he is a simpleton and that he is going to lead an insignificant life.
Years later through some strange twist of fate, Pip becomes endowed with "great expectations" and is given an opportunity to go to London. Since Pip wanted to win Estella, he decides to make himself a gentleman. He thinks that this choice will make him important or big but that is far from the truth. Pip leaves his home and family where he once was taught about hard work, trust, truth, and love. He realizes later that the things he had learned discredit his idea that being a gentleman makes him more significant. This decision causes Pip's life to cascade downward.
In London he is given more money than he can handle along with a room and roommate. He then learns that a vengeful woman who raised Estella never taught her to love. This only encourages Pip with more false hope because he now knows that Estella never actually hated him.
Instead of getting an education for work Pip is trained to be only a gentleman, which will be his downfall later in life. As he blends into this society of greed he starts to ignore the existence of his family so much that he stops communicating with them. One day Pip is presented with a fortune but through some terrible times he gives it all up and is left with nothing but sickness and debt.
Pip, at the start of the book, has a strong conscience and sense of right and wrong. However, later in the story Pip becomes a beneficiary of great wealth, but the effects of society's values are seen in him. He was once so happy with his family but now he was ashamed to know them. His London experiences taught him that the way a person achieves significance or importance was to increase their wealth and status, no matter what their actions may cause. In short Pip became what he did not want to be, small.
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