Mrs Joe's Beliefs

Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations: The Values Taught In a Household
In Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, Dickens asserts that in Pip’s home, Joe and Mrs. Joe’s parenting, beliefs, and actions establish the both positive and negative values Pip learns in his adolescence[S]. Dickens employs Pip’s adolescence with Joe and Mrs. Joe, to claim the importance of guardians on ones childhood by repeating Mrs. Joe’s strictness and aggression, and Joe’s brotherly figure, reasonability, and transparentness. Dickens demonstrates the effects of one’s guardians to assert the fact that one’s values are shaped in the household. Shaping Pip’s values, Dickens display of Pip’s guardians molds Pip’s values in adolescence that will attribute to his personality

An example of Mrs. Joe’s beliefs is when she gives Pip tar water, “having a belief in its [tar water] virtues correspondent to its nastiness” (19). Mrs. Joe's belief that the “virtues” of the tar correspond “to its nastiness”, perfectly summarizes how she thinks Pip should be raised in a strict environment, because she thinks that if she is strict enough in other words, nasty, towards Pip, he will end up being a polite boy with many virtues. Pip, once again, can take two lessons away from this, one negative and one positive. One being that Pip will continue Mrs. Joe’s ideology of strict and harsh gets good results, and will be harsh to those around him and strict to those he has authority over. The other being that he will realize the ridiculousness of Mrs. Joe’s ideology, and will avoid being obtusely strict and harsh to people. When Mrs. Joe responds to Pip’s question about convicts and prison ships by saying, “people are put into the hulks because they murder, and because they rob, and forge, and do all sorts of bad; and they always begin by asking questions" (21) she reinforces her ideas of strict parenting. Mrs. Joe's blatant lies explaining that

Joe having a brotherly relationship with Pip, being reasonable, and being transparent, throughout the scenes, can teach Pip positive lessons For example, Pip and Joe’s relationship is described when Pip says, “in our already mentioned freemasonry as fellow suffers, and in his goodnatured companionship with me" (17). Brotherhood is demonstrated in Pip and Joe's relationship, through the word "freemasonry", juxtaposed with the words “fellow suffers" because they juxtaposition creates a sense of comradeship between the two. From Pip’s relationship with Joe, Pip can learn the positive values inherent in having strong relationships with people. Joe’s ideas are established when he says "said Joe, all aghast. ‘Manners is manners, but still your elth's your elth’” (18). Joe's belief that "Manners is manners, but still your elth's your elth" show Joe's more reasonable way of raising Pip compared to Mrs. Joe's way because Joe would rather care about Pips health than his manners. Pip can learn that it is better to care for your health than to be formal for the sake of others. After Pip asked Joe a question, Joe promptly responds, "'There was a conwict off last night,' said Joe, aloud" (20). Joe's ingenuous answer, "There was a conwict off last night", shows his reasonable attitude to bringing up Pip, compared to Mrs. Joe, who believes that asking questions is bad. From Joe’s parenting, Pip can learn the