She hates the fact that she is just a “blacksmith’s wife” and being forced to look after Pip. She probably wants to lead a good life in upper class England. Thus threatening Pip, when she says:
And he had better play there,”…
“or I’ll work him.”
She threatens Pip to behave, obviously hoping for a sum of Miss Havisham’s large fortune.
Mrs Joe Gargery is purposely made to be violent and despised by the reader. What makes you hate her at first is the nasty weapon, “Tickler”. Which does not tickle as it is a “wax-ended cane”. Mrs Joe uses it to enforce her “rules” to Pip and even Joe. Joe and Pip even call her states of rage as the “Ram-Page, the “Ram” which is a male sheep which is very violent. This is all an example of Dickens’ misogyny- portraying women in lower classes as violent and a burden.
Towards the end or “Part 1” in the novel, Mrs Joe is violently, brutally and shamelessly attacked by Orlick. The reader feels little positive feelings towards her near-death. We are later shocked at the new positive outlook on life and new “friendship” with Orlick – after their row at the forge.
This relates to Estella’s horrible marriage where she mentions, “I have been bent and broken but- I hope – into a better shape,” meaning that she has been physically wounded but emotionally open to her wrongs in life which is the same as Mrs Joe.
Biddy is one of the only characters that the reader can completely sympathize with; she earns our utmost respect through her kindness and support towards Pip, Joe and Mrs Joe. She is modest and the idealised version of womanhood in Victorian England. Our first impressions of Biddy are a ‘scruffy,’ well-learnt girl, she grows throughout the novel in smaller ways to the other three characters. Her main role in “Great Expectations” is that of a facilitator, to let men ‘command’ them, such as Mrs Joe was supposed to.
Biddy is a distant relative of Mr Wopsle; a family friend of the Gargery’s, her Great-Aunt holds a tuition class for the less fortunate children of the neighbourhood. However, she is old and senile so all she does is stay awake for a few minutes, which during this time the children play with themselves, and when she sleeps Biddy teaches the neighbourhood children the words and letters. Young Pip often refers to Biddy as his ‘first teacher.’
Biddy’s main change in “Great Expectations” is when her Great-Aunt dies just after Mrs Joe was brutally attacked with a leg-iron; she is then allowed to care for Mrs Joe for the Gargery’s. She cares for Mrs Joe until she dies a few years later. By doing this she allows Joe a life in some way, as she cared for Mrs Joe. She later provides Joe with an heir, which Mrs Joe seemed incapable of. Her baby child named after Pip to show the Gargery’s love for him.
Biddy is used to show the reader of Pip’s rapidly growing lust for Estella and beginning discontent for this honest job at the forge. More proof that she is a facilitator is that Pip turns to Biddy for help for a better education so he can impress Estella. The reader gets a taste of his desperation and Biddy offers some great advice, but reluctantly agrees to help. She is pleased Pip has confidence in her.
Joe Gargery obviously finds her as a wife he never had, “a blessing to the house,” says Joe, glad he is not abused by Mrs Joe, and extremely happy with his new-born daughter. Biddy helps Joe and Pip in many ways, such as teaching them both to read and write. When Joe couldn’t write she wrote letters on his behalf.
Biddy is used as a social conscience in “Great Expectations,” empathising that Pip has forgotten his roots and how he has abandoned Joe and Mrs Joe snobbishly to live an expensive and luxurious life in London, without even visiting the Gargery’s often. In chapter thirty-five, Biddy reminds Pip slowly about Joe:
By degrees she led me into more temperate talk, and she told me how Joe loved me, and how Joe never complained of anything,—she didn’t say, of me; she had no need; I knew what she meant,—but ever did his duty in his way of life, with a strong hand, a quiet tongue, and a gentle heart.
Chapter 35, Page 262
She reminds Pip that Joe has always been thinking about him and so on, she is married to Joe at that time and is doing her ‘duty’ towards him as a housewife. This conversation changes how the reader feels towards Pip and sees what social life is doing towards him, even Biddy and Joe Gargery sees how much he has changed so thus calling him “Mr Pip,” instead of just Pip.
Estella in “Great Expectations” is a seemingly cold and heartless abuser, when in fact she is also a victim. She is the same age as Pip and Biddy so Dickens can easily compare how they change over the course of the novel, the three have similar abusive childhoods, Pip and Biddy being brought up ‘by hand’ and Estella mentally scarred by Miss Havisham during her rough childhood in Satis House. The difference between Estella and Pip is that Estella has no supportive figure in her life whereas Pip has Joe for company.
Estella means ‘Star’ in Spanish, this symbolises that she is an unreachable ‘goal’ for Pip, and that she is cold, distant and for older Pip, unable to survive without. Many admire her beauty and go after her, such and Pip, Drummle and many others. In Satis house she often carries a candle to empathise she is like a star in the darkness, and that there is a little spark of kindness in her.
When we first meet Estella she says:
“One more. Its other name was Satis; which is Greek, or Latin, or Hebrew, or all three—or all one to me—for enough.”
Chapter 8, page 53
Which is ironic as Satis means ‘Enough’ and that she has also had enough of the house. This shows that she has had unpleasant memories in Satis House, showing she also has an abusive childhood. Later she proves that she is dissatisfied with Satis House when she says:
“They must have been easily satisfied in those days, I should think”
Chapter 8, page 53
Miss Havisham makes a shocking debut in the novel, when the reader finds out she is rich, we expect her to be look like a queen compared to Pip, but she shocks everyone when narrator Pip describes her appearance:
Whether I should have made out this object so soon if there had been no fine lady sitting at it, I cannot say. In an arm-chair, with an elbow resting on the table and her head leaning on that hand, sat the strangest lady I have ever seen, or shall ever see.
“She was dressed in rich materials,—satins, and lace, and silks, — all of white. … and that the figure upon which it now hung loose had shrunk to skin and bone.”
Chapter 8, Page 55
At first when it is said, “she was dressed in rich materials,” we expect her to be lavishly dressed in expensive, new clothes whereas in reality she is in fact wearing a crippled old, decaying wedding dress, which could be described as Miss Havisham herself. The deathly description portrays an eccentric, rich old lady living as if she is poverty-stricken. This description sparks mysterious questions. Why is she wearing a wedding dress? Which should be associated as a happy item of clothing, yet it is worn by a decaying “beast”? And why are all her clocks fixed at the time 8:40?
During Pip’s conversation with Miss Havisham we see that she is extremely unhappy, when she says “The days have worn away,” it also hints at her living in Satis manor for a very long time. The insects eating Miss Havisham’s birthday cake symbolises decay and death.
When Pip is talking to Herbert, we discover what truly happened in Miss Havisham’s distant past. This alters the reader’s perception of Miss Havisham and lets us truly understand what happened to her, so we can feel sorry for her. We see her as a victim of society and her evil brother and Compeyson. However she channelled her rage and depression in a bad way. She is also the aggressor who has mentally scarred Estella.
We wee that Estella is not that damaged where she tries to warn Pip “off” her:
“Oh! I have a heart to be stabbed in or shot in…
I have no softness there, no- sympathy- sentiment- nonsense”
Chapter 29, Page 218-219
However it is ironic, because by warning Pip, she is proving that she is fact has a heart. We also see Miss Havisham’s twisted view of love:
“’what real love is. It is blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the whole world, giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter- as I did.”
Chapter 29, Page 221
She is describing what happened to her years ago when she was left by Compeyson on the isle and humiliated by the Pockets and society.
Pip witnesses Estella and Miss Havisham just after midway in the novel:
“‘What!’ said Miss Havisham, flashing her eyes upon it, ‘are you tired of me?’…
You would have been disappointed and angry?’”
Chapter 38, Lines 279-281
They confront each other, while Miss Havisham furiously shouts Estella replies shortly and realistically. Estella confronts her that Miss Havisham “made” her into a cold spiteful woman who was meant to “wreak vengeance on all male sex.” Miss Havisham expected Estella to be cruel and cold to everybody except her.
Estella’s marriage to Drummle is a sort of self-loathing, similar to Mrs Joe. Estella could have just stopped caring. Wanted to hurt Miss Havisham, as she wanted Estella to forever hurt men, or to try and stop Pip from pursuing her.
Miss Havisham finally regrets all her wrong doings, “what have I done?” She is a victim of society like all other women. Pip doesn’t believe her and walks away, when he hears her scream he thinks that she is having a fit when she is actually fatally injured by a fire. Pip tries to rescue her but it is too late. The fire symbolises rebirth and retribution.
Estella has a dreadful marriage with Drummle and is divorce when he finds out about her low status by birth despite her enormous wealth, showing how Victorian England acted in those times and how important a person’s birthright was. The irony is that she always called Pip, “Boy,” “course” and behaved like a queen towards Pip, whereas by birth Pip was a higher status than her and she were from the lowest of all. Her father, a criminal and her mother, a servant.