Pip's Unrealistic Expectations in Great Expectations.

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Blake Ledbetter

Pip's Unrealistic Expectations

        One aspect authors often use to enrich the detail within their novels is dynamic characters.  Charles Dickens introduces the reader to many memorable characters, including Miss Havisham, the lawyer, Mr. Jaggers, and the convict, Magwitch. Great Expectations is the story of Pip and his expectations and disappointments that lead to him becoming a good-hearted man. The great changes that Pip's character goes through are very important to one of the novel's many themes. Dickens uses Pip's change from an innocent boy into a cocky gentleman and his redemption as a good hearted person to purvey the idea that impossible hopes and expectations can lead to undesirable backfires.    

        In the beginning, Pip is characterized as a caring boy, who gets much sympathy from the reader even though he is happy with his common life. The reader develops sympathetic feelings toward Pip after only a few pages of the novel, which contain the fact that Pip's parents are dead and that the he has never seen "any likeness of either of them" (Dickens 1). Pip's run in with the convict shows his harmless, innocent nature. As Magwitch first captures the young boy, Pip says, "Oh! Don't cut my throat, sir, O Pray don't do it sir" (Dickens 2). Pip is then forced into completing the convict's demands, due to his fear of Magwitch's companion.  He seems to sincerely regret his actions and the fact that he "had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong" (Dickens 40). Around one year after his run in with the convict, Pip is still shown to be a caring boy.  Pip starts to start a relationship with Joe and develops "a new admiration of Joe" and "a new sensation of feeling conscious that I was looking up to Joe in my heart" (Bloom 12).  As Pip develops unrealistic hopes and expectations for his life, undesirable ones replace his good characteristics.

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The expectations that cause Pip's character to become less likable are those that he develops after being introduced to Miss Havisham and Estella. During his first visit to the Satis House, Estella makes fun of Pip. Pip seems to fall in love with Estella during that moment. After just one afternoon at the house, Pip shows a desire to become more conformed to Estella, in hopes that her attitude toward him would change. When walking back to his home, Pip begins to feel ashamed of his life. His mind is filled with regretful thoughts such as "that I was a ...

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