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Pip learns the essential lessons

My copy of Great Expectations


Charles Dickens does not appear in the list of my favourite novelists, notwithstanding the fact that he is an admirable story-teller. He weaves fantastic plots with too much happening at any time. There are all sorts of characters in his works. There is no dearth of melodrama and sentiments, and even the grotesque. In spite of all that, Dickens remains at a considerable distance from my affections. I think the problem is that his characters become conventional mouthpieces of conventional sentiments when confronted with crises.

Pip, the protagonist of Great Expectations, has remained with me for a long time. He has made some sort of an indelible impression on my fancy. His real name is Philip Pirrip but is known as Pip throughout the novel. Right in the first pages of the novel, we meet Pip as a little boy in the local cemetery where his parents are buried. As he is wandering about there, he is caught by “a fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg.” The man threatens to slit the boy’s throat if he makes any noise. Pip pleads, “O! Don’t cut my throat, sir.” The man grabs Pip by his ankles and turns him upside down to see if there are some coins in his pockets. There isn’t any; there is just a piece of bread. Pip is too poor to have any money on him.

That scene of Abel Magwitch, escaped convict, holding Pip by his ankles with the church yonder looking upside down to him, is one of the most unforgettable scenes of the novel for me. Magwitch will eventually turn Pip’s real world upside down. He will whet the boy’s longings for a far better life, his “great expectations.”

Pip wants to be a wealthy gentleman though he is an extremely poor orphan being taken care of by his sister whose husband is a simple (simpleton) blacksmith Joe. However, Pip inherits a fortune from an anonymous benefactor who later, much later, turns out to be the convict Magwitch who made it big with some luck and a lot of honest hard work. When Pip comes to know who his benefactor really is, he is shocked. His ego is hurt. His ideals rise in revolt. His moral sensibility is shaken.

As Pip rose to certain heights in society with his education and the support of the mysterious benefactor, Pip had become arrogant and snobbish. He didn’t like people like Joe anymore.

However, his awareness about his benefactor brings him down from all those social mores and slants to the raw reality. There is disillusionment and subsequent suffering. Such disillusionment and suffering can shatter a person. But in Pip’s case, it becomes a redemptive force. Pip undergoes a profound transformation. He acquires humility, sense of gratitude and loyalty to people like Joe who love him genuinely. He realises that affection and relationships are far more important than social advancement, wealth and class.

The novel ends in a typical Dickensian melodrama. Nevertheless, it is an eminent entertainer. After all, who entertained the Victorian England better than Dickens?

PS. This post is a part of Blogchatter Half Marathon

Comments

  1. Hari Om
    I read a gread deal of Dickens in my youth. Haven't touched it since. I barely remembered the tale of Pip as you retold it here. So not much impression left on me! YAM xx

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    Replies
    1. I can understand. Dickens won't appeal to someone like you.

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  2. I too haven't read Dickens except for A Christmas Carol. I like how crisply and simply you have narrated the tale.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My summary is nothing more than a skeleton. I'm focusing on one aspect, that's all.

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  3. Had read this long back and don't remember much of it.

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  4. I read this in junior high. I liked it at the time. I wonder how it would hit me now. I tried to read other Dickens novels after that, but I just couldn't get through them.

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    Replies
    1. Young readers still like Dickens. As we grow older, we become aware of the plot machinations.

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  5. Great Expectations was part of our syllabus in high school as well as college. So I went through this novel twice. I did not have fancy for Pip but I loved the character of Joe Gargery who embodied universal and timeless values like untarnished love for Pip who mistreats him having risen the social ladder. Ms. Havisham's time warp had a profound impact on me. I guess it's Esther's aloofness which egged Pip more towards social advancement. His disenchantment towards his real benefactor is annoying. It rips Pip off his fake realities and shatters his make believe world.

    Great review encapsulating the narrative in engaging brevity.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What makes Pip interesting to me is precisely his imperfection. Joe is most lovable but too good and simple to be an interesting character. Miss Havisham would have been a mere caricature in the hands of a lesser writer.

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  6. Yes, Joe is static while Pip evolves.

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