Mrs. Howe
English 1 honors
March 6, 2013
Character analysis
Of all the characters described in Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, Phillip (Pip) is the most unsatisfied with himself and his environment. Pip explains how distraught he is with how he treats Joe in the scene where Joe is visiting Pip in London. Joe is here to deliver a message to Pip from Mss. Havisham and Estella, but the entire time they are talking, Pip feels a sense of awkwardness. Joe then hits Pip with a curve ball by blaming himself for such the uneasy conversation, “‘I’m wrong out of the forge, I’m wrong in these clothes’ says Joe… ‘as soon as I could recover myself sufficiently, I hurried after him, and looked for him in the neighboring streets but he was gone’”(215-216). Although Pip treats Joe with complete rudeness, he feels utterly displeased with himself after Joe leaves. After Pip learns of his secret benefactor, he is not only disappointed with who he was but what this meant for his future. As soon as Pip discovers Magwitch was facilitating him this entire time, he knew that he was not destined for Estella. Afterwards Pip fully realizes that Mss. Havisham’s was nothing more than a coincidence and because of this, he is disgruntled with how he treats Joe and Biddy. Pip was frustrating himself by thinking all about his entire life, “Miss. Havisham’s intentions towards me, all a mere dream; Estella not designed for me; I only suffered in Satis House as a convenience” (313). Engulfing in disbelief, Pip is learning that the one true love of his life is not meant for him. Concluding that he was tortured all those years just made his heart sink even more. Dickens clearly shows how Pip is in a constant battle with how unsatisfied he is with himself and his surroundings.
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