Estella is the person who I feel drives Pip’s ambitions. He is no longer happy with being an apprentice; he wants to be a gentleman and from the minute Pip’s desires change he changes as well. Pip starts to become ashamed of things he hadn’t noticed before, “they had never troubled me before, but they troubled me now”. Estella’s condescending behaviour towards him actually makes Pip love her “…I admire her dreadfully, and I want to be a gentleman on her account” He wants to better himself for her. Young Pip feels that Satis house and his interactions with Estella and Ms Havisham are the best things that have happened to him but the 40 year old adult Pip tells us it wasn’t as good as he assumed it was. Dickens reveals to us that this was Pip’s changing point in his life and there could be a day that could be the same for us “pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link.” I think Dickens presents to us that he had a changing point in his life and autobiographical elements show through this.
Pip’s class is something I feel he is always going to be bound to. The way they live at the forge is much like how Dickens lived when he was younger in Kent. It was the best time of Dickens’s life so I think when he is showing Pip at the beginning he is saying it isn’t as bad as it seems. Pip’s life at the Gargerys is quite plain and simple. Joe the blacksmith establishes Pip’s class he has a lack of education and talks different (with an accent). The fact that Pip and Joe are scared of Mrs Joe leads us to believe that Joe and Pip have a strong unbreakable relationship (however we find out later that this might not be true). From the beginning where Pip comes home late Joe helps him by giving him advice instead of ordering and discipline him, “Pip, she’s coming! Get behind the door old chap and have the jack, towel betwixt you.” When Pip goes to Satis house it is a big contrast from the forge although it is not necessarily a good contrast. The ironically names Satis house is much like a prison cell “old brick, rusilty barred, great many iron bars”. Dickens reveals criticises the higher classes for their lack of love. I feel he is saying you can have all the money in the world and still not be happy. He makes us dislike Pip by the end of book 1 to show us with money your attitude does change and doesn’t go unnoticed but the ones who truly love you. Satis house symbolises this point Satis means enough and ironically everyone who lives there or goes to the house doesn’t feel they have enough. Estella explains she doesn’t like the house and her condescending behaviour towards Pip shows she has no heart, Ms Havisham’s life has deteriorated in the house and when Pip goes there he is no longer happy with what he has. Pip now wants to better himself.
Love drives Pip in many ways and the lack of love also drives him just as much. Pip has feelings of love towards Joe but as the book goes on we feel Pip doesn’t appreciate how much Joe loves him and the lengths that Joe has gone for him Pip. Pip starts to patronise Joe and Biddy for their lack of education and he desires to change Joe “you are dissatisfied on account of my rise in fortune, and you can’t help showing it.” Instead I think that he concentrates his love to mean, cold-hearted Estella who has been taught form her old witch-like aunt Ms Havisham not to love. Pip loves Estella because she doesn’t love him. I think Dickens may be using Estella as a symbol for the woman he ran away with, using Estella as an example for things you want but can’t have in life.
Pip experiences a lack of love also, which may go beyond the bildungsroman criteria. He doesn’t receive love form Mrs Joe who treats him badly and who acts as a martyr Mrs Joe symbolises Victorian women’s views. She shows how Victorian women thought and how they acted, she tries to better herself when it is Christmas by using the room they only use for special occasions to impress others “uncovered the little slate parlour which was never uncovered at any other time” Mrs Joe is very concerned with what people think of her. In contrast, Ms Havisham doesn’t care and I feel doesn’t have to because of her class. As Ms Havisham is of a higher class it is acceptable for her to act the way she does. Pip thinks Ms Havisham has feelings for him and is his benefactor through tout the whole of volume 1 and is disgusted and embarrassed to find out that his benefactor is actually Magwitch the first convict whom he helped that day on the marshes.
Maybe Dickens sympathetically portrayed the convict because he felt the criminal justice system was unfair. His father was sent to jail and this caused Dickens’s life to change dramatically, he had to leave school to work and the class he mixed with changed. Children in Victorian times had to work in mines and factories. Dickens experienced hard work, as a child so he felt the criminal justice system was unfair. Charles Dickens talks about how he felt about society at that time and it wasn’t what he seemed. Critics have said he may have used Ms Havisham a symbol for England. It is shown form the outside to be a great, imposing and new but inside it’s a cold, dark lifeless place. Another critic wrote, “When Dickens’s imagination went to work on the Victoria society which he dominated and detested, it produced a picture which was certainly caricatured and unfair in particulars, but which in general now seems not only to reflect on his own times accurately but also to be a disturbingly close likeness of our own.” I feel that this is a good point because what Dickens write about then is still relevant now. The way he wrote about the higher classes is still relevant now because I suppose maybe he is trying to say that if you have all the money in the world it still doesn’t make u a better person and class does not count for anything. I feel he is trying to point out that everything is not as it seems and not to judge a book by its cover because what lies beneath could show a clearer more accurate picture. Overall I feel he tries to indicate that money doesn’t bring you happiness and it never will.
The way Charles Dickens wrote analyses how he felt about certain controversial issues. He mentions chains and files throughout the novel to symbolise Pip’s growing guilty conscience. He also uses the change that young Pip has on the view of cows, which is quite humorous for the reader. Charles Dickens goes beyond the bildungsroman genre, he writes about the unfulfilled desires of characters such as the off-putting Ms Havisham who was stood up at her wedding, intimidating ruthless Estella who wants to be able to love and patronising arrogant Pip who is on the way to fulfil his desires but we know he has changed into someone who we don’t necessarily like. Ironically the people who had the least (good-hearted Joe and understanding yet down to earth Biddy) end up being the happiest I feel Dickens is trying to prove everyone will get their just desserts, Dickens adds to elements of mystery into the book like who Pips benefactor is and Ms Havisham’s true intentions for Pip. This is not something that would be expected from a bildungsroman.
Throughout book 1 of Great Expectations, we have seen Pip’s desires change, character change and the way he feels about himself change. Dickens writes the semi-autobiographical novel in a way, which makes you think about how you may have changed or how you are changing into person who you may not want to be. He talks about controversial issues in a satirical way that challenges how you are living your life and what you are doing to change it.
