Perception and Imagination to Achieve Expectations In the novels Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and in Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones, expectations are a fundamental concept. Expectations are the “beliefs that something will happen or be the case”(“Expectation”). In the novel Great Expectations, Pip faces several situations in his life that he uses to establish an expectation of the future. Further, in Mister Pip Matilda uses Pip’s story, along with her own experiences to create her expectations. Perception and imagination are fundamental elements that support the creation of expectations. Further perception and imagination lead to appearances versus realities. Through these two novels we see how characters, mainly Pip and Matilda, come …show more content…
Matilda’s expectation is about Mr. Watts’s life and about the book Great Expectations. Matilda interprets from Mr. Watts’s appearance that he “looked like someone who had seen or known great suffering and hadn’t been able to forget it” (Jones 1). This perception of Mr. Watts allows Matilda to be open-minded when it comes to him being her teacher. This open-mindedness further allows her to be open to the world within Great Expectations. Matilda uses her imagination to escape the conflict on the island. Matilda imagines what it would be like to live in the same way as Pip. She tries to understand Pip’s feelings, especially his love for Estella. Matilda imagines that Mr. Watts came from a similar environment as the one depicted in Great Expectations since he never told her much about his past. Like Pip, Matilda faces appearance versus reality. Matilda figures out that Mr. Watts had simplified Great Expectations and had altered the facts of his life. She comes to the conclusion that Mr. Watts had simplified the novel to “help us arrive at a more definite place in our heads” (Jones 225). As for Mr. Watts’s life, Matilda realizes she only knew a fragment of his life. He only allowed her to see the ‘acting part’ of himself. Matilda comes to the conclusion that “Mr. Watts was as elusive as ever. He was whatever he needed to be, what we asked him to be” (Jones 245). Therefore, Mr. Watts was her savior to Matilda while she was on the island. As shown by both Pip and Matilda in Great Expectation and Mister Pip, perception and imagination created their