The three stages of Pip’s expectations are also stages of his personal and moral development
Uploaded by A_writer on Dec 28, 2001
When Pip was a child, he was a contented young boy. He wanted to grow up to be apprenticed to Joe and “had believed the forge as the glowing road to manhood.” He was a very sensitive child and afraid of doing something wrong this was shown when his guilty conscience along with his imagination haunted him with images of him being caught after he stole food for the convict. His fear of doing wrong was made clear when he referred to the time they took to discover the stolen items as “prolonging my misery.” The way his conscience had to wrestle with the idea that he had done a good deed showed insecurity as well as being afraid of doing wrong. He was an insecure child and would do anything but lose Joe’s love such as when he would not tell Joe about the stolen file.
“The fear of losing Joe’s confidence, and thenceforth sitting in the chimney-corner at night, staring drearily at my forever lost companion and friend, tied up my tongue.”
After visiting Miss Havisham’s and meeting Estella, Pip began to think about things he would not before. Estella insults him about his thick boots and coarse hands, before he would not have even thought that he had had thick boots let alone the fact that it was a bad thing. Pip became upset by the fact that he was ignorant and inadequate. He was ashamed of being a common labouring boy and he now thought everything to be coarse and common. As Estella looked down upon him, he did to, however Estella was attractive, and he confessed “She’s more beautiful than anybody ever was, and I admire her dreadfully, and I want to be a gentleman on her account.” This was the cause of his new discontented disposition and so he looked down on things and people that prevented him becoming a gentleman, and even started to feel “disaffection to Joe and the forge.” He begins to despise the things that kept him at the forge and believed that he “should never like Joe’s trade.” This also showed ingratitude, as he was not thankful for anything he had. Pip was inconsiderate and since he believed Biddy to below him he talked carelessly and made comments such as “If I could only get my self to fall in love with you-“. These refer to him being unfeeling as he...