Relationships In Great Expectations

In the novel Great Expectations the author presents many different forms of love and different approaches to love through various characters such as Estella who communicates distant love to Pip, Miss Havisham who displays selfish love and as well as Pip who learns what love is and how to love throughout the novel. Great Expectations reveals a sort of coincidental relationship. Characters relations and behaviour link from one character to another for example, Estella’s withheld love is a result of Miss Havisham’s teaching. These relationships throughout the novel do not only assist the characters with self-discovery but also self-growth, love for oneself and a great lesson for appreciation especially through the character of Pip, who was loved …show more content…
We see this in her inability to herself and her life in general beyond the day she was deserted, emotionally destroyed, detached from life and time. She continues to wear her old wedding dress every single day and is “surrounded by objects of decay” (Dr Grogan, Eng2B, l.n3), a rotten cake from her wedding day as well “clocks stopped at twenty to nine; frozen at the time of her desertion” ( Dr Grogan, Eng2B, l.n3 ). Although she displays “selfish love” (Dr Grogan, Eng2B, l.n3), we can also see that she still believes in love even with her hurting still, her past love still lingers in her one way or another. Miss Havisham said to Pip, who is in love with Estella, in what we can say is more or less a demanding out of desperation and hopeful tone; “love her, love her, love her! If she favours you, love her. If she wounds you love her. If she tears your heart into pieces and it gets older and stronger… love her…” With that being said we can say that she is speaking from experience, one can also say that she is possibly speaking with Compeyson in mind who she may possibly still love even after so many years. Even with her actions of withdrawal to the feeling of love and to be loved, it’s still in her nature but prefers to be numb to the …show more content…
The point seems to be that the feeling of love does exist but individuals choose to feel it and some choose to be numb towards it. Furthermore it comes to show that one will not know how it feels to be loved until one experiences it from someone. From these different approaches we see how individuals perceive love in the sense that it can be seen as a feeling that brings absolute pain and some may see it as a feeling that will reassure happiness and as for Pip he at some point saw it as a determiner of great worth, while Joe saw is as a norm in human nature to love the next person as you love