Pip’s first meeting with Estella is when he comes to Miss. Havisham’s house, in Chapter 8, ‘to play’. She opens the gate to him and Mr. Pumblechook and she immediately starts to look down upon him by referring to him as “Boy”. He reciprocates this manner of speaking by calling her “Miss”. She has already made an impression on Pip within seconds of meeting him as he says when she opens the gate that she was “very pretty and seemed very proud”. Pip notices that Estella calling him ‘Boy’ is ‘far from complimentary’. And also that she is of is own age. Despite this he still seems in awe of her: “She seemed much older than I, of course, being a girl, and beautiful and self possessed; and she was as scornful of me as if she had been one-an-twenty, and a queen”.
So from the start Pip is in awe of Estella because of her beauty. It seems Miss. Havisham has taught her well in that she was supposed to win men’s hearts and then break them. This was Miss. Havisham’s way of seeking revenge on the male sex after she was left at the altar. Everything in Manor House is exactly as it was at that moment when she was left at the altar, and Estella was brought up to seek reprisal on the male sex.
Just before Pip first meets Miss. Havisham Estella humiliates Pip in a moment when he was clearly timid about going into Miss. Havisham’s room first and ask Estella to go in. Estella replies: “Don’t be ridiculous boy; I am not going in.”
Estella scorns him again when she comes in to play with him, by the order of Miss. Havisham: “He is a common labouring – boy!” While they are playing cards also she still mocks him of his inferiority to her: “’He calls the knaves, Jacks, this boy!’ said Estella with disdain.” Estella then ridicules him of his appearance something which Pip was not ashamed of before: “What coarse hands he has. And what thick boots”. Pip then finds himself looking at his hands and boots, “I had never thought of being ashamed of my hands before; but I began to consider them a very indifferent pair.” This shows that Estella has got to him, “Her contempt was so strong, that it became infectious, and I caught it.” He has started to look at himself in a different light after the scorn that Estella has thrust upon him. Yet even though she derides him for what he is he says: “I am not sure that I shouldn’t like to see her again”. This means that he still wants her no matter what she says to him.
After they have finished playing cards Estella is told to let Pip eat, and while she fetches the food Pip has the opportunity of being alone in the courtyard. While he is there he looks over his coarse hands and common boots again. He begins to feel ashamed of them: “They had never troubled me before, but they troubled me now, as vulgar appendages”. One can also tell now that Estella has really gotten to him, and he wants to feel up to her standard. Whereas before he thought of Joe as his friend, they had a good-natured companionship. Joe had been his friend while his sister, Mrs. Joe, had ‘brought him up by hand’. He now questions Joe’s upbringing of him: “I determined to ask Joe why he had ever taught me to call those picture-cards, Jacks, which ought to be called Knaves.” Pip hates the fact that Estella had scorned him of how he is, and wishes he could be on the same level as her. He also thinks to himself that he wishes he could have been brought up more genteelly, in other words so that Estella could see him as an equal: “I wished Joe had been rather more genteelly brought up, and then I should have been so too.” When Pip is brought his food, he finally forced to tears by Estella. This is not because of anything she says, it is because of the way she is treated by him as a human being: “She gave me the bread and meat without looking at me, as insolently as if I were a dog in disgrace. I was so humiliated, hurt, spurned, offended, angry, sorry – I cannot hit upon the right name for the smart – God knows what its name was – that tears started to my eyes.” Estella saw these tears and Pip saw that she saw them, and when she did see them she knew she was the source of the tears and she looked at him “with a quick delight in having been the cause of them.”
Throughout the chapter Estella has mocked and scorned Pip, and treated like a ‘dog in disgrace’. Yet he is still overcome by his feelings for her. They are so strong that he fells he has to kick them out of him: “I got rid of my injured feelings for the time by kicking them into the brewery wall and twisting them out of my hair”. He is forced to go through so much for Estella without her even knowing it, and yet he still wants to live up to her standards.
This is the main reason why Pip so badly wants to be a gentleman so that he feels that he is reasonable for Estella. And that she will at least respect him in some way because they will be equal in stature. Pip’s desire to be a gentleman is greatly to do with winning the love of Estella, because he believes that if he is a gentleman he will have more chance of winning her love.
