The first time Pip speaks to Miss Havisham is when he replies to her question and we can tell straight away from his reply that he acknowledges that she is from the upper class. He therefore respects her and calls her “…ma’am”. He knows where he stands and is also aware of the fact that he is of a lower class; “Mr. Pumblechook’s boy, ma’am”. Miss Havisham has the ability to produce a sense of fear within Pip and cause him to be hesitant and nervous; “you are not afraid of a woman who has never seen the sun since you were born?” The fear that has been created in Pip is reflected in his reply; “No”, which is monosyllabic and shows feeling of anxiety and nervousness. Nevertheless, Pip may be scared but he tries his best to tell Miss Havisham what she wants to hear; “what do I touch?” “your heart”.
Pip is then told By Miss Havisham to feed here fancy of seeing a child play. But Pip is greatly conscious of his class that he just stood there regardless if its consequence; “I felt myself so unequal to the performance that I stood looking at Miss Havisham in what I suppose she took a dogged manner”
The fact that Pip opens up about his feelings of his surroundings prove that he has never been exposed to so much wealth and weirdness before; “I am very sorry for you, and very sorry I can’t play just now…It’s so new here, and so strange, and so fine – and melancholy-” He however immediately regrets saying so much, not knowing what her reaction is going to be. “I stopped, feared I might say too much, or had already said it…”
He may be lucky in the sense that she didn’t seem aggravated by his remark, nonetheless she tells him to call Estella; who we suppose is her adopted daughter. When Estella is told to play with Pip she feels ashamed to play him because he is of a lower class. “With this boy! Why he is such a common labouring-boy!” Miss Havisham’s response gives us evidence of how she wants to make Pip feel; she wants to hurt him emotionally. “You can break his heart”
To make it worse for Pip, it seems as though the only reason she agrees to play with him is because she has the ability to hurt and humiliate him. Estella also refers to Pip as ‘boy’ showing that she looks down on him with disdain and gives him no respect. “What do you play boy?” “Nothing but beggar my neighbour, miss” Albeit she disrespects him he continues to be respectful by referring to her as ‘miss’. The fact that he doesn’t know any other games, reflects that he has a very restricted childhood and doesn’t play as often as we would expect a child to.
The setting is continuously being described which readily mirrors sadness and lifelessness. “corpse-like”, “grave-clothes” Estella is incessantly adding to his distress by using her power to make him feel contempt and extremely inferior. She deliberately criticises his lower-class language, features and footwear, just to intensify his emotions. “He calls the knaves, Jacks, this boy!” “And what coarse hands he has. And what thick boots!” She has the ability to arouse inexperienced emotions within him, emotions that he has never come across ever before. “Her contempt for me was so strong, that it became infectious and I caught it.”
Pip understands that he shouldn’t upset Estella because of the difference in class between them. So he therefore does as she would expect him to. “I misdealt, as was only natural, when I knew she was lying in wait for me to do wrong” No matter how much Estella criticises and hurts Pip, he is still very polite to her and lets her say what she wants, only because she is of a higher class. “…she denounces me for a stupid, clumsy labouring-boy”
Pip is unendlessly polite towards Estella and seems nervous, scared and threatened by her. “I don’t like to say,” I stammered.’ “I replied, in a whisper” also mirrors his timid ness, and the fact that he doesn’t want here to overhear. Estella’s Dialogue has been used very strongly to create sympathy for Pip and her contempt has greatly affected him.
As we have seen Pip isn’t someone who would say anything to hurt another individual and especially someone of a higher class. But he is so hurt that he actually says that he thinks Estella is ‘very insulting’. This makes us fell sorry for him because he is a child that has been greatly insulted and admits to feeling that way.
Pip has started to feel extremely uncomfortable and belittled by Estella’s demeanour. “I think I should like to go home’ Despite the fact that Pip is willing to go home, Miss Havisham makes him stay and play. Pip once again cannot defy Miss Havisham and does as he is told. “Play the game out” Estella wins the game and once again looks at him despicably causing him more hurt. Once the game was over, Miss Havisham asks Pip to come again after six days and even after all the pain and trauma he had just been through he doesn’t say no to her, only because she was of a higher class and he wouldn’t ever dare say no to her. “Yes, ma’am”
As Pip is about to leave, Miss Havisham asks Estella to give Pip some food, in a sense which seemed of pity. Estella once again refers to Pip as ‘boy’ and speaks to him in a very rude manner. “You wait here, you boy” this creates an emotion of sympathy within the reader towards Pip due to Estella’s harsh rudeness to Pip.
Whilst waiting for Estella to return with some food, Pip takes the opportunity to look at ‘coarse’ hands and ‘common’ boots; theses were the two features that Estella had earlier on criticised. They had never before affected him but she had had too strong an impact on him that he had now become extremely conscious about them and had started to look down on them. Neither had the fact that he called knaves instead of Jacks, but now he was willing to ask his uncle why he never taught him to call them Knaves. His thoughts have gone so far that he wishes his uncle was brought up more ‘genteelly’ and then maybe he would have been as well. Dickens here has managed to generate great sympathy for Pip by showing us how an individual of an upper class can hurt someone just due to their financial status.
When Estella returns with some food, she puts it down in such a manner that a dog would be treated with. This shows how disgraceful she thinks Pip is and form sympathy within the reader because we know that Pip shouldn’t be treated in such a way and that he deserves more respect than he receives.
His emotions overtook him and tears started to fall but this signalled to Estella that she had succeeded and this gave Pip the strength to hold back his tears, but in return she just gave him a ‘contemptuous toss’ to show the endless disgust and contempt she has for him. As soon as she left his emotions just started to uncontrollably flow. In this scene his tears were what initially formed sympathy within the reader but as the scene progressed the fact that he tried to fight his emotions from flowing out in front of Estella, comprehensively intensifies our empathy for Pip.
Her behaviour has left Pip emotionally scarred. His feelings for her only comprised of anger, frustration and hatred. “So bitter were my feeling, and so sharp was the smart without a name, that needed counteraction” Pip’s strong and genuine feelings in this concluding line leave a lasting sense of commiseration in favour of Pip.
Dickens has successfully used his unique skills and techniques of writing, which contained effective vocabulary, an eccentric setting, a crucial voice, realistic characters and dialogue, a powerful beginning and poignant ending to create sympathy for Pip.