Great Expectations

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Great Expectations

In this essay I am looking at Charles Dicken's novel Great Expectations (pub.1861) and trying to answer the question of who in this novel is the actual "gentle man". In this I am taking the word "gentleman" to mean as the oxford english dictionary puts it:

"A chivalrous, well bred man"

However I feel that a slight alteration is needed due to the fact that to be a "gentleman" you don't need to be well bred, mearly to behave chivalrously yourself or this immediately marks down the people of lower class backgrounds seemingly unfairly.

Obviously the title of being the "gentleman" of the novel does seem to fall upon Pip, the man who was actually bought up to be one under the orders of the benefactor Abel Magwitch. Though it is true he was bought up to be the proper Victorian gentleman with characteristics that were approved of by the upper/middle classes. We are able to look at this from a totally different, 21st Century viewpoint which, due to social and economic upheavals, is radically different to the Victorians' .

In the novel Pip demonstrates himself to be, in my opinion, morally unsound several times deeming him not to become the proper gentleman that he might otherwise be. The shame he openly shows when reminded of his working class background is one issue against him. When having a rowing class on the Thames the instructor tells Pip he has "the arm of a blacksmith". Although the man clearly could not know that he was originally a blacksmith Pip takes it as an insult and is extremely ashamed of this because he thinks he might lose social status among his friends. This just shows how much he dislikes being reminded of the working class and who he used to live with which is a rather distasteful act of snobbery.

Another of these incidents that demonstrate the ashamedness he holds of his past comes when Joe comes to visit him for the first time. As Pip says even before he arrives:

"If I could have paid money to keep him away I would".

This again shows how he is extremely ashamed of Joe and that he might embarrass Pip in front of his friend by acting in a manner seeming inappropriate to Pip's middle class friend Herbert. He therefore wants Joe, his old friend who used to look after him, to stay away. Rather than be very happy to see him he feels "disturbed" and "mortified" which shows how he has taken a change for the worse in becoming snobbish as oppose to gentlemanly.

When Joe does actually arrive Pip confirms his distaste at Joe's rough working class habits with phrases such as:

"He dropped so much more than he ate and pretended he hadn't dropped it, that I was heartily glad when Herbert left us for the city".

This shows just how appalled Pip was by Joe that he did not want his friend Herbert to stay and see more of Joe's, in Pips opinion, working class and embarrassing habits. This also shows just how rapidly Pip descends into being snobbish towards others forgetting his own working class background. Pip has only been away a matter of months yet he already regards Joe with distaste that allows the reader to see how he is not as nice as one might expect the hero of a story to be.

Pips behaviour is made to seem even worse when you are shown how Herbert who is from the same part of society as Pip finds Joe perfectly acceptable and "held his hand out" showing how treats Joe as he might some one from a higher class who had come round to dinner. This goes to show that it is not everyone who find working class people bad so it is really Pips rather unkind self centered personality that makes him find Joe disagreeable.

Another example of Pip's ungentlemanly conduct happens later in the novel when his benefactor is revealed to be the escaped convict he aided many years ago as a child. However how you would expect a gentleman to act towards a person who has done so much for them and how Pip acts are very different. Rather than thanking him wholeheartedly for helping him out of being part of the working class, Pip is disgusted by him and the idea that he received help from a convict making the funds into dirty money. Before the revelation of the benefactor's identity Pip had spent the money like water however afterwards he "cannot bring" himself to spend the "rascal's money"

Pips thoughts on Magwitch are well summed up by this section:

"The abhorrence in which I held the man, the dread I had of him, the repugnance with which I shrank away from him, could not have been exceeded if he were some terrible beast".

The fact that Pip is disgusted that his money has been made and given to him from an outcast as opposed to the person he thought had given it to him, the upper class Miss Havisham, shows again how he has become even more snobbish. He is at a loss for words to describe how he feels when his benefactor is revealed so horrified is he which is extremely unkind seeing how Magwitch has tried to be as nice as possible to Pip.
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Even when Pip gets over his initial reaction he still wants to get Magwitch out of the country least anyone finds out that his money has come from a lower class criminal and decide that he is not suitable to socialise with them any more. Whereas we know that if these people were truly his friends like Herbert, they would not mind what his social background was.

When Pip first receives the vast amounts of money from Magwitch he goes and spends far more, and puts himself into "increasing debt". This would not be so bad if ...

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