Great Expectations

Charles Dickens' Great Expectations follows the traditional form of the novel. Great Expectations concentrates on the person of Pip, a boy of poor origins, who undergoes many changes which affect his moral character. Pip progresses from innocence, to corruption, to regeneration by suffering, to forgiveness. Like many earlier novel heroes, for instance, Robinson Crusoe, Pip

undergoes a moral transformation. Dickens is representing through Pip the contradiction between social status and moral status. This conflict develops in Pip when he cuts himself off from those near-est and dearest to him, while he goes off in search of money and status. Dickens development of Pip is very similar to Defoe's treatment of Robinson Crusoe. Each of the characters sin in a moral sense more than in a religious one, suffer, and are re-generated by their learning, and finally are forgiven. They fall is if unable to escape it, Crusoe, by his willfull nature must go to sea despite his father's warnings and Pip deluded and bedazzled by high society and a fanciful love, also must leave his proper station. They must go through a process of suffering, disappoint-ment and discovery before they learn a moral life.

This is essentially the novelist's traditional treatment of

the hero and his moral growth. Dickens uses this basic pattern, but adds a unique touch by uniting various characters, such as, Miss Havisham and Magwitch through Compeyson, as well as through Estella and he puts the themes together

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, to begin his life as a gentleman, deserts Joe, and any sense of moral life in return for a promise of money and status. Pip's ambition is somewhat amoral, for it seems to absolve him from human obligations and ties, and to make him a free agent, uninvolved except with what he wants. When Pip's expectations are revealed, the first thing he does is to cut loose from his only real friends, the only real friends, the only people who have love and helped him. Much like Robinson Crusoe who left his family for the sea and it's fortunes, Pip leaves his only home. The life Pip leads after his expectations have been revealed is largely foolish, boring and unproductive. Pip merely believes that his benefactor will take care of him. The only activity Pip engages in is to invest one hundred a year in a partnership for Herbert, and this deed is the only worthy one, which has yet come of his expectations. It is at this point that Pip's moral character rises, and ironically at a point when his funds and social status are quite low. This can be seen throughout the novel, that whenever one is up the other is down. They are never parallel, which is one of Dickens main points in the novel. Pip has always possessed the idea that Miss Havisham is

Category: Literature - G