One of the three women that Pip is influenced by is that of Mrs Joe Gargery, a woman who is incredibly violent and beats her husband Mr Joe Gargery the blacksmith. She has a vicious temper, which is most probably due to the fact that she is a woman who has had a very difficult life, as her parents have died and she has been forced to take in her little brother and to care for him after the death of her parents. Mrs Joe often says that Pip should not be ‘Pompeyed’, meaning he should be given no privileges. This gives the reader the impression that Mrs Joe does not allow her little brother effectively to be a child; this was quite a common view in the Victorian times, alongside the idea that children should be seen and not heard. However, the reader is in a way inclined to feel sorry for Mrs Joe because she did not have to take Pip in but did, even if reluctantly.
When Ms Joe mentions that she brought Pip up ‘by hand’ it gives the reader the impression that Ms Joe is a very violent and aggressive woman who herself has probably been brought up by hand. Although again we must remember that in actual fact being brought up ‘by hand’ was considered a normal Victorian upbringing, and in actual fact Ms Gargery would’ve been praised for raising Pip in this manner. Pip is also led to believe that Ms Joe bullied her husband into marrying her, most probably ‘by hand’.
Pip is terrified of his sister due to her being quick of hand, she beats him frequently and has even got an object called ‘tickler’ which is some kind of beating stick. Although today this would be seen as a form of child abuse, to the Victorian audience they would’ve agreed with Ms Joe and the manner in which she was raising Pip, and she would have been considered a very good role model on motherhood and would most probably have earned respect and admiration from other characters in the novel.
Mrs Joe may have been thought to have been a very controversial character at the time as she appears to have reversed the stereotypical roles of husband and wife, as in the Victorian times stereotypes were commonly followed, and those who didn’t comply were ridiculed. Stereotypically the man would have power and authority over the women, however Ms Gargery is in contrast to this rule, as we see Joe flinching from her and her beating him.
We see a very snobbish side to Ms Joe when she says ‘It’s bad enough being a blacksmith’s wife’. This shows us that Ms Joe is a very snobbish character, as despite the fact she clearly had to force him to marry her she believes that she could’ve done better than him. The reason why ms Joe married Mr Joe at all is an interesting point, and I believe that it is due to the Victorian attitudes to marriage as people in those times thought that middle aged unmarried women were improper and that to not have a man to look after of you was indecent. Attitudes such as these would make unmarried women rather unpopular, especially to those women who were married and believed that a single woman was a potential threat to their husbands.
Ms Joe is a person who obviously cares a great deal about what other people think of her and often tries quite hard to impress those in a higher social class. A good example of this is when she, Pip and Mr Joe go off to town to visit uncle Pumblechook. Instead of wearing simple clothes as she normally would, Mrs Joe takes a very large beaver bonnet, a spare shawl and an umbrella (despite the fact that it was not raining). This shows that Mrs Joe in a way fancies herself as a Lady. Another example of this is when her uncle comes over on Christmas day; she shows a very false personality. She behaves extremely politely and unnaturally friendly ‘Oh, un-cle Pum-ble-chook! This is kind!’ This is a side of her persona that has not been revealed in the novel up until this point.
We could tell that Pip’s thoughts of his sister are not at all positive. In fact he describes her in a rather unpleasant manner ‘My sister, Mrs Joe Gargery, with black hair and eyes, had such a prevailing redness of skin.’ This makes the readers see her through Pip’s eyes, and how despite the fact she may try to beautify herself in the presence of the well off however truly she just a snobbish creature.
Ms Joe’s slow and painful death is a device which Charles Dickens used to entertain a Victorian audience, as they had quite strong views about crime and punishment, and they would have believed that Ms Joe got what she deserved.
Miss Havisham is a very bitter and disturbed old woman, she wishes to take revenge on all men for what her husbands abandonment of her on her wedding day, she sits in the same clothes that she would have worn to her wedding and the same chair she was preparing herself in, she is surrounded in her room by decaying dark things in the room much like her decaying, dark vengeful mind. In order to exact her revenge on men, she has adopted a little girl named Estella through her lawyer Mr Jaggers, and she has raised Estella in such away that she is cold, bitter and heartless towards all men. This is a very selfish act of hers, effectively mentally abusing a young girl just so she could acquire revenge. The fact that Miss Havisham invites Pip to her house to meet her adopted daughter so that she can put Estella to the test shows us the extent of her egocentric behaviour ‘Well? You can break his heart’.
However, over the time that Pip visits them Miss Havisham begins to grow fond of the boy who treats her with such politeness and respect, and she does not see any of the cruel heartless behaviour as that which she may see from many other men. So fond that she regrets what she has done to Estella as she realises that Pip is in love with her.
The only reason why Miss Havisham has not been put into a mental institute is because of the fact that she is an incredibly rich woman, and people may have just called what she was going through the eccentricity of the rich.
Miss Havisham seems to delight in some very strange things such as the way that Estella torments and puts Pip down, or by how she herself keeps her relatives guessing as to whom she will leave her fortune and large estate when she dies. This shows us that she is very bitter and delights in other people (particularly men's) sorrow.
Miss Havisham continues to use Estella throughout the play until near to her very own death she has a revelation and realises what a monster she has created in Estella. It is at this point that Miss Havisham realises the error in her ways and accuses Estella of being hard and ungrateful despite the fact that she too is like this and it is because of her that Estella has grown like this. However Miss Havisham does try to reform her character by helping Pip with his plan for Hebert and his business and by leaving her cousin Matthew a legacy upon Pip’s advisement.
However her regret is only shown just before her untimely death when Pip confronts her of what she has done to. We see a new feminine from her towards Pip that was not present before ‘My dear! Believe this: when she first came to me, I meant to save her from misery like my own…. I stole her heart away and put ice in its place!’ At the very end of her life when she is confronted by Pip about her cruelty she becomes distraught with guilt by what she has done to Pip and Estella ‘O! What have I done?’ and her dying moments are ones of misery and grief which would have very much pleased the Victorian audience, as again she got what she deserved.
In the opening of the novel, we see Estella as a beautiful young girl, who is very well-mannered and courteous. Estella has been brought up as a lady, however she uses this to talk down to Pip and to make him feel inferior.
Estella, although being an incredibly cold character by her own admittance ‘You must know that I have no heart’ manages to completely captivate Pip and he completely falls for her. She is probably the first female in Pip’s life that actually pays any attention to him which is probably why Pip falls for her. However he fails to realise what it is Estella has been made to do and instead considers her as being ‘human perfection’.
Estella considers herself to be of high importance and revels in attention. She too like Ms Gargery is a complete snob for considering just this. She continually undermines Pip throughout the Novel and sees Pip as merely a ‘common labouring boy’. What she has no knowledge of, however is her family roots, which in the Victorian times would have been considered terribly shameful, as her father was a convict and her mother a murderer. In fact she would have been considered as ‘the lowest of the low’, which is incredibly ironic when she practically regards Pip as that and herself the complete opposite.
However, the reader cannot help feeling sympathy for Estella. It is, after all, not her fault as this is the manner in which she has been brought up. She was given to Miss Havisham at a very young age and was manipulated and moulded to be a vehicle of Miss Havisham’s revenge. That she may be incredibly beautiful, to the point where she is described as ‘human perfection’ however will not use her heart and will be incapable of loving. Some might call it a form of abuse, because the way that she has been taught to socialise is very unnatural and cruel. Even Miss Havisham realises this and regrets it in her dying moments. It is very easy to manipulate a vulnerable child and to shape her into what you want her to become. Estella is an example of just how easy this was. She was Miss Havisham’s weapon of revenge against the male community, but she in turn just succeeded in ruining another innocent person’s life.
In the end, however, all seems to be resolved although readers do not get the ending that they expect. Estella still unmarried shows a tiny hint of emotion that the reader has been searching for throughout the Novel. She seems to actually be displaying some compassion for Pip ‘I have often thought of you’ and appears to have a saddened look in her eye. She also appears friendlier, as though after being through all her hardships, she has been humbled, however her elegance and charm still remain. After Miss Havisham death, Estella seemed to realise what had been done to her and decided to change it.
In the end of the Novel Estella is a widow and has little property left, we see that she has come through all her hard experiences and is a better person for them, she appears very humble in the end of the novel, and even goes as far as to show some compassion for Pip ‘I have often thought of you’ with a saddened look in her eye, this implies that she regrets rejecting Pip’s love. This is a complete contrast to the heartless proud character we saw in the opening of the novel. Although she and Pip do not end up together. Instead she wishes them to be friends and they become friends “apart”, as she is now too humble to expect anything more from Pip as she has mistreated him for so long. This shows a new sensitivity that we never before saw from Estella and the impression that a person can change is left lingering.
I will now discuss how each of the three main female characters effects Pip in his later life as a gentleman.
Ms Joe Gargery is probably the mot influential woman in Pip’s life, as she is the character with whom Pip spends most of his childhood and it is in our childhood when we are the most vulnerable and susceptible to the ideas of those who surround us. Therefore Ms Joe is probably the prominent female role model who defines and cultivates Pip’s character. The way Ms Joe treats Pip giving him what a modern audience would see as a harsh upbringing and her being quick of hand is what makes Pip treat women with the utmost respect in his years as a gentleman, however this could also be because possibly because many of the influential woman in his life or of a higher social status than him, but we must also take into consideration that Pip as a child may not have been able to restrain his stronger emotions of dislike and bitterness without his view on women that has been developed through his interactions with Mrs Gargery, so this shows that she has had an effect on Pip.
Mrs Joe is also a very strong willed woman, and it is this that in some ways makes her a good role-model for Pip, however we do not see this characteristic displayed by Pip, in fact we see quite the opposite. So perhaps this is a sign that she is not as influential on Pip as it may at first seem.
We also see some of the ramifications of how Pip has been affected by Ms Gargery in his gentlemanly years as in Chapter 39, Pip is pondering over the dark disturbing night, he hears a creaking at the stair and immediately associates this dark eerie night with his long since dead sister, this shows us how Pip views Ms Gargery and his attitude towards her, as clearly she has left an impression and left him with some sort of underlying mental scarring, so even now after her death he still reflects back to is childhood and hears a creaking at the stair and he is scared because of the association he has between the eerie night and his sister.
We again see how Ms Joe could have influenced Pip in his snobbish behaviour, as when Uncle Pumblechook comes to visit we are confronted by Ms Gargery's snobbery, as many times in the early chapters of the novel, Ms Gargery says things that elevate her above Pip and Mr Joe such as ‘I had to marry a Gargery’ and ‘it’s bad enough to be a blacksmiths wife’. This shows us that Ms Gargery is probably heavily influenced by the Victorian attitudes and probably thought it more important to marry than to marry out of love, this shame she probably has may give us an explanation as to why Miss Havisham has had a mental breakdown over her failed marriage.
However it is important to remember the time frame in which this book was written, as to the Victorians Ms Joe would have been considered a very good parental figure as during this era people had very strong views towards raising children, such as children should be seen and not heard, many of which are contrasting and conflicting to those people believe in today, so Pip’s rearing would not have been uncommon, as many Victorian parents would raise their children abiding by these old-fashioned rules.
The two-faced characteristic of Ms Joe may have had an effect on Pip, as it may teach him that he can be two faced and untrustworthy when meeting people.As the novel progresses, we see a side to Pip very much like his sisters. An example of this is when Pip discovers that he has come into a great fortune. We undoubtedly see how Mrs Joe Gargery’s snobbish attitude is then reflected onto Pip’s character, as almost immediately he abandons everyone and everything he knew.
Another female character who has quite a large impact on Pip’s life and attitudes is Estella, although Pip falls in love with Estella she nevertheless helps to crush any chance of a positive image and outlook of women and instead replaced it with a hard, cold image on the opposite sex, she does this through many different means, however the main one being how she puts Pip down and makes him feel like an inferior being she is constantly calling Pip derogatory names such as ‘boy’ and ‘common’ and she refuses to call him by his name, in doing this she elevates herself above him, and this is most probably were Pip gets the idea and attitude that he should look down on those of a lower class, and provides an explain as to why he acts embarrassed when Mr Joe comes to visit him. Estella also consistently puts Pip down saying phrases such as ‘but he is a common labouring boy’ and using other such verbal violence, it is this violence, although in different forms that gives Pip a negative outlook on women and giving him an impression that all women are violent, but it is this link that also separates Ms Havisham from the rest of he female influences in his life, as she shows no physical or much verbal violence towards Pip perhaps saving women in Pip’s eyes from total condemnation.
Of all the characters in Pip’s life Miss Havisham is probably one of the least influential on Pip, as we see very few of her defining characteristics in Pip. Miss Havisham's most defining characteristic being her Psychosis, and yet unsurprisingly we see that Pip is unaffected. Pip could also learn from Miss Havisham that the rich are very eccentric and are allowed to get away with anything, but again we see that Pip is unscathed by this. In fact there is very little which Pip takes away from his visits to Satis house, except an ever fonder heart for Estella.
Miss Havisham is the character in ‘Great Expectations’ who managed to deny Pip the one thing that he longed for and desired with all his heart, Estella. She succeeded in ruining his life which he was surprisingly grateful for, especially as he was always so kind and polite to her. Miss Havisham is the one who tempted Pip and encouraged him to fall in love with Estella and then made sure that he was denied such love.
