Pip's Desire to be a Gentleman

Great Expectations - Why was Pip's desire to be a gentleman bound up

with winning the love of Estella?

In the book Great Expectations Pip has a great desire to become a

gentleman. During the times during which the book was set, in the

1800's, a gentleman was someone who was rich, well-spoken and had a

good number of contacts in important places. They were the envy of the

poor, because the gentlemen looked down upon them, believing

themselves to be better.

In the book I believe that Charles Dickens put this want of Pip's to

become a gentleman because it was not dissimilar to his own life.

Charles Dickens was moved to Camden Town, London from Chatham at the

age of ten and his father was imprisoned on the charge of debt. This

would have made Dickens feel like an outcast from a young age because

he was poor. He would have looked up to gentlemen, wishing he was one,

just as Pip does in his early years. At the age of 12 Dickens was

removed from school to work at a boot-blacking factory to help support

the family. He later wrote that he wondered 'how I could have been so

easily cast away at such an age'. These feelings of poverty and

abandonment show through the novel of Great Expectations. Pip was poor

and had a desire to be a gentleman, just as Charles Dickens would

have.

Pip's first meeting with Estella is when he comes to Miss. Havisham's

house, in Chapter 8, 'to play'. She opens the gate to him and Mr.

Pumblechook and she immediately starts to look down upon him by

referring to him as "Boy". He reciprocates this manner of speaking by

calling her "Miss". She has already made an impression on Pip within

seconds of meeting him as he says when she opens the gate that she was

"very pretty and seemed very...

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...en the cause of them."

Throughout the chapter Estella has mocked and scorned Pip, and treated

like a 'dog in disgrace'. Yet he is still overcome by his feelings for

her. They are so strong that he fells he has to kick them out of him:

"I got rid of my injured feelings for the time by kicking them into

the brewery wall and twisting them out of my hair". He is forced to go

through so much for Estella without her even knowing it, and yet he

still wants to live up to her standards.

This is the main reason why Pip so badly wants to be a gentleman so

that he feels that he is reasonable for Estella. And that she will at

least respect him in some way because they will be equal in stature.

Pip's desire to be a gentleman is greatly to do with winning the love

of Estella, because he believes that if he is a gentleman he will have

more chance of winning her love.