Pips moral journey starts when he meets Abel Magwitch for the first time. Pip first meets magwitch in his local churchyard whilst he is tending to his family’s graves. Magwitch was a convict who had escaped from a near by hulk. One of the first thing he does is tip Pip upside down to check his pockets for food. He scared Pip into doing things for him by threatening him ‘keep still you little devil, or I’ll cut your throat!’ Soon after talking to Magwitch Pip returns home. That night pip returned home, but he found it extremely hard to sleep due to being so scared that Magwitch may kill him and then eat him. The next morning, Pip stole a pork pie, a bottle of brandy, a file and some wittles to give to magwitch so that he had food and could take his irons off. Pip didn’t do it out of kindness though, he did it because of fear. This early part in the story reflects on how pip learns that stealing is wrong. After pip took the items to give to magwitch, he imagines some cattle in a field along side the path he was taking to the churchyard saying ‘Holloa, young thief!’ This represents that pip feels really guilty about taking things from jo and his sister all because of his vivid imagination and his guilty conscience.
In the second part of pips moral journey is where he meets Estella and miss. Haversham. Miss Haversham invited Pip over to play with and accompany estella. Miss Haversham saw it as an opportunity to break Pip’s heart by allowing him to allocate feelings for Estella and then sending Estella away to france to allow her to become a lady. After seeing all this happen to him, Pip decided he wanted to become a gentleman so that he would be at the same status as Estella and he thought that she may even like him for it. At one point Estella called pip ‘common and coarse’ she also commented on his labourers hand and thick boots. All of this made Pip want to become a gentleman even more and it made him think of other people like himself as lower than him.
Later on in the story, Pip becomes Jo’s apprentice as a Blacksmith. He worked there for a fair few years until he was contacted by someone from London. He went to find out what it was this person wanted with him creting many problems along the way, especially with another worker called Orlick who gets jealous of Pip being allowed time off of work.
When Pip got to London he found out that he was given an anonymus benefactor. Soon after finding this out, Pip stopped working with jo and moved to London where he could fulfil his dream and life time ambition ‘to become a gentleman’. At first Pip thought his benefactor was miss haversham but previously in the story she had payed a sum of money to Jo as pips offering for him to become jo’s apprentice.
Now Pip was seen as a gentleman, he started becoming aware of others being a lower class than him. He thought he was better than everyone else that he used to be friends with and they thought less of him for it. With Pips growing sense of social awareness, he only socialised with people with the same status as himself.
The main turning point in the story is where Pip finds out that his benefactor was the convict that he did a good deed for many years ago. When Pip helped him out, Magwitch decided to work as hard as he could so that Pip could live the life of luxury that he deserved. Pip was disgusted to find out that his benefactor was a convict who would be killed if he was sighted in England ever again. This made him feel so stupid because all his time as a gentleman he thought of jo and his friends as a lower social calls than himself when all along his benefactor was a convict. He also found out that Estella was Magwitch’s child and was therefore no better than him all along. This is the point where Pip becomes a true gentleman as he realises that all people are equal and that you don’t need to be smartly dressed or have lots of money to be a gentleman ‘A true gentleman in manners must be a true gentleman at heart.’
To conclude this essay I would like to point out the likeness between Pips life being like a fairy tale. He starts out life poor, meets Miss Haversham who he sees as a fairy Godmother and things start becoming clearer to him as the story moves along until he realises what everything is really about (happy ending) e.g. ‘what a true gentleman is’. From the start the story is read in 1st person narrative as an adult, even when he is speaking about his childhood which means the novel is more of an account than a story. As the novel is written in 1st person, you get the thoughts and feelings with the overviews of the older Pip.
Scott Emmett
