Pip Change In Great Expectations

In Great Expectations by Charles Dickens the main character learns an important lesson due to a string of events in the book. Starting Pip’s life, he is brought up by hand by his sister and her husband Joe, for both his parents are dead. Pip and Joe are the best of friends and always have each others backs when Pip’s sister is in a foul mood. Later in Pip’s life, he goes to live with Mrs. Havisham for a little while. At Mrs. H’s Pip is introduced to different ways in which people live. He takes his life in comparison to others and starts to develop new wishes and expectations. Pip’s character starts out very common, uneducated, and naive. The reader comes to cheer him on, the relatable and average character he is, until things start changing …show more content…
Pip’s trip to Mrs. Havisham’s adds something unlike the others to this list. He now wants to be seen as proper and educated, for while he was there he felt like a fool. This longing for a well built image eventually moved Pip to London. Pip had the opportunity to go due to an unknown benefactor, and now that he is becoming ashamed of his lifestyle and Joe’s, Pip decides to go. On this new trip he meets interesting characters, like Mr. Jaggers, and finds new habits among his gentlemen friends. Pip begins to only care about his money and image. He strives for riches and civility and these new wishes push Pip and Joe appart. Pip kept going, growing his wealth and popularity, until one day when all of his riches and wishes came crumbling down. Pip begins to realize how he is pushing away his morals to follow his fantasies, “The tidings of my high fortunes having had a heavy fall, had got down in my native place…” (Dickens 508). The native place Pip refers to is his home, his true ideals and the people he should stay loyal to. He is saying that his failure made him realize he went against his beliefs because he was caught up in the glory, and that this was a major mistake. Pip’s business life is not the only way he learns this lesson, for this is very much tied into his personal matters. Pip’s relationships with his gentlemen friends have an awful impact on his friendship with Joe, and his shallow dreams of dating Estella corrupt any chance of Pip falling in love with Biddy before she becomes engaged to Joe. Pip had it all; power, prestige and fortune, but none of it mattered to him in the end because he only wants the things he doesn’t