Pip's Role Of Identity In Great Expectations By Charles Dickens

From the very roots of the novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, the main character, Pip, is greatly influenced by the identities that those around him expect him to take on, and by the expectations Pip has for himself. During the course of the novel, this was expressed by various symbols representing the many identities impressed on Pip during his childhood. From his unorthodox role of a “son” by many family, friends and people claiming to guard him, to societies opinion of him as both a boy and a gentleman, Pip takes on the responsibility of the many expectations that his class-oriented society imprints upon him as a young boy with ambitions.
Pip must constantly reconsider the value of his different identities to choose what he wants to live with. There’s an obsession with identity in the novel, and a confusing relationship between the chosen identity of the characters and the identity haunted by a characters past and social status. For example, Pips

The exceptions are both Joe and Mr. Pocket. Though Pip 's dream of gentility separates him from Joe, Joe is one of the only characters that has a positive influence on Pip. Pip fulfills his duties as a blacksmith’s apprentice because of Joe 's uprightness and commitment, just as later Pip takes his studies seriously because of Pocket 's integrity and commitment as a teacher. When his dream of being converted into a gentleman is about to come true, Pip has the loneliest night he’s ever experienced. When Pip leaves for London, he cries when he looks at the signpost, which is an obvious symbol for Pip 's future, “Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried than before–more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle. If I had cried before, I should have had Joe with me then”