Gargery And Joe

In Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Pip, who is the narrator/protagonist, has a brother-in-law much older than him named Joe Gargery, an uneducated blacksmith who’s love for Pip transcends the abusive relationship he shares with his wife, Pip’s sister (otherwise known as Mrs. Joe). Dickens often paints Joe as either child-like or mature within the context of his relationships with Pip, Mrs. Joe and other characters from the first nine chapters. While Joe is indeed portrayed as a child-like figure by his innocent demeanor and conduct, this is directly contrasted by the maturity, sophistication, responsibility and self-awareness he displays when under pressure to act his age. These are the characteristics that define Joe as both a child-like

Wishing to embrace the present occasion of finding out whether in teaching Joe, I should have to begin quite at the beginning, I said, "Ah! But read the rest, Jo."

"The rest, eh, Pip?" said Joe, looking at it with a slowly searching eye, "One, two, three. Why, here's three Js, and three Os, and three J-O, Joes in it, Pip!” (Dickens 40 – Chapter VII)

Even from Pip’s perspective, Joe is child-like; Pip himself claims that “I (Pip) always treated him (Joe) as a larger species of child, and as no more than my equal” (Dickens 13). To many adults, this disrespect from such a young child would be intolerable and permissible for the adult to admonish and reprimand the child; however, for Joe, he takes that insult in stride, along with everything else that Pip and Joe’s wife have to throw at him. In the passage above, Joe innocently attempts to read from a slate in front of Pip, who decides to put Joe to the test, while recalling a time where Joe had not noticed Pip holding a Prayer-Book upside-down at church. Joe’s futile attempt to read creates an image in readers’ heads where Pip becomes somewhat of a literacy coach to an innocent-looking Joe simply looking to learn how to read, similar to that of a

Without Joe’s awareness for Pip and the consideration he put into his decision to take him in, Pip would certainly have been much worse off, as an orphan in the streets of Kent at the turn of the Industrial Revolution. Instead, because of the initiative Joe took to convince his wife (Pip’s sister nonetheless), Pip has the opportunity to make something out of himself and become a contributing member to society. Pip is reminded of Joe’s maturity and altruism at this moment in the novel, and he ends up breaking down after realizing how much Joe means to him, thus concluding that Joe can in fact act as an adult and make conscious decisions as any adult