Pip not even what his parents looked like is a tragedy and it provokes a huge amount of sympathy for him. He also goes on to say how he imagines his parents to be like by visualising childish characterisations like “My mother was freckled and sickly,” that he deduces because he is an orphan.
Another way that Dickens builds sympathy for Pip through his family is that Pip has 5 deceased brothers. He sounds like he misses them “Sacred to the memory of five little brothers of mine.” In addition this could also build sympathy because being in a family with 5 other brothers would mean that he wouldn’t get a lot of attention or a lot of vital needs like food or drink because of children’s inferiority at the time.
Dickens also builds sympathy for Pip by the marshes that he is in at the beginning of chapter one. The graveyard is obviously an ominous place and the “bleak marshes” also sound depressing. Near the end of the chapter as Pip is departing from the graveyard he comes across a “gibbet, with some chains hanging to it which had once held a pirate.” A gibbet is where criminals were hanged on display and Pip who is obviously intimidated by the escaped convict imagines him striding towards them as a pirate. Shortly after this, Pip shows his youthful adolescence and runs home frightened of the escaped convict.
Whilst in the graveyard, Pip comes across the escaped convict Magwich. Magwich is instantly intimidating towards Pip as he yells to him in “a terrible voice.” He also threatens Pip by saying “Keep still, you little devil, or I’ll cut your throat!”
Pip behaving so polite and innocent contrasts with the rude and obstinate mannerisms of the convict and highlights to the reader that he is unlucky to find himself in this situation and therefore they feel sympathy towards him. Furthermore the convict’s appearance would be shocking as Pip describes him as “A man who has been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars.”
Pip who would undoubtedly have never seen anyone as disfigured, dismembered or dysfunctional in his short life and would be feeling extremely perturbed by Magwich but also sympathetic towards him and his current situation. As well as verbally attacking Pip Magwich also physically attacks him by turning him upside down and emptying his pockets. Magwich then continues to tilt Pip over a little more to give him “a greater sense of helplessness and danger” and then gave him “the most tremendous dip and roll, so that the church jumped over its own weather-cock.” After reading this violent harassment of Pip the reader would feel he had been harshly treated and feel sympathetic towards him. Moreover Magwich constantly scrutinizes Pip “what fat cheeks you ha’ got,” and even makes up that “There’s a young man hid with me.” Pip is trapped in this harrowing situation and eventually has to adhere to the convicts wishes. But when he departs, Pip feels sorry for the convict’s present state as he walked away from Pip “still hugging himself in both arms.”
Having Pip feel sympathy for someone who has treated him badly and after a day where he was constantly attacked by his surroundings shows that he is a very warm hearted person with whom the reader will have pleasant feelings towards.
In chapter 2 the predominant ways in which Dickens builds sympathy for Pip is how Mrs Joe treats him and the way that the reader learns of the turbulent domestic life of the Gargery household.
Pip talks about Mrs Joe and says she “has a hard and heavy hand, and to much in the habit of laying it upon her husband as well as upon me.” Her husband Joe Gargery is also accustomed to her harsh methods but he himself is similar to Pip as the influence of Mrs Joe has obviously taken its toll on both of them.
The first words we hear from Mrs Joe are menacing and disquieting to Pip as she demands “Where have you been you young monkey?” When Pip replies he has been in the churchyard she yells back “If it waren’t for me you’d have been in the churchyard long ago, and stayed there.”
From her rude and presumptuous manor the reader would obviously feel sorry for Pip as he has had to live with her unrelenting ways and attempts to make his life as difficult as possible.
After this she goes on to say “Who brought you up by hand?” ‘Bringing-up by hand’ is a repeated subject in the early chapters and it means that he was bottle fed rather than from the breast. It can also be viewed as a pun as Pip has been brought up by his sister’s liberal use of the ‘tickler’ as opposed to any warmth of affection on her part. Because of the lack of sentiment that she shows towards Pip the reader would feel he is lonely and would suffer without a mother figure’s love.
Mrs Joe is presented as repulsively unattractive as Pip says “She was not a good looking woman…I had a general impression that she must have made Joe Gargery marry her by hand.” Pip also says “She had such a prevailing redness of skin,” he sometimes wondered whether “she washed herself with a nutmeg-grater instead of soap.” As Dickens has made her sound hideous the audience would feel sorry for Pip and wonder how he could put up with such a woman.
Another reason that the reader would feel sympathy towards him would be for his ignorance in not knowing why they would be firing a warning gun from the hulks. Mrs Joe seems to revel in this fact and drags his questions out as long as possible until he finds out that it was because of the escaped convicts. During this conversation Mrs Joe says “Ask no questions, and you’ll be told no lies,” which is similar to a common view at this time that ‘Children should be seen, and not heard.’
Towards the end of the chapter Pip is restless in his attempts to get to sleep because of his torrid day which reminds the reader of the everlasting frightful day that he has been having with the convict and Mrs Joe.
Finally it is significant that we are not given a Christian name for Mrs Joe, as Dickens probably thought that giving her a name would give her personality more human intimacy and instead lets the reader decide for themselves what she is like.
Chapter 8 begins with Pip having breakfast with Mr Pumblechook whose task it seems is to continually bully him with mental arithmetic throughout the morning before they arrive at Satis House. Pip does not like Mr Pumblechook “I considered Mr Pumblechook wretched company,” and by having him demand Pip to answer a sum every few minutes makes you feel sorry for Pip that he does not yet possess the intelligence to answer correctly.
When Pip arrives at Satis House his first impressions are that it “was of old brick, and dismal, and had a great many iron bars to it. Some of the windows had been walled up; of those that remained some had been rustily barred.” Pip describes the house and surrounding walls gloomily and his descriptions of old brick and the windows being walled up and rustily barred sets the tone for the entire chapter as everything around Pip will seem to be decaying before his eyes.
A young girl called Estella lets Pip in leaving the indignant Pumblechook outside and straight away Pip’s ordeals continue, but this time in a world of upper-class decay. Pip instantly sees Estella as “very pretty and very proud.” When Estella dismisses Pumblechook so obstinately the reader would know that she is in a different class of wealth and behaviour that would soon be unleashed on Pip.
She begins to talk down to pip patronisingly by calling him “boy” after almost everything she says to him and in a “far from complimentary” way. Estella’s name suggests ‘star like’ and once inside the house she picks up a candle and carries it about the gloomy house ‘like a star’. The audience will feel sympathy towards Pip purely because of the huge gulf of social class already apparent between them, and with Estella holding the candle it highlights her symbolically as being a ‘star’ and therefore seeming more important than Pip by making her stand out.
After entering the unnatural room where “No glimpse of daylight could be seen in it,” Pip sees Miss Havisham sitting in an armchair and instantly remarks to himself that she was “the strangest woman I have ever seen, or shall ever see.” Miss Havisham is old but she sits in the remnants of a wedding dress in a candlelit dressing room where all the clocks have stopped at twenty to nine.
Pip looks around him and there is more evidence of withered decomposition, “I saw everything in my view that had ought to be white, had been white long ago, and had lost its lustre, and was faded and yellow.” Pip would clearly feel daunted by being in a room falling apart before his eyes in almost darkness and being in front of a figure who “had shrunk to skin and bone,” as he realises that she seems to be turning prematurely old with the house.
After talking to Miss Havisham she tells him that her heart is ‘broken’ by Compeyson. It is here that the reader realises that Estella seems similar to Miss Havisham and that Estella who she adopted is just a cruel instrument in which to obtain revenge for the wrongs that were done to Miss Havisham on her wedding day. Pip being in the company of two people intending to make him unhappy would make the reader sympathise with him.
Pip is soon asked to call for Estella again and is obligated to play beggar my neighbour. Estella is horrified at the idea of playing with a “common labouring boy!” and to satisfy her; Miss Havisham whispers to her “You can break his heart.” The reader would obviously feel sympathy for Pip after this ruthless comment aimed towards him unknowingly.
After being insulted again by Estella, Miss Havisham asks Pip to tell her what he really thinks of Estella. Here he admits his feelings of affection toward her and that he wants to see her again. Here Dickens paints his only dependable picture of sexual attraction which will later be the cause of Pips broken heart towards the end of the book.
After loosing the game, Pip parts company from Miss Havisham and leaves down the stairs with Estella. When he arrives outside he admits to himself “I had fancied, without thinking about it, that it must necessarily be night-time.” While Estella asks him to wait he remonstrates with himself and the way he had been taught ‘incorrectly’ and wishes he had never called knaves jacks and wishes he had been rather more “Genteelly” brought up. This lets the audience know that the days events have had a huge impact on him and have affected him greatly.
Estella brings Pip some food but leaves him to eat it alone, and during this time Pip cries as he slowly wanders round the disused brewery. Now the effects of the nastiness of Estella are highlighted and made obvious to the reader how much she has affected Pip.
Like the interior of the house, the overgrown garden and disused brewery are suggestive of Miss Havisham's own decayed, squandered body.
When Estella lets Pip go she taunts him one more time by saying “You have been crying till you are half blind, and you are near crying now.” Estella clearly enjoys giving him pain and humiliation and doesn’t mind what harm she causes him. Pip walks out and his thoughts are overflowing with the days harrowing events, and all he can think about is his frustration at being a common labouring boy, his course hands, his thick boots and the way he calls knaves jacks and the chapter finishes in a melancholic sullen way. Pip says he “was in a low lived, bad way” and that is the last way in which the reader would think of him in the chapter. Dickens highlighting his common labouring boy traits makes the reader wish Pip could become more of a gentleman and therefore the reader feels sympathy towards him because of his situation.
In conclusion, in order to make the audience feel sympathetic towards Pip, Dickens uses a variety of techniques to manufacture our reactions into feeling sorry for him. The locations he uses are intimidating as he uses bleak misty marshes and a rotting decrepit house that seems alien to make Pip seem isolated and alone.
Dickens also puts Pip in uncomforting situations where he knows he will be intimidated. Examples of this are the convict manifesting in the graveyard, Pumblechook demanding sums of him, and Estella humiliating and laughing at him at every given moment.
Finally the characters themselves have the biggest impact of Pip as they tantalise, tease and torment him. Magwich threatens and insults him, Mrs Joe is raucous and unrelenting in her attempts in giving him a good talking to, Miss Havisham seems inhuman amongst Satis House and treats him in a disturbing way which shows she wants his heart broken, and Estella, a product of Miss Havisham’s revengeful ways forces him to question his whole identity. Dickens succeeds in making us feel sympathy for Pip because he influences us in so many ways by all the events and ordeals he traverses.
