Great Aspects In Pip's Great Expectations By Charles Dickens

Great expectations, is a Victorian Bildungsroman centred of the self development of a protagonist named Pip. Pip is a young boy with great expectations to elevate himself from his low class society and become educated as a gentleman. Pip’s great expectations are accompanied by him acquiring new character traits such as selfishness, snobbery and dandyism. His expectation conditions his once innocent and morally just character and destroys his relationship with his loved ones. Ultimately leaves him a wanderer, with no place to call home.

Immediately after being exposed to the higher social class society: the snobby Estella and the selfish Miss Havisham, Pip loose his childlike innocence and adopts selfishness. When an individual is selfish he

It is these expectations that cause a change in his character and over shadows his actions though the book. Pip learns to use people in order to realise these great expectations. The first person to fall victim to his selfishness is Biddy. In order to become worthy of Estella Pip uses Biddy “towards making himself uncommon” by “getting out of Biddy everything she knew” (Dickens 107). Ironically, Pip goes to a person as common as he in an attempt to become less common in hope to impress the snobby Estella. Biddy is not the only person subjected to this selfishness but Joe as well. Pip uses the education he gains from Biddy to educate Joe, in order “to impart to Joe” whatever he learnt as an attempt to make him “less ignorant and common” (Dickens 108). So that he might be worthier of [his] society and less open to Estella’s reproach (Dickens 109). Pip’s concern with Joe’s commonness is only because it has an influence on his identity. He wants Joe to be less common so that he will be accepted by Estella. Thus Pip does not educate Joe because he cares for him as his father figure and friend rather he does it for his own advantages. Pip knows that Miss Havisham’s does not intend for him to marry Estella rather

Snobbery is a term used to refer to a person “who respects and likes people who are of a high class” (Cambridge 1368). When Joe accompanies him to Satis House Pip feels ashamed of his appearance, though Joe is dressed in his best church clothes. Pip thought he “looked far better in his working dress” (Dickens 143). Pip is further embarrassed when Joe insists on addressing him instead of Miss Havisham directly. An indication of this is “I was ashamed of the dear fellow” (Dickens 145). Pip is ashamed of Joe’s appearance and behaviour because it is an embarrassment for him; he sees it as confirmation of his low class origins. During their visit at Satis house, Pip learns that he is to be apprenticed to Joe. This temporarily shatters his expectations of becoming educated as a gentleman and he is extremely saddened to know he is to be a mere blacksmith. Once apprenticed to Joe Pip’s snobbery is frightful. Pip is ashamed of being a blacksmith and lives with the constant worry that Estella will one day “[he] being at [his] grimiest and commonest, should lift up [his] eyes and see Estella looking into the windows of the forge” (Dickens 108). The snobby Pips is ashamed of being a blacksmith because it affirms his low class status and limits his great expectations. In his statement “it is the most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home, the word “miserable “suggests that Pip