Great Expectations - review

Satis House is described by Pip as ‘of old brick and dismal’ as him and Mr Pumblechook, Pip’s uncle, approach ‘walled up’ windows, ‘rustily barred face them as they wait for Estella to let them in to the grounds. To me the house is described as a building similar to a prison, even more so with it’s ‘high enclosing walls’ and ‘disused’, ‘empty’ brewery. Pip I feel is distressed by his surroundings when he says, ‘the colder wind seemed t blow colder there’ which suggests he is clearly affected by the grounds of the house and what they represent. Pip is even more affected by the way Estella insults him and makes him feel inadequate. ‘What coarse hands he has! And what thick boots!’ are some of Estella attempts to hurt Pip. Pip is damaged so much by these words that he begins to question, Joe Gargery, Pip’s brother-in- law who has brought him up in life, about the way in which Joe and his wife, Pip’s sister have taught him to live. Now Pip becomes even more determined and enthusiastic about becoming a gentleman.

As Pip continues on his journey he travels to London to meet Mr Jaggers, a powerful, well known lawyer who has an office in the capital. This stage in Pip’s journey to become a gentleman represents Pip’s endeavour to establish an identity for himself among the people of importance that could give him a decent status, but as soon as he enters London it is not how he thought it would be, and what he sees seems quite the opposite. Pip immediately feels contaminated by his surroundings, just like at Satis House. ‘I might have had some faint doubts whether it was not rather ugly, crooked, narrow and dirty’ which suggests how opposite London was in comparison to his original views on the city before he went there. Whilst waiting for Mr Jaggers he takes a stroll around the area Jaggers office is located in, and is ‘scared by the immensity’ of the city. As he walks past the courts he is confronted by a minister of justice who was ‘exceedingly dirty and partially drunk’. Just like in chapter one Pip is alone again in this particular chapter, and like being confronted by a convict as a little boy, he is now confronted by criminals and what Dickens portrays as the moral decay of society. When we meet Jaggers later in the chapter we find out where all his power comes from. He is an aggressive, physically powerful man, who is solely interested in money as one of the frequent, few questions he asks his clients are ‘have you paid Wemmick?’, Jaggers’ clerk. Every client is scared of Jaggers and the state of his office reflects his aggressive state. ‘The wall opposite to Mr Jaggers’ chair being greasy with shoulders’.

Wemmick, Mr Jaggers clerk is the first man we meet in London and seems like a very cold and serious man when Pip talks with him in Jaggers’ office. Later on however Wemmick we learn is a completely different man compared to the man we initially get to know. When Wemmick invites Pip to his house the two men decide to walk to Walworth, the location of the house, and this conversation on the journey, shows us how different Wemmick really is to the cold clerk in Jaggers’ London office. He makes many comments about Jaggers that he does not seem capable of saying at his place of work. At the end of the walk we finally arrive at Wemmick’s castle in Walworth and we see ‘a collection of black ditches, and with gardens’. Wemmick’s house is a ‘small wooden cottage, painted like a battery and mounted with guns’. Wemmick says ‘my own doing’ as they arrive and cross the ‘drawbridge’, a simple plank of wood on a rope which leads across the ditch between the road and Wemmick’s house. As we enter the cottage we meet Wemmick’s father, who is affectionately known as ‘The Aged’. He is a very deaf, very old man who shares a very warm relationship with his son. Something we notice in time is that ‘The Aged’ is very fond of being nodded at, and Pip observes this an joins in with the exchange of nods Wemmick and his son exchange. For the first time in the book Pip actually realises the importance of the relationships between people and that they are one of the pivotal aspects of being happy. He admires the way Wemmick and his Father might not live in a palace, but they are happy just being with each other and that is all that they need. As Pip is that affected he is brought round to thinking money is not what makes you happy, it is the people around you, and because of his change he decides that he should go back to the marshland to reunite with Joe and Biddy, his brother-in-law and his new wife, as Pip’s sister was killed earlier in the novel.

Eventually Pip runs out of money and decides to go back to his roots in the marshes to live with Joe and Biddy, and to prove how he has changed from the person he thought he could be, to the man who takes people as his values and has forgotten the influence of money on his own life. In short he has finally realised the importance of his family and friends, and how money cannot make life any better, or replace your friends. This is close to Dickens’ way of thinking, after he had to go through the dirt and contamination of the blacking factory, and the shame of being looked down on by the rich people who he and his family were once among.