Pip’s character is a direct result of his upbringing. As a result of his lack of friends, Pip has a remarkable imagination. In Chapter One, he imagined what his dead parents looked like from the shape of their tombstones, e.g. ‘ I drew the childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly.’ In Chapter Two also imagines that the cows speaking and are accusing him of being a thief, ‘Halloa, young thief!’ Despite his poor education by Mr Wopsle’s great-aunt, Pip is very clever, for example, when Pip tells the story about his meeting with Miss Havisham to Mrs. Joe and Uncle Pumblechook, he makes up a plausible story about Miss Havisham and the house, on the principle that Uncle Pumblechook will agree with most things he says as he has been pretending to know Miss Havisham, ‘We all waved swords, and I saw pistols in a cupboard, and jam - and pills. And there was no daylight in the room, but it was all lighted up with candles.’ The fact that Pip actually wrote Great Expectations (it is a description of his childhood written by Pip as an adult) shows that he must be very intelligent.
During the first section of the book Pip is thoughtful and serious, he is never self-absorbed until he becomes a gentleman, and even then he overcomes this. Pip is a sensitive young man, e.g., ‘ My sister’s upbringing had made me sensitive’ (Chapter Eight). Pip is physically strong; in Chapter Eleven he fights the pale young gentlemen and wins, badly bruising his opponent. The pale young gentlemen may not have been very strong, but a boy Pip’s age would have to be strong to have hurt an elder boy. Pip is affectionate, especially to Estella with whom he is madly in love with. Also, in Chapter Seventeen, he tells Biddy ‘ I wish I could fall in love with you.’ He wishes that he had affection with Biddy rather than Estella. Pip is ambitious; his main ambition is to become a gentleman, which is relevant in most of the book. In Chapter Eight this ambition started when Estella called him ‘ coarse and common’ and ‘a common labouring boy’. In chapter seventeen he first tells Biddy about his ambition. ‘I want to become a gentleman.’ If it wasn’t for Pip’s benefactor, his ambition would have never been realised and he might have never left the forge.
Pip’s character is lonely; he has no friends other than Joe (Chapter One) and he has to rely on his imagination for company. His parents and all of his family other than his sister are dead (Chapter One). Pip is timid; on page three he is scared out of his wits by the convict and in other cases also. This, Pip says is down to his sister’s harsh bringing up of him. With most people, Pip is generally quiet and shy, but with Estella he is even more so, this is because he is embarrassed and incapable to retaliate to her insults, possibly because he has never retaliated to his sister’s insults, for example ‘You little coarse monster, what do you think of me now?’ (Estella) ‘I shall not tell you’ (Pip’s reply), (Chapter Eleven). Pip is resentful of some people, Estella in particular, he resents her insults of him (e.g. Chapter Eight ‘common labouring boy’) but he cannot retaliate. He does not particularly resent his sister for his harsh bringing up.
After Pip steals for the convict, he has a low self-esteem, feels in the wrong and guilty. In Chapter Five he actually thinks that some soldiers have come for him when they appear at the forge door, when they actually are looking for the blacksmith’s assistance, e.g. ‘I ran head foremost into a party of soldiers with their muskets: one of whom held out a pair of handcuffs to me.’ Another reason why Pip has a low self-esteem is that he learnt from Joe that Mrs. Joe would probably have not have raised him if it was not for Joe’s persuasion. This makes him feel like a burden to Mrs. Joe, and this is why he feels guilty. After Mrs. Joe is attacked, Pip feels guilty about ‘providing the weapon.’ Pip is troubled in various stages of the book, often anxious and miserable as well. After Pip steals the food for the convict he is full of guilt that makes him miserable and troubled, e.g. this is shown when he imagines the cattle and the mist speaking to him, ‘A boy with somebody-else’s pork pie! Stop him!’ (Chapter Two). Pip is miserable after he met Estella and realised that he was common and coarse, and he then fells ashamed of his home and possessions, e.g. Chapter Fourteen ‘a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home.’
In Chapter Eight he first meets Estella and falls in love with her, e.g. ‘ I think she is very pretty.’ Estella has been brought up by Miss Havisham to ‘wreak vengeance on the male sex’ after what happened to her, so Estella does not return his love; instead she insults him by calling him ‘a common labouring-boy!’ and ‘stupid clumsy labouring boy!’ also she says ‘what coarse hands he has! And what thick boots!’ She also comments upon his poor speech, i.e. calling knaves ‘Jacks’ when they played cards. He realises that for her to love him, he must be an upper class gentleman, as she is an upper class woman. ‘Her contempt for me was so strong that it became infectious that I caught it’. This is how Pip describes his Estella’s contempt for he in Chapter Eight.
Pip has now realised that he is coarse and common, and now feels ashamed of his home and his possessions. This is shown especially in Chapter Fourteen, when he tells us his true feelings about his embarrassment of his home, e.g. ‘It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home’, and he also calls his house ‘homely’. He accepts himself as low on the social standings and wants to improve his status. Pip is impressed, even envious of Estella, due to her beauty, excellent speech, confidence, wealth and intelligence, and wants to become a gentleman as a result. In Chapter Seventeen Biddy questions whether he actually wants to become a gentleman to spite Estella, or because Pip feels common, dissatisfied and uncomfortable. Pip merely answers ‘ I don’t know.’ Subconsciously, Pip may want to become a gentleman to spite Estella. Pip may be confusing his feelings of love and his social ambitions. Pip may not only want to become a gentleman due to Estella, but perhaps also due to Pumblechook’s influence; he now admires him as a middle-class gentleman; although he does not envy him as he considers him an obnoxious fool.
It is therefore clear to see that Pip’s harsh upbringing ‘by hand’ by Mrs Joe has led to his lonely, ambitious and timid character. Pip seeks the life of a gentleman as he is ashamed of himself (mainly due to Estella’s remark of ‘coarse and common’), his belongings, and he feels to solve this, he must become a social gentleman. He may also have an ulterior motive, to elevate himself to a social standing where Estella will actually talk to him and not look down on him. Because of Pip being embarrassed over his commonness and his possessions, he is dissatisfied with his place in society, e.g. ‘I am not happy as I am. I am disgusted with my calling in life.’ (Chapter Seventeen). He knows that as long as he is Joe’s apprentice, he will never fulfil his dream of becoming a gentleman.
