Character Analysis

The protagonist:
Philip Pirrip (who shortens his own name to “Pip” as a child) is the narrator and
protagonist of the story, an orphan who grows up in humble circumstances with his sister
and brother-in-law, only to find himself suddenly endowed with a large sum of money,
the “great expectations” of the title. Great Expectations is a Bildungsroman—the story of
an individuals growth and development within a strict social order, and Pip is the focus of
this growth in the novel. Pip is really two characters at once: the protagonist going
through the trials of one life, and the grown narrator relating the story of his life. At times,
adult Pip offers light-hearted observations on his childish behaviour while illustrating the
stresses that lead child Pip to react to his world.

One of Pip’s strongest characteristics , is his desire for self-improvement which is one of
the central themes of the novel. He analyses the world around him for the best and worst
examples of society and emulates the best. Unfortunately, the best examples of society
aren’t always the best examples of humanity; Pip the narrator criticises Pip the
protagonist for his narrow-minded treatment of those around him.

The young Pip’s desire for self-improvement infringes on the dignity of other characters
like Joe and Biddy, although they are kind to him.Pip is capable of kindness to those he
loves, but the influence of Miss Havisham and especially Estella brings out the worst in
him as his craving for advancement grows stronger. In effect, the women become the
role models for the unhappy “middle”section of the story, and the deeper Pip explores
his own social standing, the more miserable he becomes. He seems to rally when he
inherits a mysterious fortune, but when he discovers the money came from the convict
Magwitch and not Miss Havisham, his narrow view of the world and its rules crumbles.
Magwitch is hardly the refined gentleman Pip has come to expect as a benefactor, but it
is he who appreciated Pip’s kindness early on and rewards it in the end.

Ultimately, Pip is a sympathetic character and a fairly reliable narrator, with whom the
reader usually identifies. His sensitivity and romantic nature often lead him astray, and in
allowing Miss Havisham and Estella to shape his attitudes to those around him, Pips
earnest desire for self-improvement sometimes takes the form of snobbery. However,
Pip gains self-knowledge and a sense of proportion over the course of the novel,
maturing into the realization that status is meaningless without humanity. His behaviour
as a “gentleman” has caused pain to those he loved the most, and the now-mature Pip
uses the novel to pay tribute to their undeserved respect of him.

Great Expectations: Plot Analysis

The major conflict of Great Expectations revolves around Pip’s ambitious desire to
reinvent himself and rise to a higher social class. His desire for social progress stems
from a desire to be worthy of Estella’s love: “She’s more beautiful than anybody ever
was, and I admire her dreadfully, and I want to be a gentleman on her account.” The plot
gets underway when Pip is invited to go to Satis House, and first encounters Estella and
Miss Havisham. The inciting action, however, has actually been earlier when Pip had a
seemingly random encounter with an escaped convict; neither he nor the reader will
know for a long time that this encounter will actually determine the course of his life. The
rising action progresses as Pip becomes increasingly dissatisfied with the prospect of
living a simple life as a country blacksmith. As he explains, “I never shall or can be
comfortable … unless I can lead a very different sort of life from the life I lead now.”

Pip receives news that he is going to be financially supported by an anonymous

benefactor and moves to London, where he becomes more refined and sophisticated
while also becoming extravagant and self-absorbed. After some years, Pip is astonished
to discover that his benefactor is actually Magwitch the convict. This discovery intensifies
the conflict around Pip’s desire to be perceived as a gentleman and be loved by Estella,
since he is now tainted by an association with a criminal. The rising conflict forces Pip to
declare his love to Estella, since he is planning to leave England in order to cover up his
secret. He tells her that “you are part of my existence, part of myself,” but she explains
that she plans to marry another man. This conversation resolves part of the conflict,
making it clear to Pip that Estella is incapable of loving him.

The conflict surrounding Pip’s shame at his social background and desire to be a
gentleman continues as he struggles to protect Magwitch and get him to safety. Along
the way, Pip realizes that Magwitch is Estella’s father. This discovery transforms Pip’s
understanding of social position and criminality. Up to this point, Pip has  considered
Estella and the criminal underworld Magwitch represents as oppositional to one another,
but now Pip understands that Estella and Magwitch have always been interconnected.
At the novel’s climax, Pip confides to a dying Magwitch that his lost child “is living now.
She is a lady and very beautiful. And I love her!” By showing kindness to a criminal and
describing Estella as a both a lady and the daughter of a convict, Pip shows that he no
longer thinks about social position in a black or white way. The conflict resolves with Pip
letting go of his social aspirations in order to focus on reconciling with the characters
who have been loyal to him all along, paying off his debts, and earning an honest living.

Great Expectations: Themes

Ambition and Self-Improvement

The moral theme of Great Expectations is quite simple: affection, loyalty, and
conscience are more important than social advancement, wealth, and class. Dickens
establishes the theme and shows Pip learning this lesson, largely by exploring ideas of
ambition and self-improvement—ideas that quickly become both the thematic center of
the novel and the psychological mechanism that encourages much of Pip’s
development. At heart, Pip is an idealist; whenever he can conceive of something that is
better than what he already has, he immediately desires to obtain the improvement.
When he sees Satis House, he longs to be a wealthy gentleman; when he thinks of his
moral shortcomings, he longs to be good; when he realizes that he cannot read, he
longs to learn how. Pip’s desire for self-improvement is the main source of the novel’s
title: because he believes in the possibility of advancement in life, he has “great
expectations” about his future. Ambition and self-improvement take three forms in Great
Expectations—moral,social, and educational; these motivate Pip’s best and his worst
behaviour throughout the novel. First, Pip desires moral self-improvement. He is
extremely hard on himself when he acts immorally and feels powerful guilt that spurs him
to act better in the future. When he leaves for London, for instance, he torments himself
about having behaved so wretchedly toward Joe and Biddy. Second, Pip desires social
self-improvement. In love with Estella, he longs to become a member of her social
class,and, encouraged by Mrs. Joe and Pumblechook, he entertains fantasies of
becoming a gentleman. The working out of this fantasy forms the basic plot of the novel;
it provides Dickens the opportunity to gently satirise the class system of his era and to
make a point about its capricious nature. Significantly, Pip’s life as a gentleman is no
more satisfying—and certainly no more moral—than his previous life as a blacksmith’s
apprentice. 

Third, Pip desires educational improvement. This desire is deeply connected to his
social ambition and longing to marry Estella: a full education is a requirement of being a
gentleman. As long as he is an ignorant country boy, he has no hope of social
advancement. Pip understands this fact as a child, when he learns to read at Mr.
Wopsle’s aunt’s school, and as a young man, when he takes lessons from Matthew
Pocket. Ultimately, through the examples of Joe, Biddy, and Magwitch, Pip learns that
social and educational improvement are irrelevant to one’s real worth and that
conscience and affection are to be valued above erudition and social standing.

Social Class

Throughout Great Expectations, Dickens explores the class system of Victorian England,
ranging from the most wretched criminals (Magwitch) to the poor peasants of the marsh
country (Joe and Biddy) to the middle class (Pumblechook) to the very rich (Miss
Havisham). The theme of social class is central to the novel’s plot and to the ultimate
moral theme of the book—Pip’s realization that wealth and class are less important than
affection, loyalty, and inner worth. Pip achieves this realization when he is finally able to
understand that, despite the esteem in which he holds Estella, one’s social status is in
no way connected to one’s real character. Drummle, for instance, is an upper-class lout,
while Magwitch, a persecuted convict, has a deep inner worth.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember about the novel’s treatment of social
class is that the class system it portrays is based on the post-Industrial Revolution model
of Victorian England. Dickens generally ignores the nobility and the hereditary
aristocracy in favour of characters whose fortunes have been earned through
commerce. Even Miss Havisham’s family fortune was made through the brewery that is
still connected to her manor. In this way, by connecting the theme of social class to the
idea of work and self-advancement, Dickens subtly reinforces the novel’s overarching
theme of ambition and self-improvement.

Crime, Guilt, and Innocence

The theme of crime, guilt, and innocence is explored throughout the novel largely
through the characters of the convicts and the criminal lawyer Jaggers. From the
handcuffs Joe mends at the smithy to the gallows at the prison in London, the imagery of
crime and criminal justice pervades the book, becoming an important symbol of Pip’s
inner struggle to reconcile his own inner moral conscience with the institutional justice
system. In general, just as social class becomes a superficial standard of value that Pip
must learn to look beyond in finding a better way to live his life, the external trappings of
the criminal justice system (police, courts, jails, etc.) become a superficial standard of
morality that Pip must learn to look beyond to trust his inner conscience. Magwitch, for
instance, frightens Pip at first simply because he is a convict, and Pip feels guilty for
helping him because he is afraid of the police. By the end of the book, however, Pip has
discovered Magwitch’s inner nobility, and is able to disregard his external status as a
criminal. Prompted by his conscience, he helps Magwitch to evade the law and the
police. As Pip has learned to trust his conscience and to value Magwitch’s inner
character, he has replaced an external standard of value with an internal one.

Sophistication

In Great Expectations, Pip becomes obsessed with a desire to be sophisticated and

takes damaging risks in order to do so. After his first encounter with Estella, Pip
becomes acutely self-conscious that “I was a common labouring-boy; that my hands
were coarse, that my boots were thick.” (pg. 59). Once he moves to London, Pip is
exposed to a glamorous urban world “so crowded with people and so brilliantly lighted,”
and he quickly begins to “contract expensive habits.” As a result of spending money on
things like a personal servant and fancy clothes, Pip quickly falls into debt, and damages
Herbert’s finances as well as his own. Even more troubling, Pip tries to avoid anyone
who might undermine his reputation as a sophisticated young gentleman. In the end,
sophistication is revealed as a shallow and superficial value because it does not lead to
Pip achieving anything, and only makes him lonely and miserable.

Education

Education functions as a force for social mobility and personal growth in the novel. Joe
and Biddy both use their education to pursue new opportunities, showing how education
can be a good thing. Pip receives an education that allows him to advance into a new
social position, but Pip’s education improves his mind without supporting the growth of
his character. Biddy takes advantage to gather as much learning as she can, with Pip
observing that she “learns everything I learn,” and eventually becomes a schoolteacher.
Biddy also teaches Joe to read and write. Pip’s education does not actually provide him
with practical skills or common sense, as revealed when Pip and Herbert completely fail
at managing their personal finances. Pip’s emotional transformation once he learns the
identity of his benefactor is what ultimately makes him into the man he wants to be, not
anything he has learned in a classroom.

Family

Although Pip and Estella both grow up as orphans, family is an important theme in the
novel. Pip grows up with love and support from Joe, but fails to see the value of the
unconditional love Joes gives him. He eventually reconciles with Joe after understanding
his errors. Estella is exposed to damaging values from her adopted mother, Miss
Havisham, and gradually learns from experience what it actually means to care about
someone. For both characters, learning who to trust and how to have a loving
relationship with family members is a major part of the growing-up process.As Estella
explains at the end of the novel, “suffering has been stronger than all other teaching.”
Both Estella and Pip make mistakes and live with the consequences of their family
histories, but their difficult family experiences also helps to give them perspective on
what is truly important in life.

Great Expectations: Setting

Great Expectations is set in nineteenth-century England, mainly in London and the

surrounding marshlands where Pip grows up. The settings are described through Pip’s
point of view, and highlight both his dissatisfaction and his idealism. As Pip becomes
increasingly discontented with home and with everything around him being “all coarse
and common,” he becomes repelled by the flat marshlands. Comparing them to his
prospects he says, “how flat and low both were.” Despite Pip’s ambitious hopes for
London, when he arrives in the city Pip finds it “rather ugly, crooked, narrow, and dirty.”
Because Pip is constantly chasing his “great expectations,” he can’t see the value or
appeal of any of the places he encounters. At the end of the novel, when Pip returns to
his hometown humbled and eager to reconcile with Joe and Biddy, he finds that “the
June weather was delicious. The sky was blue… I thought the countryside more
beautiful and peaceful by far than I had ever known it to be yet.” Because Pip has finally
made peace with his history and identity, he can finally appreciate the beauty of the
world around him.

Great Expectations: Style of Writing

The style of Great Expectations is primarily wry and humorous. Pip often describes
events that are quite tragic and upsetting, but he typically does so in a way that relies on
dark humour rather than evoking pity. For example, when he mentions his five dead
siblings, he refers to them as having “gave up trying to get a living exceedingly early in
the universal struggle.” When he describes the abusive relationship between his sister
and Joe, he jokes that “I suppose both Joe Gargery and I were brought up by hand.” The
humorous style shows Pip’s tendency to avoid being vulnerable both with readers and
with the characters around him, since he does not want to be an object of pity, or be
defined by his difficult childhood circumstances. He even jokes about the bad decisions
of his younger self, making fun of how badly he managed his money and noting that he
saw writing down his debts and actually paying them off as “in point of meritorious
character … about equal.”

Great Expectations: Point of View

Great Expectations is written in the first-person point of view, with Pip acting as both the
protagonist and narrator of the novel. Pip doesn’t narrate events as they happen, but
looks back at his life and tells the story based on what he remembers, a style known as
retrospective narration. For example, when Pip describes leaving for London, he admits
that his desire to depart without Joe “originated in my sense of the contrast there would
be between me and Joe.” Pip says that “If I had cried before,I should have had Joe with
me then.” The retrospective point of view allows Pip to reveal his motivations for his
behaviour, which he might not even have been aware of at the time. He also reflects on
what he now knows would have been a better course of action.

Great Expectations: Motifs

Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop
and inform the text’s major themes.

Doubles

One of the most remarkable aspects of Dickens’s work is its structural intricacy and
remarkable balance. Dickens’s plots involve complicated coincidences,extraordinarily
tangled webs of human relationships, and highly dramatic developments in which
setting, atmosphere, event, and character are all seamlessly fused.

In Great Expectations, perhaps the most visible sign of Dickens’s commitment to

intricate dramatic symmetry—apart from the knot of character relationships, of course—
is the fascinating motif of doubles that runs throughout the book. From the earliest
scenes of the novel to the last, nearly every element of Great Expectations is mirrored or
doubled at some other point in the book. There are two convicts on the marsh (Magwitch
and Compeyson), two invalids (Mrs. Joe and Miss Havisham), two young women who
interest Pip (Biddy and Estella), and so on. There are two secret benefactors: Magwitch,
who gives Pip his fortune, and Pip, who mirrors Magwitch’s action by secretly buying
Herbert’s way into the mercantile business. Finally, there are two adults who seek to
mold children after their own purposes: Magwitch, who wishes to “own” a gentleman and
decides to make Pip one, and Miss Havisham, who raises Estella to break men’s hearts
in revenge for her own broken heart.

Interestingly, both of these actions are motivated by Compeyson: Magwitch resents but
is nonetheless covetous of Compeyson’s social status and education, which motivates
his desire to make Pip a gentleman, and Miss Havisham’s heart was broken when
Compeyson left her at the altar, which motivates her desire to achieve revenge through
Estella. The relationship between Miss Havisham and

Compeyson—a well-born woman and a common man—further mirrors the relationship

between Estella and Pip.This doubling of elements has no real bearing on the novel’s
main themes, but, like the connection of weather and action, it adds to the sense that
everything in Pip’s world is connected. Throughout Dickens’s works, this kind of dramatic
symmetry is simply part of the fabric of his novelistic universe.

Comparison of Characters to Inanimate Objects

Throughout Great Expectations, the narrator uses images of inanimate objects to

describe the physical appearance of characters—particularly minor characters, or
characters with whom the narrator is not intimate. For example, Mrs. Joe looks as if she
scrubs her face with a nutmeg grater, while the inscrutable features of Mr. Wemmick are
repeatedly compared to a letter-box. This motif, which Dickens uses throughout his
novels, may suggest a failure of empathy on the narrator’s part, or itmay suggest that the
character’s position in life is pressuring them to resemble a thing more than a human
being. The latter interpretation would mean that the motif in general is part of a social
critique, in that it implies that an institution such as the class system or the criminal
justice system dehumanizes certain people.

Great Expectations: Symbols

Satis House

In Satis House, Dickens creates a magnificent Gothic setting whose various elements
symbolize Pip’s romantic perception of the upper class and many other themes of the
book. On her decaying body, Miss Havisham’s wedding dress becomes an ironic symbol
of death and degeneration. The wedding dress and the wedding feast symbolize Miss
Havisham’s past, and the stopped clocks throughout the house symbolize her
determined attempt to freeze time by refusing to change anything from the way it was
when she was jilted on her wedding day. The brewery next to the house symbolizes the
connection between commerce and wealth: Miss Havisham’s fortune is not the product
of an aristocratic birth but of a recent success in industrial capitalism. Finally, the
crumbling, dilapidated stones of the house, as well as the darkness and dust that
pervade it, symbolize the general decadence of the lives of its inhabitants and of the
upper class as a whole.

The Mists on the Marshes

The setting almost always symbolizes a theme in Great Expectations and always sets  a
tone that is perfectly matched to the novel’s dramatic action. The misty marshes near
Pip’s childhood home in Kent, one of the most evocative of the book’s settings, are used
several times to symbolize danger and uncertainty. As a child, Pip brings Magwitch a file
and food in these mists; later, he is kidnapped by Orlick and nearly murdered in them.
Whenever Pip goes into the mists, something dangerous is likely to happen.
Significantly, Pip must go through the mists when he travels to London shortly after
receiving his fortune, alerting the reader that this apparently positive development in his
life may have dangerous consequences.

Bentley Drummle

Although he is a minor character in the novel, Bentley Drummle provides an important

contrast with Pip and represents the arbitrary nature of class distinctions. In his mind,
Pip has connected the ideas of moral, social, and educational advancement so that each
depends on the others. The coarse and cruel Drummle, a member of the upper class,
provides Pip with proof that social advancement has no inherent connection to
intelligence or moral worth. Drummle is a lout who has inherited immense wealth, while
Pip’s friend and brother-in-law Joe is a good man who works hard for the little he earns.
Drummle’s negative example helps Pip to see the inner worth of characters such as
Magwitch and Joe, and eventually to discard his immature fantasies about wealth and
class in favour of a new understanding that is both more compassionate and more
realistic.