Look again at chapters 1 and 8 where Pip first meets Magwitch and Miss Havisham and chapters 44 and 56 his final meeting with Magwitch and Miss Havisham. Compare Pip's relationship with these two characters.

Great Expectations

Look again at chapters 1 and 8 where Pip first meets Magwitch and Miss Havisham and chapters 44 and 56 his final meeting with Magwitch and Miss Havisham. Compare Pip’s relationship with these two characters.

In this essay I am going to look at and analyse Pips first and last meetings with Miss Havisham and Magwitch. I will also discuss how these meetings affected Pips character and future. Also how his feelings towards Magwitch and Havisham changed throughout the novel.

As at the beginning of the novel Pip was really impressed by the upper class, however by the end of the novel he realised that his real friends and family members were from the working class and that you didn’t have to have money and be a gentleman to be at your happiest. I am also going to talk about Charles Dickens and his purpose for the book, and where it is shown, another thing I will do is state whether I think he was effective and why.

I think Charles Dickens is a great author and has written a terrific book as the links between all the characters keeps you very intrigued and you build a strong relationship with Pip and sometimes you hope it works out the way he wants, but then sometimes you don’t. Knowing about Charles Dickens’ background and childhood you recognize lots of links between him and Pip, which is also very interesting. As Charles was a social commentator and protester you see him bringing subjects he felt very strongly about into the book, which I will talk about in more detail later in this essay.

I will now talk about the significance of the two meetings of Pip and Miss Havisham and Pip and Magwitch. I think that the meeting of Miss Havisham is significant because after his first visit Pip starts to blame his brother in law Joe, for them being working class, and not knowing higher class words. He starts to think he is better than working class and can do better, and starts to fantasize about being a “gentleman”. So without this visit he would never have started to question being a blacksmith or started blaming other people. He also meets Estella; Miss Havisham has big plans for Estella and Pip and we find out about these awful plans in this chapter. Pip also falls for Estella at this moment in the book, this lust for Estella helps manipulate Pip in his life decisions, even when he is older and hasn’t seen her for years.

I feel the meeting of Pip and Magwitch is important, as it is when we first see Magwitch at his worst; it is also something exciting to happen to Pip as a young boy. Another reason why this chapter is significant is because you start to see connections with other characters also possible connections, which could occur later in the novel. As in this chapter Magwitch talks about another escaped convict who we later find out is called Compeyson. “ There’s a young man hid with me, in comparison with which young man I am a Angel” Compeyson is quite important to Dickens’s purpose of the book as he represents part of what Dickens thought was wrong with the justice system. He also returns to the story later in the book with connections to Magwitch and Miss Havisham. We also see what is the start of a great relationship between Pip and Magwitch.

At the start of Great Expectations, Pip sets the scene by telling us about himself and his family. Here Pip talks from the perspective of a young boy, so we immediately get the impression that we are going to grow with Pip as Charles Dickens tells the story through him. We can also get clues about the story from the title “Great Expectations” We get the intuition that someone might have high hopes for Pip or Pip may have high hopes for himself. When setting the scene Pip stands over his parent’s graves and along side them his five brothers, so this tells us he is an orphan and doesn’t actually have many opportunities. One opportunity he does have is to become an apprentice blacksmith to his brother in law. As ever since his parents died his older sister has looked after him by hand with her husband, the blacksmith. Child deaths were not uncommon in the 1800’s as there was disease everywhere and medical technology was not as advanced as it is today, and obviously newborn babies and young children were more prone to diseases and could not cope with them as well as adults, however older people could not hide from it either. The poverty also took people into crime, so this was another reason for children to be orphaned as their parents may have been hanged or sent to prison, or maybe told they have to repay debts by work, some people were also sent to Australia and told never to return. Estella who we meet in the book was also once an orphan but she was lucky enough to be adopted by someone of a high class.

I will now start by talking about Pip’s first meeting with Magwitch. Magwitch and Pip first meet at the graveyard where Magwitch surprises and scares Pip. Pip was very scared of Magwitch when he first saw him as he was unsure of what he was going to do to him and he seemed very scary as he was soaking wet, had broken shoes and had lots of cuts and bruises. “A fearful man, all in coarse gray, with an iron on his leg” This tells us that Magwitch is a strong, rough, tough person that can easily threaten others. It also tells us that he may be an escaped convict as he has an iron on his leg. This quotation can also be linked to Miss Havisham, as later in the book Pip talks about her house “dismal and had a great many iron bars to it” So the great many iron bars on the house and the great iron on his leg could be connected. Dickens may be hinting that later in the book Magwitch might return and may be connected to Miss Havisham in some way.

We see in the meeting of Magwitch and Pip that the story is from the perspective of the working class, as the story has been set in the marshlands, which were known as an area where working class people lived. Another reason is that Magwitch is a convict so you would expect him to be from the working class. Also because Pip is an orphan and is looked after by his older sister, who is a blacksmith’s wife, which would have been known as a working class profession. We can also tell that Magwitch is working class at this point in the novel from the way he speaks “You fail, or go from my words in any partickler, no matter how small it is, and your heart and liver shall be tore out, roasted and ate” We see that Magwitch is not talking standard English here, so this shows he could not be of a higher class due to his lack of education. This can all be linked to Charles Dickens himself, as he was once from a working class family. His Father was also imprisoned because of large debts when Charles was at the age of ten where Dickens and the rest of his family went and stayed in the prison with his father. Later in the novel Pip also becomes over run with debt. After living in the prison for a while, Dickens and his family left and at the age of twelve, Charles went to work every day in a local factory for very little money. It was never known that people in the 1800’s were able to change from a lower class to a higher class, however because of Charles great books and plays he became an established author and was lucky enough to rise in status.

When describing Magwitch we see Dickens using many of his writing skills as he uses many poetic devices. Dickens used alliteration “and shivered and glared and growled”. It is used with the words “glared” and “growled”, Dickens may have used the alliteration to add rhythm. He uses repetition on the word “and”, he may have done this to make the reader want to carry on reading with anticipation. We also see he uses onomatopoeia with the word “growled” which also makes me think of a frightening lion. However I think this quotation shows how Magwitch is actually vulnerable as ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

Later on we see Magwitch threatening Pip to make sure he brings him the wittles and file the next day. “You get me the file, he tilted me again and you get me the wittles, he tilted me again you bring ‘em both to me, he tilted me again or ill have your heart and liver out, he tilted me again” Here Dickens has used repetition. It may have been used to add tension and so we start to fear for Pip’s safety. Another reason might be that it could help us start to build a relationship with Pip and his character. From this quotation we can see how much power Magwitch has over Pip and their relationship. In another example, we see how much power Magwitch has in their relationship when Pip says “I was dreadfully frightened, so giddy that I clung to him with both hands” This conveys that Pip needed him and would do anything. It also hints that later on in the book he will need him again and they will become much closer.

I will now talk about the first meeting between Pip and Miss Havisham. The first time Pip meets Miss Havisham is in chapter eight at her home, which has the name “Satis house” which means “enough house” meaning any one who lived there had everything, “that whoever had this house could want nothing else” This is ironic as Miss Havisham has everything apart from the one thing she actually wants, her ex-fiancé, and without him she feels she has nothing.

When arriving at the house he encounters a young girl named Estella who thinks very highly of herself and proud, we have evidence of this when she calls Pip “boy” This shows how little respect Estella has for Pip. This is because she is of a higher class and has been brought up to believe that the higher the class, the better the person. Estella feels that Pip is foolish and worthless; this is how many high-class people would look upon the lower class in the 1800’s.

Estella escorts Pip across the courtyard to the house where he notices that it felt colder in the courtyard than outside. “The cold wind seemed to blow colder there than outside the gate” This conveys that Miss Havisham’s house seems like a cold, lonely, depressing place. So Pip hasn’t even met Miss Havisham yet and has not got the greatest of first impressions of her and her home. He finds it very strange that it’s colder inside the courtyard and starts to wonder what Miss Havisham and the rest of the house will be like. The “great many iron bars” on the house also symbolises something like a prison because it seems like you would be caged in. This could also be linked to Magwitch as the reason Pip and Magwitch first meet was because he had escaped from prison and needed help.

When Pip saw Miss Havisham for the first time he thought she was out of the ordinary. “Sat the strangest lady I have ever seen or shall ever see” In this quotation we see Dickens refer to Pip as a young boy and a young man. This tells us that as a boy and a man Pip has never seen anyone so strange. It also suggests that later in the book, when Pip gets older he will have another encounter with Miss Havisham. Here we also see Pip reflecting on a childhood experience as the quotation is told by an older Pip.

Their meeting was in a large room, where there was little light, this made Pip feel that because of this everything and everyone seemed very dull and dreary. “The bride within the bridal dress, and like flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes.” This gives me the impression that anything Miss Havisham goes near or touches seems to wither and lose all sign of life. When meeting Miss Havisham Pip notices all of the bridal styled dresses and what he thought to be a “dressing room” He also noticed that everything was always put back in the exactly same position it was taken from. Another thing Pip noticed was that the clocks and watches were all stopped at the same time “watch had stopped at twenty minutes to nine, and that a clock in the room had stopped at twenty minutes to nine” This made Pip feel time had stopped completely and that when he left time would start again from the time entered the house, he was also quite unsure about the whole situation and his surroundings.

I am now going to talk about power. Miss Havisham has a lot of power over Pip and their relationship. We first see an example of this when she orders Pip to “play” in her company. “I have a sick fancy that I want to see some play. There, there! With an impatient movement of the fingers of her right hand; play, play, play!” This is a strange thing to order someone to do, but Miss Havisham is a higher class than Pip and has more money than Pip, therefore more power, so when someone in the 1800’s of such a high class orders you to do such a thing you would not normally think twice. Another time we see the difference in class and power is when Pip plays a game of cards with Estella. “He calls the knaves, Jacks, this boy! Said Estella with disdain, before our first game was out. And what coarse hands he has! And what thick boots!” Here Estella is very shocked that someone has used such a common word. As in the Victorian age working class people were not lucky enough to go to school, become educated, so because of this Pip didn’t know there was another word for “Jacks” Estella also notices that he has “coarse hands” and “thick boots” which she finds very lower class. However this is very ironic as if it wasn’t for Miss Havisham Estella would be one of these people she thinks are so “common” and is disgusted by. This attitude towards Pip and lower class people effectively causes Pip to blame the fact he is not of a higher class on Joe and blames him for not knowing words like “knaves” It also gives him what would normally have been impossible dreams to become a gentleman. As if you were born into a working class family you would always stay in a working class family. “Estella, take him down. Let him have something to eat, and let him roam and look about him while he eats. Go Pip.” We can also see when Miss Havisham talks the difference in class, as she is talking perfect standard English and using words people like Pip and a Joe would not use.

I will now talk about the significance of the final meetings between Pip and Miss Havisham and Pip and Magwitch. I feel the final meeting between Pip and Magwitch is important as we see the role reversals between them. We also see how their relationship has grown and developed. Another reason is that we sadly see the loss of Magwitch who gained a large part in Pips heart and changed the course of his life greatly. However before his death Magwitch helped Pip realise how life is not all about money and your greatest friends are the ones who are there for you even if you have money or not, although I think Magwitch may have done this without realising. As I do not think Magwitch set out to find a replacement child or find someone to love and care for. I feel the importance of the last meeting of Pip and Miss Havisham is that we see many of the changes in Pip, such as his confidence also the change in power. We also see Pip telling Miss Havisham that he knows about her evil plans and how he feels about them, he also tells Estella and Havisham of how they have both affected his life. Another thing, which is significant about this meeting, is that we see Estella telling us of how see feels she cannot love because of the way she has been brought up also as Estella informs Havisham of her marriage acceptance.

I am now going to talk about chapter 44 which is the last meeting between Pip and Miss Havisham, I will start by talking about the changes in power “They both raised their eyes as I went in, and both saw an alteration in me” This shows that there has been a power change and now Pip seems to have the most power in the relationship. I think you can also see the change in power by the way they are situated in the room “Miss Havisham seated on a settee near the fire, and Estella on a cushion at her feat” I think this shows a change because Miss Havisham and Estella are seated low and Pip is standing up high and when they first meet, Miss Havisham sat at a high, chair and seemed very great and powerful, however this has all changed now. “I went to Richmond yesterday to speak to Estella: and finding that some wind had blown her here, I followed.” This is a quotation of something that Pip says to Miss Havisham and I think it shows he is a lot more confident now and is not as intimidated by Miss Havisham as he may once have been.

Another Change in Pip is that he doesn’t respect Miss Havisham anymore “I am as unhappy as you can ever have meant me to be.” At this point Pip has worked out how evil and manipulative Miss Havisham actually is and is trying to tell her she has succeeded. “It induced me to hope that Miss Havisham meant us for one another” Pip feels very upset as he originally thought Miss Havisham was his benefactor and had something to do with the fact that he thought ever since their first meeting that Miss Havisham intended Estella and Pip to be together, and since finding out that this is not the fact he is very angry and in a way feels betrayed.

We see since their first meeting that there has been changes in Pip however this has not been the case with Miss Havisham “who am I, for god’s sake that I should be kind?” This conveys that Havisham is still the heartless, selfish, bitter person she was at the beginning of the novel. It also shows that she is still jealous and still wants to ruin others. When Estella was younger we saw how Miss Havishams attitude rubbed off on Estella and we see in this chapter that even now she is older she has still got this unbearable manner, “I shall not be that. Come! Here is my hand. Do we part on this, you visionary boy – or man?” Here we also see Estella referring to Pip as “boy” which connects to chapter eight when they first meet and when she first started patronizing Pip by calling him “boy”. I feel Estella may have done this at this point in the novel, as Pip is very confident and seems high in power so I believe she was trying to put him back in his place, which she feels is a “common” working class boy.

Something that hasn’t changed about Pip is his love for Estella and when once again telling her this, he again gets a reaction he was not praying for, “She looked at me with an unmoved countenance” This conveys that she had no expression, and showed no emotion and I feel this was because she knew that she had excepted Drummles wedding proposal. Also because she cannot love, “When you say you love me, I know nothing more. You address nothing in my breast, you touch nothing there,” she also says, “It is the nature formed within me”. So this puts across that she cannot love, not anyone and this is because of Miss Havisham as “nature” is the way you are, through how you have been bought up. However I feel Estella has chosen Drummle because he is upper class and seems to like her, not because he says he loves her or because she loves him, because she doesn’t.

I think in this last meeting with Miss Havisham Pips starts to realise who his real friends are just like Magwitch helped him realise, we also see how his interest in being a higher class and having money has decreased, “if you would spare the money to do my friend Herbert a lasting service in life, but which from the nature of the case must be done without his knowledge” Here Pip declined the offer for money and asked Miss Havisham to give money to his friend Herbert rather than give it to him. Pip knows that in a normal situation Herbert would not have known or thought about knowing Pip, but still sees him as a close friend as he helped him through his time at the gentleman’s school.

I believe that the changes that have occurred in pip, such as Power and confidence have occurred for the better, even though it took a while for them to arise and for Pip to once again realise that being higher class is not always a better quality of life. Some people would say that a better quality of life means having money and what ever you want, but I believe having a good quality of life means having friends and family around you that love and care for you and being happy with what your doing.

I am now going to talk about the last meeting between Pip and Magwitch, which occurs in chapter 56. The scene is set with Pip sat by the side of an extremely ill Magwitch. A lot has changed since their first meeting as Pip is now older and learning to become a gentleman, which Magwitch pays for. As, since getting recaptured by the police he was sent away to Australia and made quite a lot of money from sheep farming. Where he decided to go against the rules of his exile and go back to England and tell Pip that he was his benefactor. However everything starts to go wrong when the officials in Australia notice he is missing and tell the police in England, and when trying to go back to Australia without getting caught they bump into the police where there is a fight and he is sadly caught and told he will be hanged. During his fight and the capture of the police Magwitch gained fatal injuries. Magwitch is now kept in the prison hospital where Pip visits him daily, since his return from Australia Pip and Magwitch grew very close and Magwitch once said he was like a son to him.

I believe that Pip now feels very thankful for everything Magwitch has done and has tried to do. “It became the first duty of my life to say to him, and read to him” This shows us that Pip is thankful to Magwitch. Also the fact that he uses the word “duty” makes me think that it was Pip’s first job since learning how to become a gentleman, and because of this he would never have been able to read at such a high level. He may have also wanted to make Magwitch proud and make Magwitch feel that everything he has done has been worthwhile. I think it would also make Magwitch feel glad in another way, as another reason for helping Pip to become a gentleman was to get back at the justice system. As when Magwitch committed his crime and escaped, when Pip and Magwitch first met, there was someone else with him who also committed the crime. However Compeyson was not punished as he was of a high class and paid his way out of punishment, and this was something that Magwitch never got over and wanted to use Pip to try and introduce the middle class. This is something that Charles Dickens felt strongly about, higher-class people paying there way out. He thought it was very unfair and unjust. It also makes you think that Pip is doing things that a son or daughter might do, so he could also be trying to fill the space of Estella. Later we see Magwitch looking for reassurance “as if he were confident that I had seen some small redeeming touch in him, even so long as when I was a little child” here Magwitch wants to know he has done something good, and as well as looking for reassurance I think he is also looking for a bit of love and care.

In this chapter Pip tells us of how Magwitch thinks about how things could have been different. “He pondered over the question whether he might have been a better man under better circumstances” This quotation is saying that Magwitch thinks about if he was of a higher class none of this would have happened. If he was higher class he could have paid his way out of his punishment, he would have never been sent to Australia, would never have had to have come back and never ended up lying in a prison hospital bed. Here Magwitch is showing how he finds everything unfair. We can see that Dickens repeated the word “better”; he may have done this to add effect and to get the point across to the audience.

One of the changes we see since they first meet is that Pip now has the power in the relationship. “I thought you was late. But I knowed you couldn’t be that.” I think that this quotation shows how Magwitch now needs and depends on Pip. As Magwitch depends on Pip to visit him everyday and depends on him to give him the care and love that you would get off your own child, but Magwitch can’t have that so that is why he depends on him so much. This is a change, as when they first meet Pip needed Magwitch when he was hanging him off the tombstone.

We later see other bad things about the justice system when Magwitch is in the dock “Penned in the dock, as I again stood outside it at the corner with his hand in mine” Here Magwitch is being treated like an animal locked up, this can be connected to Pip as when they meet for the second time Pip spoke of how he thought Magwitch ate like an animal. From this quotation we are told that Magwitch and Pip are holding hands this shows us that there is a lot of trust and love in their relationship and that Magwitch again depends on Pip for comfort. In this same part of the chapter we see Pip feels guilty and tries to take the blame for everything “he had come back for my sake” Pip starts blaming himself and tries to take the blame off Magwitch just like Magwitch once did at the beginning of the book, so Pip wouldn’t get into trouble with his terrible sister for taking the food and helping Magwitch.

While in the court we are told of the other people there who are referred to as the audience “while the audience got up (putting their dresses right, as they might at church or elsewhere)” The people in the 1800’s found things like executions and court hearings like a family day out, where you wear your smartest clothes to watch the entertainment. This was something that Charles Dickens was against, he found it was unmerited and also disrespectful to the person being executed to be watched by the public, especially when many people who had done worse things were let off free just because they had money.

Towards the end of the chapter Pip tells Magwitch what happened to his daughter and how he feels about her “You had a child once, whom you loved and lost. A gentle pressure on my hand. She lived and found powerful friends. She is living now. She is a lady and very beautiful. And I love her!” Just before Magwitch passes away “he raised my hand to his lips” I feel this is a very touching moment in the book and think Magwitch is showing his love for Pip, also thanking him for everything he has done or tried to do. He could also be thanking him for telling him about his daughter whom he before knew nothing about and always wondered now because of Pip, he at least knew a little before he passed away.

I believe that Magwitch was a part in Pip starting to realise that being high class is not always better than being working class. Yes you may have more money and more opportunities and a better quality of life, but you don’t always have the love and care from friends and family members, and you may never actually be happy. I feel that Magwitch helped him with this way of thinking because although Magwitch did have some money he acted and spoke like a working class person, so when comparing him to the high-class people Pip meets, he may have realised how pretentious high class people can be.

Dickens’ purpose for Great Expectations was to attack the justice system, as he was greatly against higher-class people paying their way out of punishments, such as imprisonment, exile and execution. Dickens felt this was unjust as if you commit a crime and get caught you should be punished. He also thought it was unfair as lower class people were treated differently. I feel he was so against this as his Dad was sent to prison for debts and he spent a lot of his childhood in and around prisons. As well as being a social commentator writing this book was another way of attacking and letting other people know about what he thought was a terrible excuse for a justice system. I feel Charles Dickens succeeded in attacking and letting other people know what the justice system was like and how he felt. As before reading the book I never knew anything about the 1800’s justice system, however while reading the book as I got more knowledge about the subject I started to realise how unfair it was. I started to feel sorry Magwitch and other people who were in those situations. There was many links in this novel to his own family and life so some people would say it was a type of autobiography about his life when he was a child. He was also attacking the class system as another thing he thought was unfair was that lower class people like “Biddy” who was a true friend to Pip could not rise in class, even if they were very well educated and did a great job well, like Biddy who could not rise in class. As Biddy was of a low class she had to be self educated and at a young age became a teacher to Pip and then went on to be a great primary school teacher, but could never rise in class or status as she was lower class and in the 1800’s it was thought you had to stay in the class you was born into. Which is completely different today, as more opportunities arise for new generations, therefore giving them more opportunities to rise in class and the fact that this was not possible then, annoyed Charles Dickens and this was another thing he was attacking in this book.

By Jamie Whitehead 11T