Describe Pip’s encounters with Miss Havisham and Estella, and show how the meetings affect his character and his relationships.
Describe Pip's encounters with Miss Havisham and Estella, and show how the meetings affect his character and his relationships.
Puneet Khandelwal
At the start of the novel, Pip is an innocent boy who has been brought up to respect his elders and betters. He is a kind-hearted child as is seen in the episode in which he brings the convict the file and the food. He is also rather gullible and really believes that a terrible man will tear his liver out while he sleeps unless he does as he has been told. This gullibility can be seen again when he visits Miss Havisham's house, for the first time, and is taken in by the charms of Estella.
Pip first meets Miss Havisham when he goes to Satis House, to play. He sees her sitting in the candle lit room in her wedding dress and jewelry, sitting next to her dressing table. His first impression of her was that "she was the strangest lady I have ever seen, or shall ever see." He is shocked by what he sees and thinks of her as a "ghastly waxwork." He was "half afraid" and in an "uncomfortable state," during this meeting. Pip is told to play, by Miss Havisham, but Pip finds this rather difficult in the gloomy surroundings. Estella is sent for to play with Pip. Estella plays a game of cards with Pip, and during this she humiliates him. Estella insults Pip by calling him "a boy" when in actual fact they are both the same ages. Estella does this time and time again and Pip felt very stupid and clumsy after he dropped the cards while dealing them. While playing at cards, she comments on Pip being "common" and that he "calls Knaves, Jacks, this boy." Pip feels very nervous after this humiliation.
Pip meets both Miss Havisham and Estella, again, six days later when he is told to explore the grounds of Satis House. Pip feels himself inferior of the lower status because Estella orders him, "you are to stand there, boy, till you are wanted." Then Estella makes him say that she is "very pretty" and then she asks him if she is insulting but suddenly slaps him around the face and calls him a "little coarse monster," which adds further insult to Pip. She then calls him "a boy" again in front of the other people who are ...
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Pip meets both Miss Havisham and Estella, again, six days later when he is told to explore the grounds of Satis House. Pip feels himself inferior of the lower status because Estella orders him, "you are to stand there, boy, till you are wanted." Then Estella makes him say that she is "very pretty" and then she asks him if she is insulting but suddenly slaps him around the face and calls him a "little coarse monster," which adds further insult to Pip. She then calls him "a boy" again in front of the other people who are also in the room. By this time Pip can no longer stand up for himself.
After a few years, when Pip is a little older, he is apprenticed to Joe. Pip's sister and Joe's wife, Mrs. Joe, is attacked by an unknown person, and so due to her disability, Biddy joins the household to help out. He visits Miss Havisham as usual but on one of these visits he finds that Estella has gone abroad to be educated. Pip is upset at this news because he started to like Estella quite a lot but he also thinks that Biddy is growing up into a "rather attractive woman," and is quite fond of her. When he is told, by Jaggers, that Pip has inherited a "handsome property," Pip immediately thinks that the "handsome property" is Satis House. He is also told that he must begin his education in London right away. Pip's attitude to Joe and Biddy completely changes now and he begins to think himself as being a gentleman, something that he is not. He begins to speak highly of himself and talks down at Joe and Biddy. He is insulting to Biddy because he says; "you are envious, Biddy, and grudging. You are dissatisfied on account of my rise in fortune and can't help showing it..." Biddy takes as a huge insult. He is rude to Biddy because he compares her to Estella. He also talks down to Joe, "It's a pity now, Joe," said I, " that you did not get a little more when we had our lessons here; isn't it?" He doesn't approve of other people's manners, especially Joe. He talks to Biddy about Joe when he says, "but he is rather backward in some things. For instance, Biddy, in his learning and his manners," and has clearly been influenced by Estella. He has become ashamed of Joe and no longer wants to talk to him. He thinks that Joe and Biddy are just commoners and he sees himself as a gentleman. He has become rather bid headed. Now that he has got some of the money, it starts to go to his head and he sees himself as a person with a higher status than the people of the village. He is, in a way, desperate to be rich. The scene in Mr. Trabb's tailor shop shows Pip having the measurements for a new suit being taken. In the shop, Pip boasts his new status by saying, "I wish to pay for them... with ready money," and gets a few coins and shakes them in his hand. He also orders Mr. Trabb's boy around even though they were previously equal.
He begins to despise the village, in which he has stayed all his life, and now he just wants to get away from it all. Everything that he used to admire he now despises, such as Joe, the Forge, his upbringing, his apprenticeship and where he lives. He only has one thing on his mind, and that is to be rich. However, he does become a little unhappy because he has seen the upper lass lifestyle and he doesn't find it as exciting and he can't do the things that he used to do, like play in the streets. He doesn't have any friends and now he becomes even lonelier. But he prepared to give all this up, as he is desperate to win Estella and desperate to obtain all the money.
He doesn't see that some people are trying to take advantage of his new wealth, such as Mr. Pumblechook. Pip is invited over for dinner by Mr. Pumblechook, who gives him the best wine and the best meat to eat and at the end he asks Pip if he would like to invest some of his money in Mr. Pumblechook's corn business. Mr. Pumblechook never ever used to be this nice to Pip, when he was a commoner, but now that Pip has a lot of money, Mr. Pumblechook treats Pip just like the upper class.
So overall Pip went from being just a normal, common boy who loved Joe, and his own sister, and was respectful of everyone that was elder than him and turned into someone who didn't care about anyone else besides those of the upper class. He became disrespectful, snobbish, very insulting and bid headed.
