Great expectations is a bildungsroman as it follows pips transformation from a mediocre boy through his experiences of becoming and being a gentleman. In great expectations Charles Dickens makes it vivid to who are the genuine gentlemen and the deceptive gentlemen. An example of this would be Pip and Joe, in the novel pip is given the role as a gentleman but is he a gentleman and is Joe just a common working class man? Who is the genuine gentleman?
Pip progresses from an asperous working class boy from the country to a city gentleman. In London where pip was branded a gentleman he becomes a snob and leads a directionless and sterile life with no great or meaningful purpose. To Pip being a gentleman consist of wealth, appurtenances and having a social life with other devoid gentlemen. Estella comments that Pip has ‘changed companions’ since he’s became a gentleman. But Pip is in fact redeemed at the end of the novel when he realizes how stupid he’s been by living a gentleman of what he thought it was and not what it really is. In that redemption he repays Magwitch for all that Magwitch has ever desired by telling him about Estella and that she is alive, he forgives Miss Haveshmen and comforts her at the termination of her sardonic and hostile life.
Au contraire Joe is a mediocre working class man with no expectations but to provide for his family. He has manners and is virtuous unlike pip. When Pip becomes a “gentleman” he’s ashamed of Joe as he’s a common man with no value in life but when Pip is in debt Joe is there to rescue him.
Another example of gentlemen in great expectations is Bentley Drummle and Herbert Pocket. Drummle was born to be a gentleman. He was also a fellow student of Matthew pocket. He marries Estella for her money and abuses her which makes her oppressive in her marriage. He lacks the ethics and sincerity of a true gentleman. Drummle is indubitably not a gentleman but is branded one in the novel. Why?
Herbert Pocket is also another well known “gentleman” in the novel. He has both idiosyncrasy and ancestry of a gentleman but hasn’t got the wealth, does this make him a genuine or deceptive gentleman.
By analogizing Herbert and Drummle, Dickens shows wealth and social status does not make someone a true gentleman.
So what is a gentleman someone who’s wealthy with fashionable and expensive attire or a man with manners, genuine emotions, affection and helpful towards people. John Henry Newman Depicts a gentleman as kind, patient and generous, he also declares that that a gentleman is ‘one who never inflicts pain’. Dickens shows that a gentleman isn’t someone who’s an aristocrat, omnipotent but is someone whose behaviour is reputable and considerate to others, so who are the genuine gentlemen in the play?
Without doubt a gentleman is a man with manners, genuine emotions and helpful towards others. Joe is obviously a gentleman as he appears to have all these traits throughout the whole novel. Herbert is also a true gentleman as he has both the idiosyncrasy and nurture of a gentleman. Pip comments in chapter 22,
“I had never seen any one then, and I have never seen
any one since, who more strongly expressed to me,
in every look and tone, a natural incapacity to do
anything secret and mean. There was something
Wonderfully hopeful about his general air”
Drummle is lucidly not a gentleman he’s got no mannerisms or respect for others especially woman.
Pip was a gentleman before his first visit to statis house; he felt sympathy for the convict at the marshes (magwitch) and also at the termination of the novel pip also shows gentleman behaviour but is this true emotions or just guilt? Pip cannot be a true gentleman as during his early years of becoming a gentleman he was a snob, ignorant and had no respect for others. He appeared not to have any of the traits of a gentleman therefore does this make Pip a deceptive gentleman?
