Premium Essay

What Are Pip's Choices In Great Expectations

Submitted By
Words 805
Pages 4
In the novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens(published 1861), Pip learns many things. Through certain events in his life, Pip learns that his choices affect not only himself but also others around him. He learns this through helping Magwitch, accepting his large fortune and through interacting with Estella.
Pip learns that his choices affect not only himself but others around him through helping Magwitch as a child. Pip first encountered Magwitch during his visit to the churchyard many years ago. Magwitch had threatened to hurt Pip if he didn't bring him some food and a file.(p.g.3) Knowing that he would get punished by his sister for obeying Magwitch's order and also knowing that he would very likely lose Joe's trust, Pip brought the …show more content…
The choice in accepting the fortune does not only change Pip's status in the society but the thought of being a gentleman has changed the way he thinks of others. For example, he thinks that Joe is rather backwards in his learning and his manners and that it would hardly do him justice when he is moved to a higher sphere(p.g. 141). This shows that due to his new circumstance, Pip believes that to make a good first impression as a gentleman, he should only surround himself with well-educated people. Pip's choice also affects the two people who are very close to him, Joe and Biddy. Pip doesn't realise how important he is in Joe's life until he hears Joe's reply to Mr Wemmick's question. Mr Wemmick had asked Joe if he had wanted compensation for the loss of Pip's services, but Joe had refused, stating boldly that no money can make compensation to me for the loss of the little child and the best of friends (p.g.133). Pip's choice not only had caused Joe pain but it had also affected Biddy as well, but they tried for his sake to disguise it. Pip managed to see through their masks, he wrote that '....there was a certain touch of sadness in their congratulations that I resented(p.g. 135). This shows that Pip had learnt that his choices affect not only himself but others around

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

Great Expectations

...Certain passages in a novel can do many things to develop the work as a whole as well as develop a character. In the novel, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, this is proven true. Within a certain passage in the novel Dickens uses diction to reveal characteristics of the main character, Pip’s, personality. Dickens also uses this specific passage where Abel Magwitch is telling Pip that he is his benefactor to contribute to the overall meaning of the book. In Great Expectations, Dickens uses a specific passage in the book to contribute to the meaning of the book and to also reveal, through Pip’s reaction to who his benefactor, Pip’s character. Diction is defined by the Merriam-Webster as a choice of words especially with regard to correctness, clearness, or effectiveness. Dickens uses word choice specifically to reveal aspects of Pip’s character. An example of this is in the quote “The abhorrence in which I held the man, the dread I had of him, the repugnance with which I shrank from him, could not have been exceeded if he had been some terrible beast” (Dickens 320-321). Dickens uses words such as abhorrence, dread and repugnance to describe Pip’s feelings towards Magwitch being his benefactor. Along with these words Pip says that his “blood ran cold” within him. He also uses the word suffocating and says that Pip shuddered at realizing and remembering that he man before his is his convict. Finding out that Magwitch has been sending money to Jaggers for Pip to become a gentleman...

Words: 896 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Great Expectations

...Great Expectations by Charles Dickens In this essay I will be exploring the ways in which Charles Dickens builds tension in the novel great expectations. In this novel I will be discussing the main themes used by dickens to place the viewer in suspense and tension. Dickens focuses on the main characters like Pip and the convict in order to create tension and suspense as Pip was the main point of sympathy since he was presented as an orphan whilst the convict was illustrated as a monster. Great expectations is on the subject of a little boy called Pip who thinks that money will buy everything however through the help of the convict, soon after in his life he will discover that money will not obtain him joy. The most significant obsession in life is the theme of happiness which Pip finds at the subsequent stages of the novel where he catastrophically falls in love with Estella, therefore regrets his action of choosing money in excess of his friends and family. Whilst dickens uses descriptive language to assemble an image in the readers mind he also uses powerful language in order to involve the reader within the novel in addition to allow the reader experience the themes and emotions. This Essay will explore how Dickens builds tension throughout his novel using imagery and his powerful language in both the setting and weather in chapter 1 and 39 whilst exploring the emotions of two main characters Pip and the convict in chapter 1 and 39 of the novel. ...

Words: 4239 - Pages: 17

Premium Essay

Expectations In Great Expectations

...Great Expectations was written by Charles Dickens in the post-Industrial Revolution, a time where your social status plays a huge role in the ways where people perceived you to be. Those of high status are praised and looked up to, while the low class people are seen as dimwits and undeserving of any recognition. Similarly with Pip, he has the idea that the greatest expectation he can have in life is by having that status in order to be with the girl of his dream, Estella. After some time at Miss Havisham’s place, he began hating his “coarse and common” life and began wishing for more. He began looking down on those around him, including Joe who was his closest friend and confidant. During the years of his life written by Dickens, Pip changes from an innocent young boy, to a...

Words: 918 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Great Expectations

...Prose Study ‘Great Expectations’ How does Dickens use setting and characterization to interest and intrigue the reader? Throughout the novel, Dickens uses a range of techniques to interest and intrigue the reader. One way in which he does this is through the setting, which is the place and time in which the story takes place, also establishing the mood or atmosphere. Another method is characterization, the way the characters are portrayed, such as through their gestures and dialogue. All these devices help to arouse and sustain the reader’s curiosity and make us feel sympathy towards the character, which is especially shown in Pip’s initial encounter with Magwitch in the marshes and Pip’s first experience of visiting Miss Havisham and Estella in ‘Satis House.’ These represent different social situations, with Pip and Magwitch in the lower class, and Estella and Miss Havisham in the upper middle class. No matter which situation he is in, he still feels uncomfortable, and consequently we too feel a sense of uneasiness for him. In the Nineteenth Century, Dickens was a supporter of social reform, and therefore used his writing as a means of communicating his views to the readers. He wanted to make his Victorian readers, particularly the middle and upper classes, aware of some of the inequality in society, such as the lack of support, education and opportunity for the lower class. He was a sympathiser for the poor and the oppressed, especially...

Words: 3652 - Pages: 15

Premium Essay

Guilt And Shame In Great Expectations By Charles Dicken

...truly and completely go away as seen through Magwitch, Joe and Pip. To begin with, Magwitch is a character that tries not to look at his guilt and shame by looking at the bright side of things and not think about his guilt and shame. For example, in Charles Dicken’s book, Great Expectations, Magwitch responds to Pip’s arrival with food...

Words: 872 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Concept of Self-Realization in Pride and Prejudice, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Great Expectations and Lord Jim.

...Concept of Self-realization in Pride and Prejudice, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Great Expectations and Lord Jim. The words self-realization is often used in literature to refer to the liberation of an individual from the sense of limitation brought about by identification with conditioned beliefs, opinions, fears, desires, and habits. The main objective of this paper is to show concept of self-realization in Pride and Prejudice, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Great Expectations and Lord Jim. It has also been tried to add some new concepts regarding these novels. Necessary and related information has been collected from various books and internet. Austen's serene world, in Pride and Prejudice which harbours dynamic action, goes unnoticed by the readers who read her novels on the surface level. But the readers who fathom the depths of her creativity can realize that active forces are working, reforming and psychologically molding the characters in her novels. Tess of the D’Urbervilles is one of the most famous novels of Thomas Hardy. In this novel we see a tragic end of Tess with an ultimate realization. Great Expectations was one of Dickens’ best-known novels and was written in 1860. Great Expectations is a Bildungsroman and follows the progression of Pip from child to adult; from humble blacksmith to gentleman; from innocence to experience; from rags to riches and on his journey, Pip meets a range of interesting characters, from the comical Wemmick, to the cruel Estella....

Words: 11486 - Pages: 46

Premium Essay

Charles Dickens and His Worldview

...who tries to do right but gets crushed by a cruel world. In Dickens’s world, people grow and change over time and can be easily influenced by the world’s vices. People enter the world innocent and rational, but as they age, society seeks to break them. Still, Dickens believes that some, like Nancy, can free themselves from society’s influence and become more compassionate. Dickens lauds those who reflect the created order by showing concern for the needs of others, regardless of social standing or background; he also believes that humans can become corrupted by the world, so discovering inherent goodness is a struggle. People enter the world innocent and rational, and society quickly preys on them. Society strives to form each person into what it wants, changing how people grow over their lives. Scrooge of A Christmas Carol was once compassionate towards others and becomes hard-hearted after tragic events. He lost a sister and grew stingier, driving those in his life away. He comes to believe his responsibility was to himself. Dickens wants to show how being self-absorbed causes people to care only for themselves and not for others. “At the heart of Carol, Dickens had an economic message. A society in which the masters are concerned only with the bottom line and take no responsibility for the general welfare is a death-dealing society” (Davis). Scrooge cares only for...

Words: 2842 - Pages: 12

Free Essay

Dreat Expectation V Lucy

...1. With the emphasis on Dickens’ Great Expectations and with wider reference to Kincaid’s Lucy, compare and contrast the writer’s intentions and achievements arising from their presentation of women. Throughout ‘Great expectations’ by Charles Dickens and Jamaica Kincaid’s ‘Lucy’, both authors seem to present women intentionally to relate to the idea of patriarchy (a system or society governed by men) and how independence or obedience links to their social class’s expectations. Dickens does this by upholding the Victorian ideology of gender, which in ‘Great Expectations’ addressed women as either an angel in the house- the ideal wife, obedient, devoted and submissive to their husband or alternatively, the whore. Independent with the desire for more power than their social class expectations allows, very anti-men. Being an angel in the house was expected of all women in the Victorian era, they had a limited amount of power, enough to be the ideal wife who would be generally rewarded, represented by Biddy. However those women whom abused their power and went against all expectations of social class, the whores, were physically punished by Dickens but given a chance of redemption, evidence of this is shown by Estella and Miss Havisham. Kincaid follows the same idea as Dickens to a certain degree in ‘Lucy’. She focuses on the character of Lucy and her journey to independence, constantly trying to prove her power to break free from her homeland and mother, she manages to achieve...

Words: 1917 - Pages: 8

Premium Essay

How to Write Essays

...HOW TO WRITE ESSAYS Visit our How To website at www.howto.co.uk At www.howto.co.uk you can engage in conversation with some of our authors – all of whom have ‘been there and done that’ in their specialist fields. You can get access to special offers and additional content but, most importantly, you will be able to engage with, and become a part of, a wide and growing community of people just like yourself. At www.howto.co.uk you’ll be able to talk to, and share tips with, people who have similar interests and are facing similar challenges in their lives. People who, just like you, have the desire to change their lives for the better – be it through moving to a new country, starting a new business, growing their own vegetables, or writing a novel. At www.howto.co.uk you’ll find the support and encouragement you need to help make your aspirations a reality. How To Books strives to present authentic, inspiring, practical information in their books. Now, when you buy a title from How To Books, you get even more than words on a page. HOW TO WRITE ESSAYS A step-by-step guide for all levels, with sample essays Don Shiach howtobooks ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author and publishers are grateful to Nicholas Murray and the Rack Press, Kinnerton, Presteigne, Powys LD8 2PF for permission to reproduce History from Nicholas Murray’s collection ‘The Narrators’. Published by How To Content, A division of How To Books Ltd, Spring Hill House, Spring...

Words: 11877 - Pages: 48

Free Essay

Great Expectations

...Great Expectations By Charles Dickens Download free eBooks of classic literature, books and novels at Planet eBook. Subscribe to our free eBooks blog and email newsletter. Chapter 1 M y father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip. I give Pirrip as my father’s family name, on the authority of his tombstone and my sister - Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith. As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them (for their days were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies regarding what they were like, were unreasonably derived from their tombstones. The shape of the letters on my father’s, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair. From the character and turn of the inscription, ‘Also Georgiana Wife of the Above,’ I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly. To five little stone lozenges, each about a foot and a half long, which were arranged in a neat row beside their grave, and were sacred to the memory of five little brothers of mine - who gave up trying to get a living, exceedingly early in that universal struggle - I am indebted for a belief I religiously entertained that they had all been born on their backs with their hands in their trousers-pockets, and had never taken them out in this state...

Words: 189675 - Pages: 759

Free Essay

Rebel Angels

...REBEL ANGELS BY LIBBA BRAY CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN CHAPTER TWELVE CHAPTER THIRTEEN CHAPTER FOURTEEN CHAPTER FIFTEEN CHAPTER SIXTEEN CHAPTER SEVENTEEN CHAPTER EIGHTEEN CHAPTER NINETEEN CHAPTER TWENTY CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE CHAPTER THIRTY CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE CHAPTER FORTY CHAPTER FORTY-ONE CHAPTER FORTY-TWO CHAPTER FORTY-THREE CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE CHAPTER FORTY-SIX CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT CHAPTER FORTY-NINE CHAPTER FIFTY PROLOGUE DECEMBER 7, 1895 HEREIN LIES THE FAITHFUL AND TRUE ACCOUNT OF my last sixty days, by Kartik, brother of Amar, loyal son of the Rakshana, and of the strange visitation I received that has left me wary on this cold English night. To begin at the beginning, I must go back to the middle days of October, after the misfortune that occurred. It was growing colder when I left the woods behind the Spence Academy for Young Ladies. I'd received a letter by falcon from the Rakshana. My presence was required immediately in London. I was to keep off the main roads and be certain I was not followed...

Words: 132783 - Pages: 532

Premium Essay

Public Investment Appraisal Techniques

...Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning National Development Planning Directorate Public Investment Technical Team Unit Capacity Building to Support the Rwanda Public Investment Program Investment Appraisal Training Manual for Government Staff Prepared by Sulaiman Kyambadde P.O. Box 1851 Kigali, Rwanda Tel: +250 255114413 (office) October 2011 The purpose of this Training Manual is to help PITT implement the use of international best practices of Investment Appraisal techniques in its programming of public sector investments. It describes how public sector investments should be assessed at conception or programming stage. The modules introduce the basic concepts behind the appraisal techniques and their applicability in the Rwandan context. It describes the DCF methodology, the shadow pricing methodology and performance measures and decision criteria, together with financial and economic analysis techniques. By their very nature, public projects involve benefits and costs to society over a number of years into the future, unfortunately, market prices and investment outcomes cannot be predicted with certainty. The manual also introduces qualitative analysis concepts of investments. Author Mr. Sulaiman Kyambadde, is an economist, and a business and development consultant working with PPM Consulting Limited. PPM Consulting is a local management and development consulting firm with headquarters in Kigali, the nation’s capital. In addition, officials from the Ministry...

Words: 62969 - Pages: 252