What was Pip's plan to become "less common" in Great Expectations? | eNotes What was Pip's plan to become "less common" in Great Expectations? litteacher8 | High School Teacher | (Level 3) Distinguished Educator Posted on January 19, 2013 at 10:20 PM Pip really does not make any plans for himself. Magwitch makes plans for Pip to become a gentleman. He arranges for him to go to London and stay with Herbert Pocket and take lessons from Matthew Pocket, his tutor. When Jaggers arrives, he tells Pip that he has a secret benefactor who has given him “great expectations” and he is going to come into property. Further, that it is the desire of the present possessor of that property, that he be immediately removed from his present sphere of life and from this place, and be brought up as a gentleman… (ch 18, p. 97) From this point on, Pip simply goes with the flow. He has an idea that Miss Havisham is raising him up so that he is less common and can marry Estella, but she never confirms it and in fact his expectations have nothing to do with Estella.

Sources: revolution | College Teacher | (Level 1) Valedictorian Posted on August 15, 2009 at 2:46 AM The book tells us about the main protagonist, Pip, known as a bildungsroman, presenting the growth and change in character of a single person. He is the one who changes the actions and the whole plot of the story and is also the narrator himself who changes the reader's perceptions and thoughts about the book. He has a plan to improve himself and get any possible social advancement whether is it moral or educational. He also wanted to take a hand in marriage with Estella to join the upper classes in the social monarchy as he hates being in the lower classes. He has a simple vision of being with the rich and the famous and live a grandeur life, to be less inferior in other people's mind. To do all these things, he has to become "less common" in the society, a rare gem in the jewels, becoming a pure gentleman.

His first step of his plan keeps off to a flying start as some benefactor who didn't revealed himself offered him an good education to kick start his career, but he was shocked when the secret benefactor was that the wretched Magwitch, not the benevolent Miss Havisham was the secret benefactor to his successful career, shattering Pip's simplified version of the world's hierachy and makes him ponder over his actions and decisions that he did and the path that he himself chosen, and so he matures into a real man with real character, the steel within. like 1 dislike 0 December 3, 2007 at 3:43 AM The first thing Pip does is aspire to be educated. He goes to Biddy to try to gain all her knowledge. Finally she says that she has taught him everything she knows. Then, Pip tries to act more gentlemanly, though he does not know how. As far as I know, Pip did not have a long term plan for making himself less common, though as he becomes a gentleman through his benefactor, he keeps pleasing Estella in mind.

He always feels inferior to her, and has a general desire to make himself her equal, by whatever way may come into his path. like 1 dislike 0 February 5, 2007 at 5:58 AM Great Expectations tells the story of Pip, an orphaned boy from the lower classes who has always had visions of a grander life. When Pip is suddenly offered an education by an anonymous benefactor, this vision becomes a reality. Pip is able to maintain the lifestyle of an English gentleman, and he hopes his improved fortunes will gain the love of Estella, a girl he believes will only love him if he is a gentleman. The novel makes a commentary on the rigid social class system of Victorian England but, more simply, it is also telling the story of a young man (Pip) and his efforts to understand what is truly important to him. When Pip discovers the identity of his mysterious benefactor, he is forced to confront some truths about himself and the life he has chosen. like 2 dislike 1 Great Expectations and Gentility The Idea of the Gentleman in The Victorian Age p. 6 Pip's Quest for Gentility p. 9 Dickens' Quest for Gentility Compared to Pip's p.

19 Conclusion p. 21 When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcaste state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon my self and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possessed, Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least, Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising, (Haply) I think on thee.... William Shakespeare Sonnet 29 Summary: Great Expectations is a story told in the first person by a middle-aged Pip, who is looking back at his childhood and youth. The story takes its beginning when Pip is only 6 or 7 years old and is living with his sister and her blacksmith husband Joe because his parents are dead. One day, Pip is asked to come to Satis House to entertain the rich and eccentric Miss Havisham. There he meets Miss Havisham's young ward Estella, whom he falls in love with in spite of her contemptuous treatment of him. The love for Estella kindles in Pip a dissatisfaction with his life and future prospects.

Suddenly, Pip finds himself provided with the means of becoming a gentleman due to the magnanimity of a secret benefactor. He leaves his life as a working-class boy behind him and goes to London to acquire good manners and an education. One day his benefactor reveals himself as an escaped convict, Magwitch, whom Pip helped as a young child. He was recaptured and deported to Australia where he made himself a fortune and decided to repay Pip's kindness. At first, Pip is fervently disgusted by the fact that his benefactor is a convict and not Miss Havisham, as he mistakenly had believed, but then he learns to love the man and decides to help him escape the country. The attempt fails and Magwitch, who has been hurt mortally, is arrested and shortly after he dies. His fortune goes to the English Crown and Pip is left with nothing. Pip then leaves England to work with a friend of his and earn some money. Years later he returns and among the ruins of the old Satis House he meets Estella, who has turned out to be Magwitch's daughter.

Introduction: "...and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so, the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her." (Dickens, p.575) I have always loved the ending of Great Expectations, so it was therefore natural for me to chose this book when given the chance. Knowing Great Expectations to be a masterpiece representing traits of the Victorian Age and especially the obsession with gentility and gentlemanliness characteristic of the mid-Victorian period (1848-70), during which the book was written, I became interested in the idea of the gentleman as expressed in the book. Both in the sense of the gentleman as a concept and the purpose of becoming a gentleman. However, since the book has a very intriguing plot it is not enough just to look at the two aspects mentioned above, it is also important to look at or to consider the circumstances under which the main character Pip rises to the state of being a gentleman, as well as what then happens.

With the question: "Pip's quest for gentility in Charles Dickens' Great Expectations" in mind, I have toyed with some ideas as to how I could best approach the matter, and it seems to me that the best way is to divide Pip's quest for gentility into three stages following Dickens' own division of the book, and then to proceed chronologically. Furthermore, I intend to place Great Expectations in a social context and this is how I have chosen to develop my essay: I am going to start by placing Great Expectations in a historical and social context, and painting a picture of the general idea of the Victorian gentleman and the Victorians' prevalent obsession with gentility. Then I proceed to deal with the main question as described above and use my findings to give an account of the idea of the gentleman as expressed by Dickens in Great Expectations. Through research into Dickens' life, I have discovered that there is a certain resemblance between Dickens' life and Pip's life. In a way Dickens can be said to have been on his own quest for gentility and thus I should like to make a comparison between his life and Pip's.

In the conclusion I will return to the idea of the gentleman in trying to elaborate on the purpose of becoming a gentleman and commenting on Pip's great expectations. The Idea of the Gentleman in The Victorian Age: In his book England and the Nineteenth Century (1950) about the Victorian Age, David Thomson wrote: "The period is one of strenous activity and dynamic change, of ferment of ideas and recurrent social unrest, of great inventiveness and expansion." (Norton) Because of the early industrialization, England experienced a lot of both social and economical problems, as well as an enormous increase in wealth during the Victorian Age (Norton). The increase in wealth meant that more and more people could call themselves wealthy and they began to see new possibilities. The attainability of rank, for instance, seemed to have a special attraction. In a society still dominated by the land-owning aristocracy, it was only natural that people craved for social esteem, and the position of the gentleman in the social hierarchy was to many people a fascinating ideal. The rank of gentleman shared the prestige of the landed gentry but was still apart and distinct from the aristocracy.

Hitherto, the rank of a gentleman had, in theory, been open to penetration from below, although, in practice it was not quite that easy. But with an increasing number of wealthy people, what had earlier only been a theoretical possibility now became an actual possibility. Theoretically, it was also possible for a self-made gentleman to enter the aristocracy if one had a sufficient amount of money. But it was easier and cheaper to buy a piece of land and set oneself up as a week-end squire (Gilmour, p.5). Since many people now had the possibility of becoming gentlemen it meant that there were two kinds of gentlemen: The man of noble birth or good family, who was a gentleman by right, and the self-made gentleman. Originally, the gentleman was the man of noble birth with his pure gens, but also the Church of England clergymen, members of Parliament and army officers. However, birth alone did not make a complete gentleman. The gentleman was a moral as well as a social category. Embodied in the idea of a gentleman were also gentleness, sympathy, a fine disposition and a fine imagination.

A true gentleman was a mirror of desirable moral and social values, a cultural goal (Gilmour,p.3). The fact that gentlemanliness was not just a social category was what made it transcend social rank and made it open to aspiring people from the middle-class and, in some cases, even from the working-class. But that and the moral component made Victorians uncertain as to what constituted a gentleman, and it meant that the nature of gentlemanliness, in a long period from 1840-80, was constantly debated and redefined. One of the problems facing the Victorians in their attempts to define gentlemanliness was that people wanted to widen the basis of gentleman-qualification to include themselves without, however, compromising the exclusiveness which gave the rank social esteem. Another problem was the Victorian fascination with the figure of the dandy, a perfectly useless man who makes of his uselessness an exquisite style. It was generally considered that a gentleman should be able to live without manual labour and, preferably, without paying too visible attention to business, because leisure was what enabled a man to cultivate style and pursue the gentlemanly life.

And although some men claimed that it was no part of a gentleman's privilege to live off other people's toil, it meant that for many aspiring people, like the engineer, the first-generation mill-owner and the medical practitioner, the rank was put out of their reach (Gilmour, p.7). So, while gentlemanliness offered respectability and independence to the people of a developing society, it challenged the dignity of work at the same time and thereby undermined the pillars upon which the new industrial society was built. Due to industriliazation and urbanization The Victorian Age was a time of chaos and great change which left people with a sense of disillusionment. That created a demand for a substitute reality, a signpost to cling to which could only be found in the fictitious world of the novel. This desire to be guided gave novelists anopportunity to attempt to change and influence the course of events by writing, for instance, social-problem novels in which, in stead of being occupied with people's relation to God, they were occupied with people's relations to each other. For example conflicts between classes, between master and man or between a male seducer and a female victim (Wheeler, p.5).

The relation between gentility and virtue was also a major theme of the eighteenth century novel closely connected with the idea of the gentleman. And the reason for the great interest in the idea of the gentleman was that behind the snobbery, the disagreements about who could be a gentleman and who could not etc. lay the struggle of the middle-class to define itself and its values in a changing society (Gilmour p.14). Among all the great novelists of the eighteenth century those who have devoted most attention to the idea of the gentleman are Dickens, Thackeray and Trollope. Dickens and Thackeray were both novelists of the middle-class but while Dickens dealt with the lower end of the middle-class, Thackeray was at the opposite end. Both men have written many great works but with Great Expectations Dickens delivered the, perhaps, most profound and thorough commentary on the Victorias' preoccupation with gentility (Gilmour, p.107). Pip's Quest for Gentility: Dickens himself has divided Great Expectations into three stages.

The first stage goes from the beginning of the book, when Pip is a small boy, until the point where he leaves for London to become a gentleman and live out his great expectations, after Mr. Jaggers has informed him of his coming into property. The second stage of Pip's expectations picks up where the first has stopped and sees Pip through his education and his attempts to become a real gentleman and live a gentlemanly life. The end of the second stage is when Magwitch has revealed himself as Pip's secret benefactor. The third stage (the rest of the book) takes Pip through a time of resurrection, so to speak. It ends with Pip meeting Estella after having made a successful career for himself abroad and then walking away with her into the evening mists. I am now going on to deal more thoroughly with what happened to Pip during the three stages of his great expectations. The most important aspect of gentility in both Great Expectations and the Victorian Age is respectability. To be respected as well as accepted as a gentleman among gentlemen. In Great Expectations, Pip's wish to become a gentleman starts as a mere wish to be respected and to be less common, kindled by his incipient love for Estella.

As a young boy, Pip is asked to come to Satis House to entertain Miss Havisham. There he meets Estella, Miss Havisham's beautiful young ward. At that point in time, Pip is perfectly content with his life and future prospects as Joe's apprentice. But Estella has been brought up by Miss Havisham to wreak revenge on the male sex (Dickens, p.389) and Pip immediately becomes her victim. She treats him with nothing but contempt and every sentence she utteres contains a disdainful comment about Pip, from his coarse hands to his thick boots to the fact that he calls knaves Jacks when they play cards (Dickens, p.319). In spite of her behaviour, Pip is impressed with Estella because she is so superior and pretty and has such refined manners, even though, she is only about his own age, and he falls in love with her. But he also falls in love with a, hitherto, un-dreamt of alternative to his life at the forge, the gentlemanly life, of which Estella is a representative (Leavis, p.297).

He accepts Estella's view of him as a common labouring boy and that kindles in him a desire to educate and improve himself so that he may become worthy of her (Leavis, p.299). This way Pip's social ambitions get mixed up with his love for Estella (Gilmour, p.120). But it shows that his aspirations to a finer kind of life are justified. His wish to be a gentleman comes from the bottom of his heart and is based on another wish to be respected by the person he loves. Of course, his wish to be respected is not only caused by Estella but also by people like his sister and Pumblechook, who have stepped on him all of his life and who are actually the people from whom he has his knowledge of social values (Leavis, p.297). Pumblechook, gentleman and self-appointed ideal to Pip, has always thought highly of himself although he is a fool as Pip perfectly well knows and, therefore, Pip has never previously considered gentility as something to aim for.

But Estella, as a representative of gentility, is so very different from Pumblechook and as Pip's love for Estella grows stronger so, too, does his wish to become a gentleman as well as his unhappiness and dissatisfaction with the life he has. And he begins to feel ashamed of himself. Even after he has stopped coming at Miss Havisham's these feelings stay with him, although, he knows that as Joe's apprentice and future partner he will never be able to fulfill his dream of becoming a gentleman. Instead, he tries as best he can to learn as much as possible so that, at least, he will be less common. One day about four years after Pip has started his apprenticeship he and Joe are at the local inn when a gentleman, a lawyer by the name Jaggers, comes up to them. He announces that Pip has come into a handsome property, that he is to be educated as it serves a gentleman and that he has great expectations. Pip, who can hardly believe his ears, is enthralled by such prospects and although the identity of his benefactor is a secret, Pip quietly thanks Miss Havisham whom he thinks is behind all this.

Having so suddenly been provided with the means to have his greatest dream come true, Pip has no second thoughts about leaving his family behind and going to London to live out his great expectations. And that is where the second part of his great expectations start. When he first comes to London, Pip is taken to the lawyer Mr. Jaggers and, afterwards, accompanied by Mr. Jaggers' clerk, Wemmick, he is taken to his lodgings. His lodgings, which Pip had assumed to be a hotel, turns out to be an inn, a collection of shabby buildings squeezed together in a rank corner (Dickens, p.387). This first realization of his great expectations is so imperfect and so disappointing to Pip that he looks away in dismay. We can see here that Pip's expectations already have taken control of him, and that he is dissatisfied with something that just a week earlier would have been good enough. In London Pip meets Herbert whom he later comes to share rooms with and whose father, a relative of Miss Havisham's, he is to study with. Herbert is a born gentleman and he undertakes Pip's first education in manners and attitude. In Herbert's company Pip learns many different things.

For instance that no man not a true gentleman at heart is a true gentleman in manner. And to illustrate the point: "...no varnish can hide the grain of the wood: and the more varnish you put on, the more the grain expresses itself" (Dickens, p.392). This is a way to seperate true gentlemen from those who are not true gentlemen. It became necessary for the born gentlemen and those who had worked hard to earn the rank to make up some way of distinguishing between themselves and all the new members of the gentility for whom the industrialization had made it easier to earn money and gain rank. As Pip and Herbert get to know one another, Pip soon learns that a born gentleman can have great expectations, too, even greater than his own (Dickens, p.394). Since Herbert has not got enough money to finance the gentlemanly style with its lavishment and extravagance, he has plans of making money by getting into business, and his expectations about the outcome, i.e. the profit he is going to make, exceed even Pip's wildest dreams. However, things do not go exactly as Herbert has planned so Pip secretly arranges to help him.

This is done partly because of Pip's affection for Herbert and partly because Pip feels that he is the one who has led Herbert into lavishment and extravagance with his, seemingly, abundance of money and great expectations. One of the first changes taking place after Pip has been provided with great expectations, is the fact that he goes from being a hard working young man to being an idle young man, whose only work is to learn how to be a gentleman. Another is the change in himself which also seems to take place immediately. As soon as Pip comes to London he seems to forget about his family and his former life. Not in the sense that he cannot remember it, but when he left the forge he left with intentions of coming back to visit soon, and that is what he forgets or, perhaps rather, chooses to forget. Now that he has money and is about to become a real gentleman he needs to be respected and accepted in his new society and his new social status. The result of this need for respectability is that Pip becomes so afraid of doing or saying anything that will miscredit his respectability. And, furthermore, it enhances the sense of embarassment that he has about his background.

Especially because Estella points out that the company which suited him in the earlier days at the forge is no longer suitable (Dickens, p.426). Although Pip now lives in London, he still meets Estella now and then. His love for her has not faded, on the contrary. He has now come to adore her (Dickens, p.432) but she still treats him as a boy and still has the ability to hurt his feelings and make him feel inferior. However, Estella's behaviour does not hurt Pip as much as it used to. He still thinks that Miss Havisham is his secret benefactor and he has convinced himself that Estella is part of his great expectations, that Miss Havisham has assigned her for him. And that compensates for any suffering Estella may put him through. As I have mentioned earlier, respectability is a very important aspect of Pip's newfound status and it has its impact on his relationship with Joe. Without really being aware of it Pip has forsaken Joe from the very minute he got to London. Joe who was once Pip's best friend is now more of an impediment to him.

An illiterate blacksmith is no suitable company for an aspiring gentleman and in spite of Pip's sometimes guilty conscience he keeps no contact with Joe. But one day he receives a letter announcing that Joe is coming to visit him. Pip dreads the visit because he is afraid that if anyone finds out about Joe they will hold him in contempt. He also has a strong feeling of incongruity concerning Joe. He knows that they have grown apart and is worried about how Joe is going to handle that. So horrible is the thought of the visit that he would gladly have paid Joe money to have him stay away. When Joe comes, he is so extreemely polite in his behaviour that it becomes strenuous, and he stresses the difference between him and Pip by calling Pip Sir and being absolutely dumbfounded by everything he sees. Furthermore, the strain on their relationship caused by the difference in status makes Joe act so clumsyly that he is like a fish out of the water, totally out of context. Pip, who of course cannot help but notice these things, feels impatient with Joe and out of temper. But later in his life, when he thinks back on the episode, he realizes that it was his own fault.

If only he had been easier with Joe, Joe would have been easier with him. Joe's visit first creates in Pip a sense of guilt for neglecting his old friend, but it is not strong enough to overcome his need to be respected. When he goes to visit Miss Havisham and Estella shortly after, he knows that he should spend the night at Joe's but concocts so many excuses that he ends up spending the night at the lokal inn. Pip knows that by doing so he is merely cheating himself and he calls himself a self-swindler (Dickens, p.419). But it does not change the fact that he is still embarassed with his connections to the working-class. This leaves us with the question of whether or not Pip is a snob. His way of behaving certainly indicates that he is, but I am not so sure. According to Collins Cobuild, English Language Dictionary a snob is: "someone who belongs to or admires the higher social class in society and despises people of a lower social class." Thus we can see that by definition Pip is not a snob, since he does not despise people of a lower class.

The real snobs in Great Expectations are Pumblechook and Herbert's mother both of whom Pip sees through right from the beginning (Leavis, p.304 and Gilmour, p.119). Years after Pip came to London to pursue his great expectations, he has still no knowledge of who his benefactor is. I have already mentioned that he thinks it is Miss Havisham, having thus created a dream or a fantasy to match his expectations. When his benefactor then choses to reveal himself, Pip is not only disappointed but disgusted. It turns out that Pip's benefactor is a convict by the name of Magwitch, whom Pip helped when he was just a small child. Magwitch had escaped from prison and was hiding at the cemetery when Pip turned up. There he seized Pip and threatened him to bring him some food and a file, which Pip then stole during the night from his sister and Joe. Magwitch was soon recaptured and deported to Australia where he made a fortune and devoted both his money and his life to repaying Pip's kindness. He swore that if he ever got rich Pip, too, should get rich and he lived rough that Pip should live smooth. He arranged to give Pip money through Mr.

Jaggers but finally decided that it was time for him to meet Pip. And so by going back to England he risks his life to spend it with the gentleman he has made. When Magwitch reveals himself as Pip's benefactor, Pip is twenty three years of age and a gentleman. Since Magwitch's money has created the gentleman in Pip, he can therefore be said to be Pip's father (second father) and Pip is absolutely horrified by the thought of having a convict for a father. The respectability Pip has tried so hard to earn will shatter and fall to pieces if anyone should ever find out the truth and, besides, by being a convict, Magwitch is a man whose very life and existence seems to mock the gentleman in Pip, which his own money has created. Furthermore, Pip is afraid of the man, having never forgotten how afraid he was that night on the marshes when Magwitch held Pip upside down and nearly shook the life out of him. But the sense of fear is mixed with a sense of guilt as well as anger.

Pip feels guilty for being so abhorred by a man who has done so much for him, who has devoted his whole life to repaying such a small favour and who has now risked his life to come and see him. And he feels angry because Magwitch has risked his life to come to England and thereby placed it in his hands. He knows that if Magwitch is caught he will hang for having returned to England which means that he (Pip) cannot turn his back on him although there is nothing he would rather do. And so ends the second stage of Pip's great expectations. As the gentle man Pip is and always has been, even though it does not always show, his fear of Magwitch is soon tempered by a natural human sympathy for a wretched creature, just as it was on the marshes so many years before (Leavis, p.293). He then occupies himself with thoughts of how he can secure the man from being captured and in doing so he keeps the more confused thoughts about his life and future at bay. But he is still despised by Magwitch and it makes him miserable to know that Magwitch has been the source of his great expectations.

Pip feels that his great expectations have come apart, that they are gone and that his life as a gentleman is now fit for nothing. In his misery he blaims it all on Magwitch without realizing that the false expectations (dreams) on which his life has been based are, in fact, his own creations. He was the one who came up with the thought that Miss Havisham was his benefactor and had meant Estella for him and so on. However, there are other sources of Pip's misery, too. One is the fact that Estella is going to be married. And not just that, but she is going to marry a man whom Pip both hates and despises. When Pip meets Estella some time before her marriage, she confesses that she has no heart and is incapable of loving anyone. She only knows how to deceive and entrap a man and then break his heart. But in her own strange way she actually cares about Pip. She does not want to deceive and entrap him like she does with all other men, which is why she has chosen not to marry him. That this statement, too, breaks his heart is an alltogether different matter to her.

Another source of misery is Pip's realization that his great expectations have changed him for the worse. All his efforts to become a gentleman have brought him nothing but frustration and disillusionment and he feels guilty about the man he has become. Magwitch's fortune has destroyed the real gentleman in Pip and it is only by coming to England himself and evoking Pip's finer feelings that Magwitch succeeds in making Pip a real gentleman after all (Stange, p.118). Pip then sees in Magwitch a better man than he himself ever was towards Joe (Gilmour, p.143) and he softens. During his attempt to get Magwitch out of England a great change is taking place in Pip, once again. As if it was a piece of ice, his repugnance towards Magwitch melts away and he comes to love the man and he seriously regrets his behavior towards both him and Joe. But the attempt fails, and Magwitch, who has been mortally hurt, is recaptured and taken to prison to await his trial. Upon Magwitch's deathbed Pip now vows to be as true to Magwitch as Magwitch has ever been to him. After Magwitch's death Pip is taken seriously ill.

While he moves in and out of a state of unconsciousness Joe is by his side to nurse him. Joe's kindness towards Pip is almost worse than his illness. So borne down with guilt and regrets is he that he would rather Joe had shown him anger or even striked him for his ingratitude. But Joe treats Pip with the same kindness and friendliness as he always has. As soon as Pip gets well enough, Joe leaves him on the grounds that Pip will do better without him. Pip then finds a receipt showing that Joe has payed off all Pip's debts. Pip decides to follow Joe back to the old forge to show how penitent he is. Pip's illness can thus be regarded as a symbolic death followed by his resurrection as a better man. The news of Pip's fall of fortunes had reached his native place before he himself got there. At the local inn Pip meets Pumblechook who treats him with an air of disrespect saying that he is sorry for what has happened but: "What else could be expected!" And although he has never done anything but step on Pip, he claims himself Pip's earliest benefactor and thereby demanding Pip's gratitude. Something Pip is never going to give him.

When Pip comes back to the forge he finds that Joe has just married Biddy, Pip's childhood friend and confidante, whose hand in marriage Pip had intented to ask for. Being thus disappointed, yet happy for Joe, Pip leaves England to go and work with Herbert as he is in desperate need of money. Eleven years later he returns having made a successful career. Joe and Biddy now has a son named Pip whom they hope will grow up to be just like the "old" Pip. In a melancholy mood, Pip decides to visit the ruins of the old Satis House just once more. There he meets Estella who is now a widow. They make friends and leave the place hand in hand. In spite of Estella's final remark that she and Pip will remain friends apart, I interpret Pip's last sentence: "...I saw no shadow of another parting from her.", as being a sign of their staying together and perhaps even getting married. And that is the ending of the third and final stage of Pip's great expectations. As I said in the introduction, I will try to form a description of the idea of the gentleman as experessed by Dickens in Great Expectations and based on my findings concerning Pip' quest for gentility.

According to Great Expectations, respectability and acceptance are two major keywords to the idea of the gentleman, which I have tried to emphasize throughout this chapter. But gentleness and good manners are very important features as well. All in all, I think the idea of the gentleman, in Great Expectations, in terms of characteristics is close to the prevaling idea of the gentleman in the Victorian Age. I tend to agree, to a certain extent, with Gilmour (p.12) when he says that gentlemanliness is considered a sham by Dickens. My point in arguing so is that nothing is what it seems to be. For instance, as a gentleman Pip spends a lot of time deceiving himself and others in order to be respectable. Certain aspects of his life as well as his background have to be hidden if he does not want to lose his respectability. Pip has in his mind an idealised notion of gentility and his great expectations, but discovers that reality is very different. Dickens also expresses the idea that if a person for some reason cannot be a gentleman himself he can own one, buy one, as if gentility is some kind of merchandise (Magwitch can be said to own Pip the gentleman) .

And that is precisely why it can be considered a sham. However, I also agree with Leavis (p.298) in his point that Dickens does believe in gentlemanliness in the sense that there is some respectable aspect to it, if, and that is important, all the demands are fulfilled. By demands I mean the qualities which I mentioned in the previous chapter, for example gentleness, sympathy, fine manners etc. And I think that Dickens would have liked to add a few more, for instance respect for the lower classes. But judging from Great Expectations, it seems to be a problem for the gentlemen to fulfill the demands. None of the characters in Great Expectations do so, except perhaps for Pip at the end of the book. So what Dickens really says is that there are no true gentlemen or at least there are very few. Most of the people who calls themselves gentlemen are in fact not gentlemen. In Great Expectations Dickens also speaks against the Victorian fascination with the dandy by subscribing to the opinion that it is no part of a gentleman's privilege to live on other people's toil.

He does so by showing how Pip goes from being a hard working young fellow to being an idle young gentleman, and how he then as an idle young man comes to a bad end (Stange, p.117). Whereas later when he starts to work hard again he is rewarded with his greatest wish, Estella and he has become a gentleman. Dickens' Life Compared to Pip's: Dickens has always had an ability to look at gentlemanliness from the outside. Because of this ability it has often been said of him that he was not a true gentleman. But Dickens, if no one else, believed himself to be a gentleman. Charles Dickens was born 1812 as the son of John Dickens a clerk in the Navy-Office and Elisabeth Dickens. When he was still a boy, his parents got into financial difficulties leading to his father's imprisonment in Marshalsea. At the age of twelve, Dickens was then put to work in a blacking factory. To young Dickens this was a terribly humiliating experience. His family lost its respectability and even though the loss of respectability was only temporary the experience haunted him for the rest of his life (Wordsworth). Bit by bit, Dickens got into the business of writing.

His first book was published in 1836-7. Over the years he wrote many novels. Some of them great works, some less so, but all extremely popular. Concurrently with his succes and popularity as a writer, he rose in social esteem and he became known as a novelist of domestic harmony who celebrated the values of hearth and home (Gilmour, p.110) When Dickens in 1861 began to write Great Expectations his life no longer followed the public image his readers had of him. He had let himself be seperated from his wife through twenty-two years, and had taken up with a young actress. Dickens who had worked hard to earn the respect of his readers now became a social outsider just as he had been in his childhood (Gilmour, p.110). The pattern which I have just described resembles the pattern of Pip's life. He started out as a social outsider, then rose to be a respectable gentleman, then once again he became a social outsider after the failed attempt to get Magwitch out of England. The only difference is that Pip after his fall from grace made a successful career and, presumably, regained his respectability.

However, the fact that Dickens ended up as a social outsider provided him with a reason to mock gentlemanliness as he does in Great Expectations. Dickens, who was a self-made gentleman, believed strongly in the dignity of work as well as literature. He always worked hard to meet the demands of his public. This is another aspect which can also be found in Great Expectations. At first, Pip is given the economic basis for his gentlemanly life and is therefore not a real self-made gentleman. But when he loses that economic basis he works hard to create a successful career and thus becomes a real self-made gentleman. There is one more aspect to Dickens' life which is mirrored in Pip's life, too. When Dickens was a boy he used to walk past a house named Gad's Hill Place and make up dreams of himself as its owner. As he became a successful writer and earned a lot of money, he actually did manage to buy the place. But, somehow, being the owner of this house of his dreams did not bring him the happiness he had expected. With this example I would like to draw some lines to Pip when he comes to Satis House and learns to appreciate the social values of gentility (Stange, p.116).

However, becoming a gentleman does not bring him the happiness he had expected either. Having thus compared Dickens' life to Pip's and demonstrated that there are many likenesses I do not claim Great Expectations to be Dickens' autobiography. As far as I know Dickens' most autobiographical novel is David Copperfield. But I presume that it is only natural for a novel to somehow resemble its writer. Conclusion: Great Expectations is a great book and there are so many aspects I could have looked into. For instance, there is a wonderful irony and ambiguity in the plot, which could have been interesting to examine, but having chosen the idea of the gentleman as the subject for this essay I have had to be specific. I have chosen the subject because Great Expectations is a fine example of a critical social-problem novel of the mid-Victorian period and its traits. Great Expectations is not just a novel about Pip's quest for gentility, or Dickens' for that matter, but it is about a whole society's quest for gentility in an age of expansion and newness. Even the title seems to suggest so.

Most of Dickens' novels have been entitled with the name of the main character, but Great Expectations is such a general title that it seems to suggest that this novel reaches further than the destiny of just one individual. In the chapter "Pip's Quest for Gentility", I wrote that I do not see Pip as a snob, even though, his behavior seems to suggest it. The reason for my point of view is that I see Pip as a victim of love, social values and his own great expectations. As I have tried to show, Pip's aspirations to a finer kind of life are justified, in the sense that he could not have acted differently. We all know that love blinds and that is exactly what happened to Pip. True, it opened his eyes to the appreciation of the values of gentility, but it blinded him to the change in himself that followed in the wake of his expectations. His hunger for respectability which determined his behavior was caused by his love for Estella, as well as, society's expectations of him. And I think that, if we look at society, we will see exactly the same thing; the middle-class as a victim of prosperity, social values and great expectations.

Now that I have mentioned great expectations a couple of times, I would like to comment on Pip's great expectations. I think it is important to distinguish between Pip's own expectations and those conferred on him by others, because I am not so sure that they are the same. But Pip's expectations are at no time defined in the book, so it is up to us readers to form our own opinion. In my opinion Pip's expectations are closely connected with the purpose of his becoming a gentleman. The way I see it, for Pip to become a gentleman is not an aim in itself, rather it is a means to another aim, namely Estella. And I think that if we look at society we will see that gentility is not the aim here either, but rather respectability and acceptance. Only it was not possible to be either respected or accepted without being a gentleman. Bibliography: in A Treasury of Charles Dickens Spring Books, 1989 Gilmour, Robin: The Idea of the Gentleman in the Victorian Novel George Allen & Unwin,1981 Leavis, Q.D.: How we must read Great Expectations in Dickens the Novelist Magwitch: A Father Figure? Magwitch: A Father Figure?

[ Victorian Web Home —> Authors —> Charles Dickens —> Works —> Great Expectations —> Leading Questions ] Upon discovering that Magwitch is his secret benefactor, Pip feels far from ecstatic. For many years, he tried desperately to forget the disgraceful acts he committed as a youth by aiding the convict in the marshes, and his conscience almost seems clear when Magwitch once again makes an unexpected appearance in Pip's life. Although Pip's becoming a gentleman may never have been possible without Magwitch's generosity, he almost appears offended by the common, and vulgar behavior of his benefactor. Magwitch, on the other hand, is delighted to have finally had the opportunity to reveal himself to Pip, and cannot control his emotions, exclaiming, Look'ee here, Pip. I'm your second father. You're my son — more to me nor any son. I've put away money, only for you to spend. When I was hired-out shepherd in a solitary hut, not seeing no faces but faces of sheep till I half forgot wot men's and women's faces was like, I see yourn.

I drops my knife many a time in that hut when I was a eating my dinner or my supper, and I says, “Here's the boy again, a looking at me whiles I eats and drinks!" I see you there a many times as plain as ever I see you on them misty marshes. “Lord strike me dead!" I says each time — and I goes out in the open air to say it under the open heavens — “but wot, if I gets liberty and money, I'll make that boy a gentleman!" And I done it. Why, look at you, dear boy! Look at these here lodgings of yourn, fit for a lord! A lord? Ah! You shall show money with lords for wagers, and beat 'em! [286-287; Place within the complete text of the novel ] The terms that Magwitch uses in addressing Pip make it quite obvious that he considers Pip kin, the son he never had. He has worked hard and escaped, risking his life to better that of Pip- the only real friend we know of in his past. Learning the identity of his benefactor leaves Pip disappointed for a number reasons.

For one, if Magwitch is, indeed, his benefactor, then what shall become of his relationship with Estella? If, as Pip had assumed, Miss Havisham was his secret benefactor, he surely would have married Estella eventually, or so he believes. Now not only is there no guarantee, but this news sheds an unfavorable light upon Pip's existing relationships with both Estella and Miss Havisham in that they appear to be using him just as they use all other men to accomplish Miss Havisham's personal vengeance. However, most of Pip's frustration stems from the ruination of his relationship with Joe caused by this newfound prosperity. But, sharpest and deepest pain of all — it was for the convict, guilty of I knew not what crimes and liable to be taken of those rooms where I sat thinking, and hanged at the Old Bailey door, that I had deserted Joe. [290] Throughout the most impressionable years of his childhood, Pip looked up to Joe as a fatherly figure. In direct contrast to the relationship between Pip and his sister, Pip and Joe were the best of friends and confidants.

Pip admired Joe, despite the fact that he was certainly not a gentleman, for his honest work and kind heart. At this point in the novel, Pip comes to the realization that he has abandoned and erased poor Joe from his life in order to achieve his own selfish dreams of a life of luxury among the upper class. As a consequence, Magwitch fills the void of father figure, though much against Pip's will. Questions 1. Compare the relationship of Pip and Magwitch to that of Mr. Rochester and Adï¿½le in Jane Eyre. Which figure is more of a father figure, if any? Why? 2. Was it common for adolescents of this time period to be taken under the wing of a secret benefactor? What are the most credible sources that could be used to find an answer for this question? 3. As he has done throughout the novel, Dickens continues to alter the language of Magwitch in this scene, creating a more colloquial tone for his character. Why is this particularly significant at this point in the novel? How does this play a role in the characterization of Pip? 4. Why was Pip so sure that Miss Havisham was his benefactor?

How will this news change his relationship with both Estella and Miss Havisham? Do Pip and Estella really have a future together, or even a relationship to grow from as a couple- or is Pip's sole motivation to become a gentleman now defeated? Compare Pip's initial reaction to Magwitch (ch 39) to Pip's concern for his safety (ch 45) and explain the significance of this change. | eNotes Compare Pip's initial reaction to Magwitch (ch 39) to Pip's concern for his safety (ch 45) and explain the significance of this change. ms-mcgregor | High School Teacher | (Level 1) Educator Emeritus Posted on January 2, 2009 at 4:18 AM Pip's initial reaction to finding out Magwitch is his benefactor is one of horror and almost disgust. All this time, Pip had believed that Miss Havisham, an odd but socially accepted woman, had been his benefactor and that she was grooming Pip to become a husband for Estella. Discovering Magwitch, who is a lower class, convict, is the one he owes his "expectations" to shatters many of his dreams.

But, as Pip comes to know his benefactor and to understand his past he realizes the kind of person he himself has become. This old man to whom he showed kindness only once, sent Pip his money and risked his life in order to meet Pip. In recognizing the irony of the entire story,from making him into a gentleman to fathering Estella, Pip changes and becomes a caring and thoughtful person again. He recognizes his debt to Magwitch and looks beyond his social standing. He goes to great lengths to get Magwitch out of the country and when that fails, stays with him until his death. He begins to realize that wealth and social status are not prerequisites to happiness and respect. like 4 dislike 0 January 2, 2009 at 5:08 AM Dickens divided his novel "Great Expectations" into three parts for specific reasons, one of which was to reveal the stages of Pip's growth. As a dynamic character, Pip moves from his innocence and unconditional love of Joe and kindness to the convict in Stage 1 to a value system based upon social status in Stage 2 of the novel.

For instance, he becomes ashamed of Joe because he does not possess the social graces of such gentlemen as Herbert and feels that Miss Havisham's social status makes her a superior benefactor--even though she is insane--over a lowly criminal such as Magwitch. Now, in Stage 3 the reader perceives that Pip has grown in his thinking. For, he has come to understand what Mr. Jaggers has told him earlier in the novel: "Take nothing on appearances." That is, social status is merely a mask for what a person is. The truly good people, the people with real human values, are the "common" ones: Joe, Biddy, Magwitch. In Chapter 45 Pip sees what kind of a person Magwitch is, not what he appears to be as in Chapter 39 of Stage 2 in which Pip has held false values. There is a quote from Carl Jung which explains the transformation of Pip: Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

like 3 dislike 0 Notes on Characters from Great Expectations | BookRags.com Notes on Characters from Great Expectations This section contains 1,121 word (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) PDF Great Expectations Major Characters Pip: Pip is an orphaned boy raised by his domineering sister and her kind husband, and his life and expectations make for the drama of the novel. A mysterious benefactor enables Pip to escape a destiny as the village blacksmith, and he travels to London as a teenager to become a 'gentleman.' Pip's perception of his life and prospects (especially his prospects with Estella) change dramatically when he's twenty-three, when he learns that his benefactor is not a rich old lady, but a common convict. Ultimately, Pip comes to appreciate the convict as a benefactor and a friend. Miss Havisham: A bitter old woman, whose life effectively stopped when she was abandoned on her wedding day. Half a century after this disappointment, Miss Havisham still wears a yellowing wedding gown, and has made it her life's purpose to raise Estella, whom she's adopted, as a cruel-hearted woman who'll break the hearts of men.

Miss Havisham is rich too, and deceives Pip by implying that she's his benefactor. Near the end of the novel she realizes her cruelties are nearly unforgivable, although she dies not long after this realization. Magwitch (or Provis, Mr. Campbell, the convict, the shackled man): Magwitch and Pip first meet when Pip is a boy and Magwitch an escaped convict. Magwitch does not forget Pip's kindness in the marshes, and later in life devotes himself to earning money that he anonymously donates to Pip. Eventually, Magwitch comes to London to see his 'gentleman,' and after Pip's shock and shame wear off, the two become friends. Ever a convict, however, Magwitch is captured by the police. Just before he is sentenced to hang, he dies. Estella: Estella is Miss Havisham's adopted daughter and her project in cultivated cruelty. Raised by the old woman to be cruel and hard to men, Estella, a great beauty, entrances Pip. She is mean to Pip for most of his life, although at the novel's end they meet again, and she seems to be a softened, changed woman.

Estella is another child of mysterious parentage, and Pip eventually learns that she's Magwitch's daughter. Herbert (or the pale young gentleman): Pip first meets Herbert as a boy at Miss Havisham's, where they get into an odd sparring match. Later, when Pip travels to London, he is reunited with Herbert, who is his tutor's son. Herbert is Pip's greatest friend and closest confidant, and the only person Pip can confide in when he discovers his benefactor's identity. Herbert and Pip eventually leave London and work together in Cairo. Joe: Joe is Pip's sister's husband, a kind-hearted blacksmith who Pip greatly admires as a boy. With the onset of his riches, however, Pip becomes ashamed of Joe, and the two don't see each other much for many years. Later, when Pip falls sick, Joe nurses him back to health and pays off all of his debts. Joe is often in Pip's mind as a reminder of the simple and honest life he left behind, when he left the marshes. Mrs. Joe: Mrs.

Joe is Pip's sister, who raises Pip with a heavy hand and is a generally unpleasant woman until a mysterious intruder clobbers her with an iron shackle. After this, Mrs. Joe turns kind, though she is almost completely incapacitated. She dies while Pip is in London. Jaggers: Jaggers is the conniving lawyer that handles Pip's money affairs. A hard man with little sympathy, he keeps the identity of Pip's benefactor a secret for many years. Biddy: Biddy is an orphaned girl about Pip's age who is Pip's first real teacher, and then lives in Pip's childhood home as Mrs. Joe's caretaker. Pip sometimes gets romantic notions that he can live a simple married life with Biddy, but it's ultimately Joe that she marries. Wemmick: Wemmick is a clerk in Jaggers' office, and in that setting he's a fairly tight and unsympathetic man. But when Wemmick leaves the office and returns to his home and his old father, he turns into a completely different person. The 'home Wemmick' becomes a friend of Pip's, who gives him advice and helps with Magwitch's escape.

Compeyson (or the second shackled man): Compeyson is the second, and cruel-hearted convict that young Pip encounters on the marshes. Compeyson is the groom-in-abstencia who swindled Miss Havisham, and he was once Magwitch's criminal boss. Compeyson and Magwitch hate each other, and it's Compeyson that points the police to Magwitch during his escape. Molly: Molly is Jaggers' housekeeper, a suspected murderess that Jaggers successfully defended and afterwards took on as a domestic helper. Pip discovers that Molly and Magwitch were once in love, and that she is Estella's mother. Older Pip: The narrator of the novel is Pip, recounting his story as an older man. Older Pip often gives comments to indicate he's learned some lessons as a result of living through the story he's telling. Minor Characters Uncle Pumblechook: Uncles P is Joe's uncle, and a particularly sycophantic man. Pumblechook is mean to Pip when he's poor and without expectations, and then fawns over him when he becomes rich, even encouraging a rumor that he is Pip's benefactor. Mr.

Wopsle: Mr. Wopsle is a friend of Pip's family. Tremendously fond of his own voice, Wopsle comes to London when Pip is living there, and stars in some dreadful theater productions. The Hubbles: They are a silly husband and wife who come to Christmas dinner at Mrs. Joe's early in the novel. Trabb's boy: The village tailor's son, he taunts Pip. Orlick: A gruff and unpleasant character, Orlick works for a time as Joe's journeyman. He has a crush on Biddy. Matthew Pocket: Pocket is Pip's frazzled, but kind-hearted tutor. Mr. Pocket is Herbert's father and Miss Havisham's cousin. Mrs. Pocket: She is married to Mr. Pocket, and a spacey woman obsessed with the slight possibility that she might be related to royalty. Startop: He is a friend Pip makes in London. Startop is also one of Mr. Pocket's tutorees, and he eventually helps Pip and Magwitch in their escape. Bentley Drummle: Bentley is a brutish boy, who Pip despises. Drummle pursues Pip's love, Estella.

Sarah Pocket: Sarah is one of Miss Havisham's groveling relatives. The Aged Parent: Wemmick's kind, and very deaf, old father. Pepper (or the Avenger): Pepper is a boy Pip employs as an odd-jobs sort of domestic helper at Barnard's Inn. Clara: Clara is Herbert's fiancé and later, his wife. Trabb: Trabb is the village tailor. Trabb also organizes Mrs. Joe's overdone funeral. Miss Skiffens: She is Wemmick's friend, and later, wife. Clarriker: Clarriker is the merchant who Pip pays to take Herbert on as a business partner. Pip later works with Clarriker, as well.

Question: Who is Pip's secret benefactor in 'Great Expectations'?
Answer: MAGWITCH