Joe builds a solid and amiable relationship with Pip. Pip depicts him as “a mild, good-natured, sweet-tempered, easy-going, foolish, dear fellow” and because of this, and also the fact that they are the only males in the household, Pip finds him easy to get along with. This can be seen when Joe covers for Pip when he is late home or when he says “ever the best of friends; an’t us Pip?” Joe is Pip’s first and closest friend who comforts the boy in hard times. However, to Pip, Joe is not just a companion but also in some ways a paternal and even a maternal figure. Their relationship means that Pip is able to talk to Joe openly about any subject and therefore Joe has a very positive effect on Pip through his love. Pip loves Joe for what he is and in his childhood dreams of becoming Joe’s apprentice to become a blacksmith. However, Pip’s relationship with Joe begins to change after Pip pays his frequent visits to Satis House. Pip begins to feel ashamed of Joe because he is illiterate and the young boy feels that becoming a blacksmith is not the right choice to make. Dickens writes that Pip hates working as Joe’s apprentice – “Once it had seemed to me that when I should be Joe's 'prentice, I should be dis- tinguished and happy. Now the reality was that, I only felt that I was dusty with the dust of small coal” and “It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home”. Pip feels so passionately because he imagines Estella mocking him for his labouring work but out of consideration for Joe’s goodness, Pip keeps his feelings to himself. The Gargery family plays a very important role in Pip’s well natured upbringing and life.
Pip’s character first begins to change after he meets Magwitch, a thief and future benefactor. When first seen by Pip he is dressed in rags and with his leg in chains. Magwitch then threatens to have another convict eat Pip’s heart and liver if he does not bring food and tools with which he can saw away his leg irons. Pip rushes home and then early in the morning Pip sneaks down to the pantry, where he steals some brandy and a pork pie for the convict. He then sneaks to Joe’s forge, where he steals a file. Cautiously, he heads back into the marshes to meet the convict. Magwitch tells Pip that he’ll never forget his kindness and will remember Pip always and forever. Even though Magwitch causes Pip to have a guilty conscience, the convict does keep his word and rewards Pip for his nobleness later in the novel.
In order to make more money Pip’s uncle sends Pip to Satis House to play in front of Miss Havisham. Miss Havisham is a cruel and wicked old woman, who uses Pip as sort of a guinea pig to take out her vehement passion of revenge against men. She does this by using her adopted daughter, Estella, to torment Pip and break his heart, just like her heart was broken on the day of wedding. Miss Havisham feeds Pip’s desire for Estella by giving him money after every visit. With this money Pip tries to educate himself, with the help of Biddy, so that he can become a gentleman and be worthy of Estella.
Pip’s first and only love is Estella who has a large influence on him. Estella is very beautiful yet incredibly mean and nasty to Pip, even more so than Miss Havisham is. Although she continuously abuses Pip, he falls in love with her, describing Estella as “very pretty” yet “very insulting”. She points out to Pip his faults such as his “coarse hands…. thick boots” and the fact that he is nothing but “a common labouring boy”. Pip takes these insults to heart and they cause him to feel ashamed of his uneducated family and friends. Pip feels that the reason why Estella ignores and mocks him is the fact that he is of a lower class and does not deserve her. This encourages Pip to become a gentleman – someone who she would love. Estella is a poor influence on Pip because she corrupts Pip’s perception of life and makes him blind as to what is really important in a person. She is the main incident in Pip’s life that ultimately leads to his superficial and obnoxious behaviour in the future.
Miss Havisham feeds Pip’s desire for Estella by giving him money after every visit. Pip aspires to be like the two females living in Satis House. This can be seen when he is in his bedroom after Pip’s first liaison with Miss Havisham: “I thought…how common would Estella consider Joe…and how Miss Havisham and Estella never sat in a kitchen, but were far above the level of such common doings.” This shows that after just one visit into a higher class, Pip’s perception of the world has dramatically changes. So much so that he cannot look upon his social equals in the same way.
Before his visits to Miss Havisham, Pip and Biddy are the best of friends and feel very strongly towards each other. Biddy goes to school with Pip and Mr Wopsle’s great-aunt teaches both of them. The education is of a very poor standard as customary to the time. However, once Pip is introduced to Estella, he is overcome by her beauty, and is never again able to look at Biddy, without feeling critical towards her. Slowly, after coming into contact with Estella, Pip becomes shallow, as he is only interested in a girl's looks.
The incident, at which the changes Pip become most apparent, is when Joe visits Miss Havisham and is referred to as an embarrassment by Pip. In this part in the novel, Pip loses a lot, if not all, of the sympathy that I as the reader have for him. Pip, at this point is no longer an innocent child, and he is well on his way to becoming the character consumed by false values and snobbery that the reader comes to know as the adult Pip.
In conclusion, Pip's unfavourable qualities brought him nothing but grief. Being superficial causes Pip to chase after a woman who shows him no respect and has no feelings for him. His ungratefulness and the fact that he was ashamed of his poor family cause his relationship with Joe and Biddy to forever change. When Pip finally realises that status and wealth were unimportant, it is too late, he has already broken his relationship with the two people who were most important to him – Joe and Biddy. Pip’s dream of becoming a gentleman comes true when his old friend Magwitch comes back to become his benefactor. When Pip realises that his true benefactor was a convict, he was disappointed, partly because the origin of his money was of a lower class than himself. As his benefactor Magwitch funds Pip in his academic studies and makes Pip a gentleman. Through this, Pip’s dream becomes true and he starts to act like a snob even though he truly isn’t. His attitude changes and he becomes arrogant and the exact opposite of that he was in his childhood. This is only happens directly due to Magwitch, yet it is Miss Havisham who sows the seed of wickedness into Pip and it is through trying to impress Estella that Pip changes into someone who he never dreamt of becoming. I feel that if Pip never met these women he would have happily carried on with life in the Gargery forge. It is ironic that the negative influence on Pip’s life is from the bourgeois class of Miss Havisham and Estella who create a false illusion of existence yet the positive influence come from the last place imaginable – a fugitive convict exiled in Australia and architect of his great expectations.
