Stuart Preece 12SJ 18th March 2003
Essay on the analysis of
Chapter 14 Great Expectations
Chapter fourteen is about Pip and how his views of his home have changed, due to the fact of his meeting with Miss Havisham and Estella.
The first paragraph of the chapter shows the reader of Pip’s shame. He is deeply unhappy that he is no longer content with his background. “It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home.” Pip feels guilty about being ashamed.
The second paragraph explains the good points of Pip’s home life; namely Joe sanctifying the house, and the bad points; they being his sister’s temper. Even, though his sister was violent, Pip believed in his home. The phrase, “I had believed…” occurs frequently throughout the second paragraph. The phrase may have been used by Dickens to emphasise to the reader that all that had once taken place in Pip’s life has now ceased to be. “I had believed in the best parlour as a most elegant saloon.” Now Pip is ashamed of his home, he is also ashamed of his and Joe’s profession. This is compared to what he one thought that “I had believed in the forge as the glowing road to manhood.” Dickens then shows with one sentence, how Pip’s childhood dreams and beliefs could change so quickly, with the quote, “within a single year, all this was changed.” Dickens then subtly shows that the change has taken place because of Estella, when Pip describes the forge and his home as being, “… course and common…” The exact words as usual, by Estella to Pip when they first met, when she insulted him. Dickens then, shows Pip’s shame clearly when Pip’s remarks, “I would not have had Miss Haversham and Estella see it on any account.”
