Pip becomes increasing infatuated with Estella, confides these feelings to Biddy. He blurts out his ambitions; Pip either ignorantly, or condescendingly explains how he wants to be gentlemen on the account of “the beautiful young lady at Miss Havisham’s,” for “she’s more beautiful than anybody ever was” (Dickens 129). He may have done this because he feels attracted to Biddy and wishes to share his most intense feelings with her, or he may be trying to protect himself against getting involved with her. Either way, he knows how Biddy feels about him, and he’s being thoughtlessly cruel (Shaw 170).
This same haughty attitude is echoed in the way he treats Joe. Pip persists that Miss Havisham is his benefactor, and believes that Estella is intended for him, but he also continues to be ashamed of his past life. On one afternoon, Pip learns that Joe will be visiting London and would like to see him. However, Pip is, of all things, is disappointed to receive this news. He looks forward to Joe’s visit “with considerable disturbance, some mortification, and a keen sense of incongruity,” and he maintains that he “certainly would have paid money” to keep him away (Dickens 217). Joe bursts in with glowing in good humor at first, but something confuses him and he starts talking in circles. He calls Pip “sir,” but when Pip criticizes Joe’s formality, Joe’s wordless glance in reply is a reminder of his natural dignity (Baker 170). Pip irritably watches Joe and wonders why his manners are so appalling:
As to his shirt-collar, and his coat-collar, they were perplexing to reflect upon—insoluble mysteries both. Why should a man scrape himself to that extent, before he could consider himself full dressed? Then he fell into such unaccountable fits of meditation, with his fork midway between his plate and his mouth; had his eyes attracted in such strange directions; was afflicted with such remarkable coughs; sat so far from the table, and dropped so much more than he ate, and pretended that he hadn’t dropped it (Dickens 222).
After Joe leaves, Pip decides to return to the forge, but he instead opts to stay at the Blue Boar Inn, rather than at his old home. His arrogant reasoning is, “I should be an inconvenience at Joe’s; I was not expected, and my bed would not be ready” (Dickens 225).
Pip wishes to be gentlemen, to raise himself to another social class, but Dickens conveys that a gentlemen by name is not always a gentleman by heart as he shows how wealth can corrupt people. The most attractive characters in the book are the poor blacksmith and the self-taught “schoolmistress”, who becomes his second wife (Jackson 174). The class bias so evident as almost to be underscored. “Miss Havisham is a fine lady who has cruelly deceived and robbed…but it was a fine gentleman [Compeyson]” who deceived her (Jackson 174). The class antagonism in Great Expectations is not so much between aristocrats and common people but between gentlemen (who are callously vengeful, cold-hearted or corrupt) and the honest, hard-working man (Jackson 174). “Dickens’ deepening sense that success in business in the bourgeois world can be won only at the expense of everything nobly generous, elevating, sympathetic and humane” is most clearly seen through the two legal characters (Jackson 174). “Dickens endows Jaggers with the special characteristic that, after doing a piece dirty of work, he carefully washes his hands—with scented soap” (Jackson 174).
When Pip finally learns that Abel Magwitch, not Miss Havisham, is his benefactor, his idealistic expectations fade and his inherent goodness overcomes the negative traits that he had developed (House 175). During a visit to the Satis House, Pip is able forgive Miss Havisham for the misfortunes in his life, “there have been many sore mistakes; and my life has been a blind and thankless one; and I want forgiveness and direction far too much to be bitter with you” (Dickens 400). Later, Pip returns to check up on Miss Havisham only to find that she was too close to the fire, and her clothing ignited in flames. Pip instantly risks his own life to save her. She is seriously injured, but made it out alive. Pip is also badly burned and but says, “I was astonished to see that both my hands were burnt, for I had no knowledge of it through the sense of feeling” (Dickens 404).
Even the cruel Miss Havisham experiences some extent of reformation, she feels a great deal of guilt and pain because of how she hurt Pip. She toyed with Pip’s heart, even when he was a child. When Pip was boy, Miss Havisham requests that he “play” but Pip explains he only knows how to play beggar with his neighbor; Miss Havisham bids Estella, “Beggar him” (Dickens 58). Again she ominously urges Pip, “Love her, love her, love her!” (Dickens 240). Years pass, and Pip continually obeys, he falls helplessly in love with the girl. When he learns that Estella is to be married, he pleads with her, he has a beautiful outpouring in which he so eloquently expresses his love for her:
Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then… You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with…Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation I associate you only with the good, and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. O God bless you, God forgive you! (Dickens 364-365).
Miss Havisham appears to be touched, finally, and Pip’s heartbreak strikes a chord in her own heart.
Pip’s great expectations revolve around Estella, for he wants wealth and class so he may gain her favor. Pip eventually realizes that affection, loyalty, and inner worth are more important than wealth and class. Pip achieves this realization when he is finally able to understand that, despite the high regard in which he holds Estella, one’s social status is in no way connected to one’s real character (Jackson 173). The convict reenters the story once again exposing himself as Pip’s benefactor. When Pip meets the convict he his repulsed and even offended by his presence. Pip was astonished to learn of the origins of his money because “Pip could not see Magwitch as an animal of the same species as himself or Miss Havisham” (Shaw 173).
As time goes on, he realizes and somewhat appreciates Magwitch. It was endearing that the poor convict tried to repay Pip for a insignificant favor from a child (Baker 169). Over time, Pip’s hard feelings toward his benefactor melt away, and he even confesses that Magwitch “was softened indefinably, for I could not have said how, and could never afterwards recall how when I tried, but certainly” (Dickens 379). Pip takes great personal risks and inconveniences to save Magwitch. He is unsuccessful in escaping the country with Magwitch, but his caring and devotion for the kind convict are unwavering. Every day, Pip visits him in the infirmary trying to comfort Magwitch and to make his last days as peaceful as possible. During one visit, Pip notices, “a smile crossed his face then, and he turned his eyes on me with a trustful look, as if he were confident that I had seen some small redeeming touch in him, even so long ago as when I was a little child” (Dickens 461). Pip believes that his visits are somewhat soothing to Magwitch; he stays with him until the convict’s tranquil death, which is almost a blessing (Ghent 182).
There is a great change in Pip’s attitude from the midnight that the convict exposed himself, to the terrible night when the two were flung overboard, and finally when Pip finds his convict a “recaptured man” on his way to prison (Baker 169):
For now, my repugnance to him had all melted away, and in the hunted wounded shackled creature who held my hand in his, I only saw a man who had meant to be my benefactor, and who had felt affectionately, gratefully, and generously, towards me with great constancy through a series of years. I only saw in him a much better man than I had been to Joe (Dickens 450).
Just as Pip’s feelings toward Magwitch soften, and so do his feelings toward his old life after the burden of his expectations is lifted. Soon after Magwitch dies, Pip becomes seriously ill. When he recovers, he learns that Joe had traveled to London to take care of him. As he continues to nurse Pip back to good health, Joe remains formal and awkward around Pip, just as was when he visited Pip in London several years earlier. He realizes and appreciates that “there was no change whatever in Joe. Exactly what he had been in my eyes then, he was in my eyes still; just as simply faithful, just as simply right” (Dickens 472). At the forge, Pip no longer feels any shame or arrogance because he is now content and happy in his old home. In fact, he says, “now let me go up and look at my old room…and then when I have eaten and drunk with you, go with me as far as the finger post, dear Joe and Biddy, before we say good-bye” (Dickens 484).
Pip failed to realize that Joe and Biddy may be poor in a capitalistic sense, but they are the most honorable, and decent people in Pip’s life. They are the ones most important to Pip, for they are the only people that are there for him when Pip returns home in the end. “The expectations lose their greatness, and Pip is saved from the grosser dangers of wealth; by the end he has gained a wider and deeper knowledge of life” (House 175). His great expectations have melted away and left him resigned (Baker 169). He is able to make right with Joe and Biddy, whom he was once ashamed of.
At the conclusion of Great Expectations, the reader most likely finds Pip’s fate acceptable and enjoyable. Earlier in his life, he had changed from an innocent, caring boy into an arrogant young man as a result of his nonrealistic hopes and expectations. However, when those expectations come to an end, so do his undesirable traits, as he is shown to be a truly good-natured person. Therefore, it is fitting that, in both variations of Dickens’ endings, Pip winds up happy and content.
