How does Dickens establish the identity of young Pip at the start of the novel?
On the surface, ‘Great Expectations’ appears to be simply the story of Pip from his early childhood to his early adulthood, and a remembrance of the events and people that Pip encounters throughout his life. In other words, it is a well written story of a young man's life growing up in England in the early nineteenth century. It’s an interesting narrative of youth, love, success and failure, all of which are the makings of an entertaining novel. The experiences that Pip has as a young boy are important in his maturation into young adulthood. These elements are crucial to the structure and development of Great Expectations: Pip's maturation and development from a child to a man are important factors of the genre to which Great Expectations belongs, a Bildungsroman, a novel of development. Great Expectations is an autobiographical novel, as Bildungsroman novels are. It isn’t Dickens’ autobiography, it is actually the autobiography of a fictional character who is Pip, but a lot of the experiences are taken from Dickens’ own life. In this novel we meet Pip, a common labouring boy who becomes embarrassed of his lifestyle, and class, for he is of the lower-class. Dickens has strong views of the Victorian Class System, and criticises the lack of compassion shown to the lower rungs of the society ladders. This is shown when he meets a pretty girl called Estella, who calls him ‘coarse’, and ‘common labouring-boy’. This is something that changed his opinions, as he loved her, and so wanted to become a gentleman on her account. As Pip gets older, he is sent to London to become a gentleman, and is paid for by a mysterious and anonymous upper-class benefactor who has ‘Great Expectations’ of him. The story is of the Bildungsroman is an autobiography based on a fictional character. Pip the narrator, is an orphan, rather like Charles Dickens, whose father was imprisoned. Pip has a desire to become ‘his own man’ by leaving home. An aspect of his new life in the city is that of love. Social conditions and education themes are also present, therefore making the story a perfect bildungsroman. At the beginning of the story, we feel the harsh conditions laid upon criminals. The convict at the beginning of the story is made to be pitied. This is part of Dickens way to show more of his opinions on the Victorian Penal System, as even Pip is kind and supportive towards the convict – reflecting Dickens’ own views. They believed criminals corroded morality throughout society and as a result should be punished fiercely. Dickens does not agree with these beliefs whatsoever. The reader feels more sympathetic towards younger Pip, for the reason that Pip is the narrator. We soon find out that the narrator is an older and more mature. “I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly”. At this point we take the Pip seriously and try to find the message he is trying to put across, after maturing and now looking back at his bitter past. He uses the word ‘childish’ when describing himself at that time shows that he is embarrassed and is assuring us that this is not something he would do at the time of writing his autobiography.
