Great Expectations: Father figures, mentors and patrons

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Great Expectations: Father figures, mentors and patrons

Pip’s quest for identity is until the return of Magwitch, based on false values. In this quest he is influenced by (for good or for ill) a number of figures whom he regards almost as surrogable parents. Write an essay, which closely considers the role of each the role of each of the following father figures, mentors and patrons, evaluating their influences on Pip in terms of the novels themes. Use detailed reference to the text and brief relevant quotations to illustrate your observations.

Jaggers

Wemmick

Miss Havisham

Abel Magwitch

Joe Gargery

Jaggers

Jaggers is Pip’s guardian, by the exiled Magwitch.   He is a well-known barrister and his widely respected by everyone, criminals and “gentlemen”. He is a barrister, who will always try and get his clients off their sentence, using any means possible, even if they are illegal. He may use false witnesses and plant evidence to get his clients off the sentence. In this sense, he is no better than his clients and he knows this but he always tries to distance himself from the underground, poverty oppressed world that he ends up defending. He does this both mentally and physically, by washing his hands after speaking to a client, to almost wipe the problems of his clients away, sot that he can mentally picture himself taking the moral high ground. Morals- this is another interesting factor. There are no morals and each man has to be greedy to succeed. Jaggers is amoral and immoral at the same time, he knows that to succeed he has to cheat and fake witnesses, but he know what is right and wrong and good and evil. He knows that his actions are immoral, but society was not governed by morals at that time. He is also so careful to makes sure that no one can detect his corruption, in the language he uses,“use informed Pip, not told,” as so not to implicate himself and speak in an almost kind of code, in case of any people listening.

He said this when he was being supportive toward Pip and less aggressive, but generally he operates in an aggressive manner both towards people, clients and really anyone. When we first meet him properly in the Jolly Bargemen at Pip’s hometown, Mr Wopsle is reading a drama about a courtroom to Joe and some other acquaintances in the presence of Jaggers. When he finishes reading, Jaggers asked him what he thought the outcome of the case would be, he thought the defendant guilty, but Jaggers then said “How can you be so sure, without hearing complete evidence?” and the mood of a light hearted atmosphere changes as Jaggers starts to almost lecture Wopsle about making predictions before full evidence was heard. The atmosphere changed just by Jaggers seeming pleasure in telling people that they were wrong. He also has a habit of throwing is forefinger at people when speaking to them which makes the receiver feel as if they are being interrogated.

He can do this and know that a person will not retaliate is because people would not dare anger him or try and dent his pride, because he has helped so many criminals get off charges, the person who had tried to harm Jaggers would have the criminal population to answer to as well. He also takes pride in this, by saying that he can leave his house unlocked without being robbed, because he is so respected. He is almost a megalomaniac and is obsessed by his power.

When Pip and talks to the reader about his feelings about Jaggers, he uses negative language, Jagger’s dark office, with the two masks that remind him of death. It is grimy and dirty. The wall is particularly dirty where clients have been backed against it. The place seems so dirty, with the ‘blacks and flies’ everywhere and everything layered with ‘dust and grit that lay thick’. Pip, the narrator, repeatedly uses words such as ‘twisted’, ‘distorted’, ‘dreadful’, and ‘twitchy’ while describing the office. All these words create an eerie atmosphere as well as a spooky image of Mr. Jaggers. Mr. Jaggers is a powerful character that is harsh, and everything about him seems frightening and fierce. The room indirectly gives an impression on what Mr Jaggers is like; his high armchair with horsehair nailed with brass nail, like a coffin. This armchair acts as a way of expressing his power. It is ironic how someone with so much power would use ‘horsehair’ (whereas a gentleman might use leather), killing an animal, to use as part of his furniture. And yet, this hair is nailed down onto the chair, as if the power would run away.

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 ‘An old rusty pistol, a sword in a scabbard, several strange- looking boxes and packages.’ The objects that are lying around his room don’t seem like things that a real barrister would have laying around in his office. There is ‘not so many papers about’ which is also quite odd. ‘Two dreadful casts on a shelf, of faces peculiarly swollen, and twitchy about the nose.’ These casts being ‘twitching about the nose’ might act as the upper class are watching Mr. Jaggers.

Yet Pip never says anything against him. He has the utmost respect for Jaggers. I believe ...

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