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    Great Expectation Essay

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    Yinmei Chan
    The document provides an analysis of how Charles Dickens uses themes of crime and conscience to shape the journey of the protagonist Pip in his novel Great Expectations. It discusses how Pip, as a young orphaned boy, commits his first crime by stealing food for an escaped convict named Magwitch. This crime awakens Pip to the harsh realities of the world and leaves him feeling guilt. Later, Pip discovers that Magwitch has become his benefactor and secretly funded his expectations of becoming a gentleman in London, showing Magwitch's transformation from a criminal to a man with good intentions. The document analyzes how Pip's feelings of guilt intensify and how Dickens uses other characters like Orlick to further person

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    Great Expectation Essay

    Uploaded by

    Yinmei Chan
    182 views5 pages
    The document provides an analysis of how Charles Dickens uses themes of crime and conscience to shape the journey of the protagonist Pip in his novel Great Expectations. It discusses how Pip, as a young orphaned boy, commits his first crime by stealing food for an escaped convict named Magwitch. This crime awakens Pip to the harsh realities of the world and leaves him feeling guilt. Later, Pip discovers that Magwitch has become his benefactor and secretly funded his expectations of becoming a gentleman in London, showing Magwitch's transformation from a criminal to a man with good intentions. The document analyzes how Pip's feelings of guilt intensify and how Dickens uses other characters like Orlick to further person

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    The document provides an analysis of how Charles Dickens uses themes of crime and conscience to shape the journey of the protagonist Pip in his novel Great Expectations. It discusses how Pip, as a young orphaned boy, commits his first crime by stealing food for an escaped convict named Magwitch. This crime awakens Pip to the harsh realities of the world and leaves him feeling guilt. Later, Pip discovers that Magwitch has become his benefactor and secretly funded his expectations of becoming a gentleman in London, showing Magwitch's transformation from a criminal to a man with good intentions. The document analyzes how Pip's feelings of guilt intensify and how Dickens uses other characters like Orlick to further person

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    182 views5 pages

    Great Expectation Essay

    Uploaded by

    Yinmei Chan
    The document provides an analysis of how Charles Dickens uses themes of crime and conscience to shape the journey of the protagonist Pip in his novel Great Expectations. It discusses how Pip, as a young orphaned boy, commits his first crime by stealing food for an escaped convict named Magwitch. This crime awakens Pip to the harsh realities of the world and leaves him feeling guilt. Later, Pip discovers that Magwitch has become his benefactor and secretly funded his expectations of becoming a gentleman in London, showing Magwitch's transformation from a criminal to a man with good intentions. The document analyzes how Pip's feelings of guilt intensify and how Dickens uses other characters like Orlick to further person

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    Yin Mei Chan Gardner Hon.

    English 10 1 5 March 2014 Rough Draft How does Dickens's constant use of crime and conscience shape Pip's journey as he ventures into the real-world in search of an opportunity to become a gentleman? Written approximately a year after the publication of Charles Darwin's theory of human development, the Victorian novel, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, closely relates to Darwin's proposal of nature versus nurture: a highly controversial notion which arose in the late 1800s. Nature versus nurture referred to the belief that one's personality is malleable and can be altered by a better or worse childhood environment. From the character's "infant"(Dickens 1) to "gentleman"(128) mind, Dickens explicates the influence and relationship of childhood crime and conscience in regards to protagonist Philip Pirrip's, or simply, Pip's, future persona. Pip undergoes obstacles concerning criminality and a guilty conscience as he discovers his adolescent-self venturing into the real-world in search of a suitable life as a gentleman. In the earliest chapters of the criminally satiric novel, Pip is faced with a decision that may cost him his unadulterated conscience, or more severely so, his life. Pip, an orphan living with his sister, Mrs. Joe Gargary and her husband, a black smith, Mr. Joe Gargary, mourns the death of his family in a nearby churchyard as he is approached by "a fearful man, all in coarse grey" (2). The man, an escaped prisoner, later introduced as Magwitch, holds Pip "in an upright

    position"(4) and demands a "file and them wittles" (4) by "to-morrow morning" (4) in return for sparing his life. As Pip heads home after interacting with Magwitch, Pip encounters a "dreadful thing" (10)his conscience. Knowing he must fulfill the convict's wishes by "rob[bing] Mrs. Joe"(10) of her homemade pork pot pie, Pip feels uneasy with the "guilty knowledge"(10) of his own anticipated actions, calling the ridicule of his conscience a "great punishment" (10). Because Pip is still young and only "wanting to be a gentleman,"(128), his conscience had remained pure, as it has not yet encountered the harsh reality of the outside world. After committing his first crimerobbing Mrs. Joe of her Christmas Eve pot pie he is, in some ways, awakened by the misconducts associated with the real-world, even stating that after his interaction with Magwitch, he is "afraid to sleep"(13). Young Pip is nonetheless set on saving his own life; although he does not disregard his innocence and conscience, he prioritizes his survival; thus entangling himself with reality for the first time.

    Surprisingly, Pip's lawlessness as a mere adolescent will propel his future in the direction of his dream: becoming a gentleman. Now an adult, Pip manages to find employment in London in order to fulfill his great expectations; however, he is working under the sponsorship of an unknown benefactor. Unpredictably, Magwitch reveals himself to be the man supporting Pip's new life in London: "I'm your second father. You're my sonmore to me nor any son. I've put away money, only for you to spend" (321). Though now a man with good intentions who has worked as a "sheep-farmer"(318) and "stock breeder"(318) in order to "make a gentleman"(320) out of Pip, Magwitch continues to live as an escaped convict, who consequently is running from the police. Pip endures emotional guilt and regret as he acknowledges Magwitch had "risked his life to come to [him]"(323). Since his infant years, Pip has seen Magwitch as "the wretched man"

    (323); however, now aware of Magwitch's sacrifices, Pip feels sorrowful for the horrid assumptions of his persona

    Aside from literal criminalistics acts, emotional crime is vital to Pip's development as a

    1. The run-away prisoner, Magwitch, has "put away money, only for [Pip] to spend" (321) with the hopes that Pip will be able to live happily, with no debt and a gentleman. What does this say about the transformation of Magwitch's criminality? Should he still be seen as a man of misconduct and be looked down upon?

    Pip can't escape the guilt...


    While Pip is in London working on fulfilling his great expectations, he attempts to forget his past and leave his guilty youth behind. Whenever he returns home to the country, he stays in the inn, visits Miss Havisham, and returns home to London. He doesnt ever go to visit the forge or any of the people connected with his past. He believes that Miss Havisham is his benefactor, so he returns only to visit this woman who supposedly gave him his new life. However, Joe goes to London to visit Pip, which Pip has no control over. When Joe arrives, Pip is cruel to him, the only man who has ever been true to him and wanted the best for him with nothing expected in return. He treats Joe like a low class, stupid child. After Joe has left, Pip realizes that he should have treated Joe better. He feels guilty once again. Dickens accentuates Pips guilt in London in the scene where Wemmick takes Pip into Newgate Prison. Pip goes into the prison with Wemmick to pass the time while he waits for Estella to arrive on the coach. When he comes out of the prison he is covered with dust. He tries to shake it off, but finds that this is almost an impossible task. He gets the feeling that convict is a part of his grainthat it is born into him, arising out of the marshes of his childhood the primordial slime and pervades every aspect of his life. No amount of shaking and exhaling and beating will ever cleanse him of the despised, primitive degenerate part of himself (Morgentaler 6).

    A close up of my tattered copy of the novel. Source: photo taken by Donna Hilbrandt (donnah75)

    Orlick: Pip's Guilt Personified?


    Most of the characters contribute to Pips feelings of guilt in some way, such as Mrs. Joe, Jaggers, and Magwitch as explained above. Dickens also created Orlick for this purpose. Orlick seems to shadow Pip throughout the novel, symbolizing the guilt that shadows Pip. He works with Joe in the forge throughout Pips childhood and short apprenticeship. He is in love with Biddy, who has come to live in the Gargery household to take care of Mrs. Joe. Pip and Biddy have a rather close relationship, which Orlick is quite jealous of. Orlick lurks in the shadows and listens to conversations between Pip and Biddy. During one of Pips visits to Miss Havisham, Orlick is present as the gate man of Satis House. He seems to be everywhere that Pip goes. In the end the reader finds out that Orlick is definitely the person who attacked Mrs. Joe. He hit her over the head with the leg iron that Magwitch filed off using the file that Pip stole from the forge. The use of the leg iron as a weapon seems to implicate Pip as an unknowing accomplice. This knowledge, which Pip acquires after Orlick has taken Pip hostage, intensifies Pips evergrowing guilt. Many critics believe that even though Pip didnt knowingly contribute to Mrs. Joes demise, he wanted it to happen. He wanted revenge on Mrs. Joe for all of the guilt she made him feel as a child, and Orlick fulfilled [this] function by executing Pips unacknowledged fantasies of violent revenge (Trotter x).

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    Pips feelings of guilt come to a climax when Magwitch enters his life for a second time. When Magwitch returns, Pip is forced to face the reality of his new life. He finally finds out that his benefactor is not Miss Havisham but Magwitch. Added to his feelings of loss and guilt is the task[of replacing] a fairy godmother by an escaped convict; orthe world of desire by the world of guilt (Trotter x). Pip realizes that Magwitch has provided for him without asking for anything in return. When he believed that Miss Havisham was his benefactor, he thought that he was part of a grand plan that would end in his marrying Estella and keeping her away from the life Miss Havisham has led in isolation. It was difficult for Pip to understand why Magwitch would work so hard to make him a gentleman. Pip was scared of Magwitch and he wanted to get as far away from him as possible at first. However in the end, Pip realized that even though Magwitch had committed many crimes, he was a good man at heart. He grew to love this man who was his second father (Dickens 320). Dickens places Pip in a world layered with guilt in Great Expectations to show the reader the effect that environment has on development. The reader watches Pips journey through a life that began with an uneducated boy in a blacksmiths forge and ended with a man who had become a true gentleman. By making Pip a gentleman with a convict as his benefactor, Great Expectations maintains that the upper-class world of the gentleman is implicated in the criminal domain of the underclass, and that the relationship between the two, far from being mutually exclusive, is redolent of complicity and interdependence (Morgentaler 4). Through his journey Pip learns that in this interdependent world a true gentleman is not found by climbing up the social ladder but by looking into a persons heart. Through Pips development in a world of guilt, Dickens shows the reader that the issues of a young mans rise or fall are conceived as a drama of the individual conscience; enlightenment (partial or best) is to be found only in the agony of personal guilt (Stange 112). Written by Donna Hilbrandt.

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