How Is Pip Alike

Pipstella

"That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But, it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been" (Dickens 75). This is an excerpt from Charles Dickens' acclaimed novel, Great Expectations, throughout the story, readers follow Pip's narration, a once coarse and common boy whose change in fortune allows him to become a gentleman. As Pip visits Satis House, Miss Havisham's adopted daughter, Estella, becomes the object of adolescent Pip's affection. Although Pip and Estella are both orphans, they differ in several areas such as their upbringing and ability to love, yet resemble each other in their defining moments. From rags to riches,
Pip's earliest visit to Satis House changes his view on his circumstances. "I took the opportunity of being alone in the court-yard, to look at my coarse hands and my common boots... They had never troubled me before, but they troubled me now, as vulgar appendages" (64). Never exposed to those of higher status, Pip did not have reason to be ashamed of his common background. Similar to the story of Adam and Eve, Estella is the snake that opens Pip's eyes to a world of unsettling knowledge. Consequently, the abashing sojourn sparks his desire to break away from the social class he was born into. During his childhood, Pip did not experience a lack of love attributable to his brother-in-law, Joe, enabling Pip to love others. (add evidence) When Pip visits Satis house, it is apparent that Pip became infatuated with Estella and
When Estella and Pip initially meet, Estella blatantly displays her sense of superiority. "Though she called me 'boy' so often, and with a carelessness that was far from complimentary, she was of about my own age. She seemed much older than I... she was as scornful of me as if she had been one-and-twenty, and a queen" (58). It seems as though Estella's privileged background gave her prerogative to be haughty. When Estella matures into a woman, she confronts her adopted mother about what she has been deprived of. "'If you [Miss Havisham] had taught her, from the dawn of her intelligence, with your utmost energy and might, that there was such a thing as daylight, but that it was made to be her enemy and destroyer, and she must always turn against it, for it had blighted you and would else blight her...'" (326). Daylight being the equivalent to love in Estella's disclosure, it becomes clear Estella is unable to show endearment having never been acquainted with it. Love is a foreign concept to Estella and after Pip confesses his love, she admits to her inability. "'When you say you love me, I know what you mean, as a form of words; but nothing more. You address nothing in my breast, you touch nothing there'" (384). Estella is not necessarily at fault for her ignorance of love and