Skip to main content

How is Great Expectations a coming-of-age novel?

A coming of age story is a story that focuses on how a particular child character matures and the life experiences that make him or her an adult.  Great Expectations is the story of a young boy, Pip, who grows up due to tumultuous experiences he has from a very young age.


Pip’s first experience is in the cemetery.  Magwitch finds him there looking at his family’s headstones.  He tells Pip to bring him food and a file to remove his shackles.  Pip does so, and demonstrates that he feels sorry for Magwitch.  More than just bringing him everything because he is scared, Pip shows empathy.  This is something Magwitch remembers, and is the reason why he sends Pip his money.


Miss Havisham’s house is another coming of age experience for Pip.  He meets Estella there, and falls in love with her from a young age.  Miss Havisham encourages this.  She wanted Estella to practice on Pip.  Miss Havisham is a very bizarre old woman who never leaves her house and has never changed out of her wedding dress because she was jilted on her wedding day.


Miss Havisham’s emotional abuse of Pip focuses on developing his infatuation with Estella.



"Love her, love her, love her! If she favors you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces,—and as it gets older and stronger it will tear deeper,—love her, love her, love her!" (Ch. 29)   



This is the reason why when Pip is given his “great expectations” he assumes that Miss Havisham is behind them.  He believes that she is making him into a gentleman so he will be fit to marry Estella.  Once in London, Pip grows up quite a lot.  Herbert and Matthew Pocket teach Pip how to behave in respectable society, and Matthew Pocket educates him.


Pip was already starting to get ashamed of his home and his uncle before he went to London.  Estella made fun of him for being coarse and common.  He did not want to become a blacksmith, even after Miss Havisham apprenticed him to Joe.  When in London, he had as little contact with Joe as possible and did not even stay with him when he visited.  He was ashamed of Joe’s common ways.


Pip grows more sure of himself.  He still pines for Estella, but Estella assures him that she cannot return his affections.  This is very hard for him to take.  When Pip learns that Magwitch and not Miss Havisham is responsible for his money, he is heartbroken.  He does learn to care for Magwitch.  He tries to get him out of the country.  Unfortunately, Magwitch dies as a result of his injuries while trying to get away.


Pip confronts Miss Havisham, who asks him to forgive her.  He gets ill after being injured trying to save Miss Havisham in a fire.  Then, since Magwitch’s money is gone, Pip is arrested and sent to debtor’s prison.  Joe bails him out.  After these experiences, Pip becomes more humble and realizes that he should focus his efforts on caring about the people who are in his life, such as Joe, Biddy, and Herbert Pocket.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A man has a garden measuring 84 meters by 56 meters. He divides it into the minimum number of square plots. What is the length of the square plots?

We wish to divide this man's garden into the minimum number of square plots possible. A square has all four sides with the same length.Our garden is a rectangle, so the answer is clearly not 1 square plot. If we choose the wrong length for our squares, we may end up with missing holes or we may not be able to fit our squares inside the garden. So we have 84 meters in one direction and 56 meters in the other direction. When we start dividing the garden in square plots, we are "filling" those lengths in their respective directions. At each direction, there must be an integer number of squares (otherwise, we get holes or we leave the garden), so that all the square plots fill up the garden nicely. Thus, our job here is to find the greatest common divisor of 84 and 56. For this, we prime factor both of them: `56 = 2*2*2*7` `84 = 2*2*3*7` We can see that the prime factors and multiplicities in common are `2*2*7 = 28` . This is the desired length of the square plots. If you wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

What warning does Chuchundra issue to Rikki?

Chuchundra, the sniveling, fearful muskrat who creeps around walls because he is too terrified to go into the center of a room, meets Rikki in the middle of the night. He insults Rikki by begging him not to kill him. He then insults him by suggesting that Nag might mistake Chuchundra for Rikki. He says, "Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes."  He issues this warning to Rikki not to help keep Rikki safe but as a way of explaining why Rikki's presence gives him, Chuchundra, more reason to fear.  Chuchundra starts to tell Rikki what Chua the rat told him--but breaks it off when he realizes he might be overheard by Nag. He says, "Nag is everywhere, Rikki-Tikki." Rikki threatens to bite Chuchundra to get him to talk. Even then, Chuchundra won't overtly reveal any information. But he does say, "Can't you hear, Rikki-Tikki?" This is enough of a clue for the clever mongoose. He listens carefully and can just make out the "faintest scratch-s...
Post a Comment
Read more