Great Expectations

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens is a coming of age story that revolves around the life of a single character: Philip Pirrip.   From the time he is seven years old into his mid-thirties, Philip, better known as Pip, shows the reader the important events in his life that shape who he becomes as an adult.   He is both the protagonist, whose actions are the bulk of the story, and the narrator.   As a result, understanding Pip’s character is the most important step in understanding Great Expectations.
As a character, Pip’s two most important traits are his immature, romantic, idealism and his good conscience.   Pip has a deep desire, early in life, to improve himself and become more than what he was destined to be, whether educationally, socially, or morally.   His wishes to marry Estella and become a gentleman come from the same desire to learn to read and escape punishment from bad behavior.   Once he understands where he comes from and the ideas of poverty and ignorance, he does not desire to be poor or ignorant.   This idealism leads him to see the world very narrowly, and his tendency to oversimplify situations makes him behave ignorantly to the people who care about him, such as Joe, Pip’s brother-in-law, and Biddy, Pip’s female friend.
On the other hand, Pip is a very generous and kind young man at heart.   After he received his fortune, he demonstrated this by his numerous acts of kindness throughout the novel.   Helping Magwich escape London and secretly buying Herbert’s way into business were some of the more obvious acts.   His true love for those who love him also is covered by his immature idealism.   Pip’s main area of development in the novel may be seen as learning to put his sense of kindness and conscience above his childish idealism.
Soon after meeting Miss Havisham and Estella, Pip’s desire for his own advancement overcomes his sense of kindness and generosity.   After receiving his fortune, his wishes really come true and he begins on a path to... [continues]

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