Great Expectations - Why was Pip's desire to be a gentleman bound up with winning the love of Estella?

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Adem Uner 11R

English Literature Coursework

Great Expectations

Why was Pip’s desire to be a gentleman bound up with winning the love of Estella?

    Pip begins the novel of Great Expectations as the member of a poor family, including himself, his sister, Mrs Gargery, and her husband, Joe. As he grows up, he has an urge to become a gentleman primarily to impress a girl called Estella with whom he has various meetings with in his childhood. It is here where is obsession with her begins.

    Pip’s first encounter with Estella is caused due to Miss Havisham wanting them to meet. Miss Havisham was left at the alter on her wedding day by a man she dearly loved, and uses Estella to avenge this by, in someway, training her not to love and to “break men’s hearts”. Pip goes to Miss Havisham’s house with no idea of why he’s going there, except that he’s expected to play: “...why on earth I was going to play at Miss Havisham’s and what on earth I was expected to play at.” This is Pip’s first encounter of an upper-class family and he has no idea of what to expect. From their first conversation it is clear that there is a large class gap between Pip and Estella – she refers to him as ‘boy’ and he to her, ‘miss’. They are both the same age, but Estella seems to look down on Pip the instant they meet. He is made aware that he is just a ‘common labouring boy’ and she mocks him when they are playing cards as he has been brought up to say ‘jacks’ instead of ‘knaves’. She also demises him by remarking ‘what coarse hands he has’ and the fact that he has ‘thick boots’. Pip is “humiliated, hurt, spurned, offended, angry and sorry” by all of this (as he describes on page 52) and has been so humiliated that he starts crying. Estella, ‘laughing contemptuously’ at Pip for doing this, pushes him out of the door. Although she has treated Pip badly, he can’t help wanting to see Estella again as he finds her ‘very pretty’.

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    Pip returns to the house 6 days later, as instructed by Miss Havisham, and is treated similarly to how he was before. Estella still acts unpleasantly towards him: “... she slapped my face with such force as she had, when I answered it.” She again, down grades him by calling him a ‘coarse monster’ and a ‘little wretch’. When a gentleman walks past asking who Pip is, she replies that he is only, ‘a boy’. She is indeed breaking Pip’s heart, exactly how Miss Havisham intends. Estella’s mood entirely changes at the end of their second meeting, however. ...

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