In Chapter Three Pip returns to the moors to take stolen food to a convict who he met in the marshes which he threatens pip to get food. Dickens uses the description of setting to convey the danger of this task and he fears in carrying it out. The setting is described as a rimy morning and very damp. This suggests that everything around him creates a sense of unease as there is nothing attractive about the setting. Dickens uses repetition too for example the word ‘damp’ is used more than once this creates an ominous mood because as he keeps on walking up the marshes the setting seems lifeless. Dickens also uses pathetic fallacy because the weather on the marshes reflect pips moods when pip feels down the weather is bad, cold and also grey so therefore pip feels isolated. Pip feels guilty as soon as he stole the food for the convict; his guilty conscience starts to show as he makes his journey through the marshes. Pip knows that stealing from Mrs Gargery was wrong however the fear on what the convict might do to him caused him to betray his sister’s trust.
Pip is not from a wealthy family however a woman by the name of Mrs Havisham who everybody for miles round had heard of her up town… who lived in a large and dismal house… barricaded against robbers and who led a life of seclusion this quote also shows that miss Havisham is a private and isolated women. Miss Havisham and her niece Estella live in a large house which emphasises Miss Havisham's wealth and they are very modern and upper class. Estella who is wealthy, calls the ‘Jacks knaves’, which suggests the rich and the poor had contrasting dialects, adding to ones understanding of the differences in the class system. The social classes in the Victorian times differed physically verbally and economically. When Pip starts to realise he is from a working class he feels ashamed of his life and who he is because he feels like his whole life was a waste pip says I took the opportunity of being alone in then court/yard, too look at my course hands and my common boots’ this suggests that he has taken in everything Estella had said about him and realised who his identity really is. When Estella says ‘look he calls the ‘knaves Jacks’ this shows he is not wealthy and upper class. when Estella mentions’ what coarse hands he has’ this portrays the hand labour he has to do to survive. Also when Estella insults pip again she says what thick boots pip has, this also portrays he has to work hard to survive.
Pips relationship with Joe changes after he meets Miss Havisham because Pip starts to feel ashamed of Joe as well as himself because he sees Joe as a vulnerable person and thinks he is superior to him. Pip feels dissatisfied with his life because he feels ashamed of where he comes from, pip say’s it is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home this quote suggests that he is ashamed of who he is and wat background he comes from. He doesn’t know that he could become a gentleman and live like a wealthy person, He only expects to grow up and become a blacksmith like Joe because he thought that, for him would have been a decent life. In the quote ‘it was most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home’ connotes pip was embarrassed of who he was. Pips desire to improve himself was to become a gentlemen, older pip who is narrating regrets his dissatisfaction with his life because there was no reason to be depressed, he should have been happy for who he was and not try to be someone else. So basically we can see that Pips self development represents the genre of a bildungsroman because it is pips part of his development to leave home and become a gentleman in London. Pips childhood innocence is transformed by experience, when changes break into the closed world and adult expectations take over. Victorian education are revealed in chapter seven and ten. Pip decides to teach Joe, because pip says ‘’I derived from this that Joes education, like steam was yet in its infancy. This quote suggests that pip believes he is in a position to teach joe because he has been to school for less than a year and now he is educated. Dickens believes that every person should have a right to an education whether they are poor or rich.
we see Pip the protagonist change his life around and finally become a gentleman, he gets a good education this links into the bildungsroman because it shows a child Pip who was treated unfairly and was a working class common labouring boy transform into a high class gentlemen. Dickens is using pip as an example of what his lifestyle was like. However at the end of volume one the readers see pip, ashamed of his life and who he is.
