More handpicked essays just for you.
Pips moral development in great expectations
Pips moral development in great expectations
Pips moral development in great expectations
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Pips moral development in great expectations
Great Expectations is a comprehensive novel written by Charles Dickens and shows a moral development of a child. Pip, the main character in the story, is a young orphaned child that lives with his sister and her husband, Joe. He is raised and spends his childhood in the area with Joe, his acquaintance. On a special day, Uncle Pumblechook takes Pip to go play at Miss Havisham’s house. Miss Havisham is very eccentric as she keeps all the clocks in her house kept at the same time and still wears her old wedding dress. This is the beginning of Pip’s life adventure. At the house, Pip meets Estella, who is very mean to him, but he instantly falls in love with her. Pip hopes to be able to marry Estella until Miss Havisham tells Pip to fill out papers to become a common household laborer. All of a sudden, Pip’s laywer comes to him and tells him an anonymous person has left Pip a fortune and needs him to go to London to learn how to be a mannered adult. Pip originally thinks the mastermind is Miss Havisham until he later finds out the it's the convict (Magwitch) that he had helped out way...
As a young child living in England’s marshes, Pip was a humble, kind, and gentle character. He lived an impoverished life with his sister, Mrs. Joe, and her husband, Joe Gargery, the neighborhood blacksmith. Pip was grateful for everything he had, including his few possessions and his family’s care. When he was offered the chance to play at The Satis House, the home of the wealthy Miss Havisham, Pip went in order to make his family happy.
The three-part series of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, uses impassioned imagery to draw a mental and physical picture for the audience. Every setting in Dickens’s book discloses more about Pip than the last one. In a way, Pip’s surroundings bring out different attributes in him, affecting him direct or indirectly. No single setting does this book justice, more or less a collage of environments that determine the outcome of Pip’s story. The author exercises the setting to his advantage in more than one way, utilizing the ambiance as symbolism with the novel’s theme. Charles Dickens writes Great Expectations with bounteous contrasts and similarities such as social confinement, the environment, and perception in the northern Kent marshes
The protagonist of Great Expectations is Pip. At the beginning of the novel, Pip (whose real name is Phillip Pirrip) is young, shy, and timid. He lives with his sister and her husband, Joe. They live in Kent, England, in a small, marshy area. Pip falls in love with Estella, who is a young girl who is incredibly immoral and rude. Pip seems hard on himself, if he does something wrong, he has a hard time forgiving himself. He always tells himself that he needs to improve his behavior, because he sometimes treats his close friends coldly. There is not one antagonist in this novel. There are different characters at different times that caused some sort of grief towards Pip. Many characters change and some that seem bad at first, like Abel Magwitch, turn out to be good in the end. There are many other major characters in Great Expectations besides Pip. Joe Gargery is a gentle blacksmith and is a good friend of Pip. He is uneducated and embarrasses Pip at times. Joe was still kind and took care of Pip even after he was treated with ruthlessness. Herbert Pocket is introduced towards the beginning of Great Expectations...
I have chosen to look at how the relationship of Pip and Magwitch develops during the novel. I have chosen 3 key scenes in which Magwitch and pip meet and I will look at how each is portrayed in terms of character, development, setting and the messages or morals that dickens is trying to convey.
The first time Pip acknowledges the thought that him and Estella are not meant to be together is when he came to know that Magwitch is his benefactor, not Miss Havisham. Pip finds out knows that it was never intended for him to marry Estella and that it was just his interpretation of the situation. The final realization is when Estella announces that she will be marrying Drummle. This adds to Pip’s fading hope of a relationship with Estella as she tells him that she does not want to be with him. After Pip confesses his feeling to Estella one last time, he feels guilty because of the way he treated others. While Pip sacrifices his feelings for Estella he realizes just how badly he treated the ones he loved. Rawlins recognized Pip’s guilt when he states, “Pip’s sense of guilt is then awareness of his own sin, and moves him to reformations” (Rawlins 667). Pip starts to feel guilty for his treatment towards others, especially Joe. After this realization, Pip tries to make amends with loved ones: “Joe stayed with me, and I fancied I was little Pip again” (Dickens 497). The fact that being with Joe after they reconcile brings back old memories that makes Pip happier. Pip further emphasizes his happiness when he describes the place him and Joe go to think about memories: “and when I looked on the loveliness around me, and thought how it had grown and changed” (Dickens 498). At this time, Pip is happy and content with
Estella is the main incident in Pip’s life that ultimately leads to his obnoxious and contemptible behavior in the future. This is because of his love for her, even after their first encounter he describes Estella as “very pretty” yet “very insulting”. Unperturbed by this description, Estella continues her disgraceful treatment of the young and impressionable boy when she feeds, and treats him as if he were an animal, continuing to address him like an animal, she does not bother to learn his name, still referring to as boy.
Great Expectations is essentially a novel of the education of a young man in the lesson of life. Pip is analyzing himself through his memories and from the point of view of maturity (“Charles Dickens” 1).
In Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, the main character Pip shows many signs of several psychological disorders such as anxiety, post traumatic stress disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder. Great Expectations is about the journey of a poor, abused boy named Pip who lost his family except for his sister. Pip’s sister and sister's husband raise Pip as their own. As a child Pip is go to the Havisham residence which was occupied by the one and only evil, Ms. Havisham. She is an old woman who hasn't seen the light of day in years and has a hatred for men, because she was left at the alter. She continues to wear her wedding dress to this day. Pip is there to play with Ms. Havisham's adopted daughter Estella, who is a man hater in training.
In order to make more money Pip’s uncle sends Pip to a psychotic old lady’s house named Mrs. Havisham. Mrs. Havisham is a mean and nasty character who constantly bickers at Pip and tells him of his unimportance. Pip continues to be mild mannered and respectful to Mrs. Havisham yet he begins to see that he will never get ahead in life just being nice. Mrs. Havisham uses Pip as sort of a guinea pig to take out her passion of revenge against men. She does this by using her daughter, Estella to torment Pip.
There are so many important characters in this book that it would take me longer to describe the characters and there importance than it would to summarize the book. So I will keep it to a minimum with just a few crucial people. First there is Pip he is the main character in this book. When he was very young his parents died and know he is raised by his sister and her husband Joe Pip is a very innocent and caring person who wants to have a greater fate than the one presently owned. But is burdened by the fact that he lives in poverty. Next there is Mrs. Joe who raised Pip but is very mean to him and controlling of everyone in her house. Then Joe he is the person that gives Pip help. They play games and explain a lot of things to Pip he is about the only nice person in Pips life. Mrs. Havasham she lets Pip come over to her house and is very wealthy and the people around him think that she will raise him to be a gentleman. But hates men and never changes out of her wedding dress. She also has a daughter named Estella that was adopted and is very beautiful. But is being raised to hate men as well and is using her looks to break there hearts. Magwitch escapes from prison at the beginning of Great Expectations and terrorizes Pip in the cemetery. But out of Kindness Pip still bring the man what he asks for. Pip's kindness, however, makes a deep impression on him, and he subsequently devotes himself to making a fortune and using it to elevate Pip into a higher social class. Herbert pocket who is a good friend of Pip's and gives him advice throughout the book.
"I must entreat you to pause for an instant, and go back to what you know of my childish days, and to ask yourself whether it is natural that something of the character formed in me then" - Charles Dickens
Appropriately, the characters who bring about Pip's "expectations" play an integral part in his life; they influence him and shape his development throughout the novel. Firstly, Miss Havisham's was a significant impact on Pip's life. It is at Satis house, her strange, decaying mansion, that he initially comes into contact with the upper class life for which he later aspires. As his first contact with a wealthy person, Miss Havisham prompts Pip to try and better himself financially. She also, indirectly, pressures Pip into changing through her influence over Estella. Estella's cruel behaviour towards Pip is the direct result of Miss Havisham's teachings. Embittered by her own broken engagement, Miss Havisham taught the girl to be cruel to men, so she learned to "break their hearts and have no mercy!" (Dickens, 108). Thus, the beautiful Estella's cold reaction to Pip and the way she patronizes him are major reasons why he felt the need to change. It was she who convinced him that he was "in a low-lived bad way" (75) and needed to heighten his social status in order to be worthy of her notice. The impact of Miss Havisham's financial splendor and indirect cruelty make her a crucial instigator of change in Pip.
Pip, in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, is an idealist. Whenever he envisions something greater than what he already has, he passionately desires to obtain the improvement and better himself. In the Victorian Era, as an underprivileged orphan though, dreams are often easier dreamt than accomplished. Pip however, has an instinctive ambitious drive. His unstoppable willpower, plus the benefit of a benefactor, elevates him from the bottom, to the top of the social, educational, and moral food chain in the Victorian Era.
Throughout Dickens’ novel Great Expectations, the character, personality, and social beliefs of Pip undergo complete transformations as he interacts with an ever-changing pool of characters presented in the book. Pip’s moral values remain more or less constant at the beginning and the end; however, it is evident that in the time between, the years of his maturation and coming of adulthood, he is fledgling to find his place in society. Although Pip is influenced by many characters throughout the novel, his two most influential role models are: Estella, the object of Miss Havisham’s revenge against men, and Magwitch, the benevolent convict. Exposing himself to such diverse characters Pip has to learn to discern right from wrong and chose role models who are worthy of the title.
Expectations for Pip are fortune and the desire to become a gentleman as he discusses with Biddy, his private tutor: “I want to be a gentleman on her account” (Dickens, 117). Estella, albeit her bitter attitude towards Pip, changes his view that results in him longing to become a gentleman. His approach in becoming a gentleman is becoming apprenticed to his brother-in-law, the blacksmith. His initial stage of expectations is from Mr. Jaggers, Miss Havisham’s lawyer. The lawyer’s deliberately informs Pip “that he will come into a handsome property…be brought up as a young gentleman” (Dickens, 125). On hearing Mr. Jaggers, Pip was both astonished and excited because he yearned for such status. When Mr. Jaggers explained of Pip’s great amount fortune and significance, he automatically assumed his benefactor to be Miss Havisham. In his first expectation, Pip is to be professionally educated by Mr. Pocket,...