Pip from Great Expectations

Pip is the main character of the novel “Great Expectation” written by Charles Dickens. He is an orphan boy who lives with his elder sister and her husband Joe. In the beginning, Pip is a naive boy, but finally he becomes a gentleman, through many painful lessons he receives from life and from other characters. These lessons turn Pip from a little boy into an adult.

Raised by his elder sister and her husband, Joe a great man, Pip belongs to the rural world, but his major desire is to become a real gentleman. In the first chapter, Pip helps a convict (Abel Magwitch) to escape the law, proving a pure, a good soul. Pip can be compared with other three important characters of the novel: Magwitch, Miss Havisham and Joe. These characters have an important influence on Pip, who learns from them very important things. From Joe, Pip learns that common sense is more important than education, money or social status. Joe is a simple blacksmith, but he has a great experience of life. When Pip grows and becomes a gentleman and Joe remains the same, with his clumsy actions and a lack of manners, the relationship between them changes dramatically, because Pip rejects those from lower class. From Miss Havisham, an old and cruel women, Pip learns that love is the most important thing in life, Miss Havisham herself being a victim of this strange feeling which starts to seize Pip. Magwitch, that convict Pip helps in the first chapters, shows Pip that human beings have a good and a bad side, and that a good deed is repaid.

In the novel, Pip undergoes a tremendous change in character. The change from an innocent child to someone consumed by false values and snobbery, and in the end he changes into a real gentleman; the maturing process is a complex one. We can say that Pip passes through three important stages: the stage when he appreciates real values and he respect people no matter their social life, the stage when he learns how to become a gentleman and he forgets his origins, and the stage when he learns the true values.