“ Great Expectation”
Great expectation has
been considered the most artistic novel of Dickens. it is certainly the perfect
work that breathes a spirit of serenity, reconciliation and forgiveness. it is
the work that can offer the reader what he can make of it for himself. it is so
rich in meaning and purpose that various interpretations to this have been
given. it is interpreted as a snob’s progress or search for authentic selfhood
or the outcome for the individual’s unbounded demands for love and power or a
moral fable etc…. dickens has successfully interwoven all these under current
ideas in this work.
The major theme of this
novel is the rise and full of great expectations of a child Philip. it means
the more emphasize is given to the childhood of the hero. pip is put before us
as urban who is quite isolated from family protection. moreover, he has no
social status which could make him potential enough to lead life with pride. he
is rendered harshly by his sister. he is presented before as at the Churchyard
where he is lost in the memory of his dead parents. there he becomes aware of
himself as a small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all beginning to cry.
because of constant hammering from his
sister and due to fear of unidentified himself, pip does not recognize from his
early childhood Joe as a farce. he considered Joe only a child like himself who
must also suffer the verbal attack of Mrs. Joe . it is his childhood’s lack of
parental care that leads him towards a search for true love . he wants someone
who can care him, who can protect his feelings and who can share love with him.
this inner desire makes him blind towards Estella.
In this novel we can see
the mistreatment of a child that gives a lot of ups and downs throughout in the
life of pip, far e.g. pip is taken to satis house to play with Miss Havisham
and without only wish pip has to listen insulting wards over there. then pip’s
opportunity to kiss Estella is the first sexual experience in pip’s life that
makes him crazy for Estella . then pip and Estella are allowed to live
carelessly and irresponsibly as though freed from all outside obligations. and
impelled only by the inner need to find personal fulfillment. this moment is
rare for pip as he has ever experienced such freedom in his childhood, suddenly
the happy state o pip is shattered, his dreams
are shattered as he realizes his
love Estella is going to put him aside.
In the journey of love
pip also comes across the element of chance i.e. financial help by an unknown
person pip has never experienced richness in his childhood and as he gets money
he starts spending them like anything. the way he becomes spendthrift is also
basically a need from his childhood that is indirectly shown here, pip soon
learns the stupendous. power of money and is flattered by phony respect .
sudden wealth can destroys character as it happens to pip also. he is also
spending recklessly, living in his affluent dream world and believing in his
expectations. it is the power of money that suffocates pip better and
dehumanizes him almost to the point of no return.
Apart from this the
novel contains an issue i.e. the sham and the genuineness of relationships.
using people as a means to an and like instrument or took is exploitation.
those who exploit others are often less then human and capable of causing
distress. this is clear with Miss Havisham who trains Estella to break men’s
hearts. thus, Estella becomes heartless and unable to respond to people as a
woman and pip is victimized of it. it is her influence that leads pip into his
world of fable dream and false hope which almost ruins his life and certainly
destroys his best years.
In short, it can be said
that in his search for the crock of gold, pip seas only the rainbow. but he
cannot find where it ends while he choses after it he is blind and deaf to
the truth around him. by the time he has
realized that no an finds the rainbow’s end and the cock of gold is an
illusion, it is too late, and he has lost all he once hoped for thus, mental
injury of childhood that troubles pip throughout in his life. he rises and
falls and ultimately he gets his target.
thus, Dickens has nicely projected the role of childhood through the character
of pip in Great Expectations.
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