What Is The Loss Of Innocence In Pip's Childhood

Children in 19th-century England were treated as nuisances rather than the future of society. There was a lot of hard work and abuse thrust upon children, especially those who were not brought up wealthily. Pip, as a child during this time in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, was practically robbed of his childhood and his innocence. Pip was raised by his sister who showed no care for him, and from a young age he was forced into meeting with an old lady who scarred him mentally by showing him far too much of the real world. Lastly, he had deep guilt for stealing for and helping an escaped convict. Through the emotional, physical, and sometimes subtle abuse that he received from his family members, the old lady named Miss Havisham, and

As he repeats many times throughout Great Expectations, his sister “brought me up ‘by hand’” (Dickens 13). By this, Pip is telling the reader how he was raised roughly and strictly, and was often abused physically. He speaks of the Tickler, which is a stick that Mrs. Joe, his sister, seems to hit him with, and is always being scolded for asking questions and for simply being a child. The way his sister brought him up might have been common, but it doesn’t mean that it’s okay. While thinking to himself, Pip states, “My sister’s bringing up had made me sensitive. In the little world in which children have their existence whosoever brings them up, there’s nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice. It may be only small injustice that the child can be exposed to; but the child is small, and its world is small, and its rocking-horse stands as many hands high according to scale, as a big-boned Irish hunter” (Dickens 64). By this Pip is telling us, even at such a young age, that his sister’s bitterness has made him into a more sensitive, but also a less ignorant, child. The problem with this is that we want children to be ignorant; children are meant to be a little wild, ungrateful, and oblivious. When Pip lunges into this long rant inside of his mind, the reader gets a deep look into his mind and just how mature he has become, even though children his age are normally much more

From the moment he met her, he was terrified of her and her fragility. As a very young boy, he was introduced to mental illness, heartbreak, and death and he often thought about it after he met her. When he first met her, he said, “So she sat, corpse-like, as we played cards; the frillings and trimmings on her bridal dress, looking like earthy paper. I knew nothing then of the discoveries that are occasionally made of bodies buried in ancient times, which fall to powder in the moment of being distinctly seen; but, I have often thought since, that she must have looked as of the admission of the natural light of day would have struck her to dust” (Dickens 62). Miss Havisham’s feeble mental and physical state scarred Pip, and even though he was inexperienced, he was imagining embalmed bodies and mummies in place of Miss Havisham because of how dead she looks. Her body, apparel, and mind are all outdated and ancient, just like a mummy. Aside from frightening Pip, Miss Havisham turned him into the type of person that his family had never known; a gentleman. Although this may sound good, it was terrible for the people who loved Pip because he began to look at them much differently. For example, when Pip’s guardian and friend, Joe, met Miss Havisham and was nervous, Pip was actually embarrassed. He says, “I am afraid I was ashamed of the dear good fellow—I know I was ashamed of him—when I saw that Estella stood