Adrienne-+Comparison+of+Dickens+and+Pip

My project is a comparison between Dickens and Pip, and I wrote an essay: however, since an essay is not visually pleasing, it is formatted differently.

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Unfortunately, if you do not have iPages, you will not be able to view that version. So, click below if you cannot view the above link.



The Essay is written below, as a last resort.

An Author and his Novel: Two Parallel Lives

Often times an author uses his own experiences to write his books. In Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens, this is very clear. The author and the protagonist of the book, Pip, share many similarities with each other. Not only are the places and time period the same, but the lives as well. Throughout the novel, the reader can compare the similarities of Dickens’ and Pip’s events in their lives, personalities, and relationships. Dickens and Pip share similar events as adults and as kids. In the beginning of Great Expectations, Pip starts out as a child. He experiences a series of events much like Dickens went through in his childhood. Both were orphaned at an early age: Pip has no recollection of his parents or relatives, except for his sister, Mrs. Gargery, and Dickens was sent away from his family when his father was imprisoned for debt. Dickens was then forced to work in horrible working conditions at Warren’s Blacking Warehouse, with low pay and cruel officers: pushed away from his family with no choice or control. This can be related to when Pip was sent to Miss Havisham. Mrs. Gargery and Pumblechook plan out his life without giving him any control or choice in the matter. After his sister vigorously cleans and dresses her brother, preparing him for the visit to Miss Havisham, Pip still has no idea what is going on: “But they twinkled out one by one, without throwing any light on the questions why on earth I was going to play at Miss Havisham’s, and what on earth I was expected to play at” (Dickens, 52). Pip looks to the stars for answers to his questions, but, failing to get them, must face them alone. Impelled to visiting the Manor House, he is told nothing of where he is going and what he will do. Much like Pip, Dickens is expulsed from his family to earn money, at which time he surely does not enjoy his life. Like Pip, he must go into a new world that he knows nothing about, alone and afraid. Pip finds the Satis House to be a frightening and ominous place, and, understandably, fails to enjoy his time at the Mansion. Pip describes it as “The cold wind seemed to blow colder there, than outside the gate; and it made a shrill noise in howling in and out at the open sides of the brewery, like the noise of wind in the rigging of a ship at sea” (55). Visiting the Manor House, bullied and ridiculed by both Estella and Miss Havisham, or working as a child in the Blacking Warehouse with terrible working conditions are unequivocally two inauspicious places to be. This momentous incident of dismissal from their families also caused a new desire to form. Dickens’ job interrupted his schooling, causing him to be very adamant against inadequate education. Pip’s first meeting with Estella is when his yearn for learning starts to manifest, in his determination to be uncommon and impress his one and only love, as he realizes soon after returning home: “The felicitous idea occurred to me a morning or two later when I woke, that the best step I could take towards making myself uncommon was to get out of Biddy everything she knew” (71). Although Dickens‘ learning was interrupted by work, he too eventually found a solution, going to a college to finally complete his education. Pip also undergoes events akin with Dickens as an adult. Both suffered a life-changing incident that caused them to make different perspectives on themselves and others. In 1865 Dickens was involved in a train crash, where Dickens had to help the wounded and dying before help arrived. For many later years, Dickens suffered from post-traumatic stress, affecting many of his books and views. Pip also goes through a traumatic encounter, when he is first burned protecting Miss Havisham, then kidnapped by Orlick, who harms him even more. Pip does not recover completely from his injuries until much later, when Joe comes and takes care of him. This revisitation of his childhood causes Pip to put his priorities straight, and, looking at things with a different perspective, becomes a better and contented individual. Although Pip desires to become a gentleman from the very day he meets Estella, it is only now that Pip succeeds. Pip’s determination to become a gentleman is what motivates him through life. Pip’s and Dickens’ personalities are quite similar to each other. Both Dickens and Pip have this yearn for education, and eventually be gentlemen. Both Dickens and Pip succeed at this. Dickens, working his way from debt, to become a prosperous writer, has done much to become a respected man. Pip also works his way to become a gentleman: although he receives his inheritance immediately, it is not until later that he is truly a good man. Pip works his way through debt, like Dickens, and grows into a man happy with his life. When Pip first moves to London to become a gentleman, he grows slightly snobbish and aloof, abolishing all that might be considered common. Dickens perhaps gives these characteristics to Pip to express his distaste of arrogance and prejudice. During Pip’s exposure to money, Pip becomes someone new, leaving behind his old friends, and looks down upon those less fortunate. As Dickens writes of this shameful time, Pip, looking back at himself, often apologizes and demeans himself when describing his past actions: “It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home. There may be black ingratitude in the thing, and the punishment may be retributive and well deserved; but, that it is a miserable thing, I can testify“ (104). Both Dickens and Pip detest snobbery in all of its forms. As Pip journeys to become a gentleman, Dickens addresses what it really means to be a gentleman, and adds his opinion of what most gentlemen are: wealthy materialistically, but lacking in happiness. Dickens’ dislike for the rich has caused him to often show an unfavourable side of this social class, while advocating for the poor in many of his novels. In Great Expectations, this is portrayed by Pip’s false expectations. Pip’s first view of the rich, like many, is of glamour and sophistication. However, Dickens embeds his view of the upper-class by destroying Pip’s and the reader’s perspective, replacing it with run-down buildings and the misery of the wealthy. Dickens continues to portray the rich as almost primitive when Pip gets his first sight of London, after he receives his inheritance. The city is shabby, neglected, and depressing. In describing Barnard’s Inn, one of the first places Pip visits upon arrival in London, Pip is shocked by its appearance. “A frouzy mourning of soot and smoke attired this forlorn creation of Barnard, and it had strewn ashes on its head, and was undergoing penance and humiliation as a mere dust-hole… So imperfect was this realisation of the first of my great expectations” (171). Dickens uses well chosen diction and descriptions to portray Pip’s extreme distaste for the Barnard Inn. Seeing the words “frouzy“, “forlorn”, “penance”, “humiliation”, and “mere dust-hole”, the reader finds themselves in Pip’s shoes: disappointed, repulsed, and stunned at London, the city of the upper-class. As Pip realizes his false expectations, so too does the reader. Dickens shoves this view of the rich upon the reader, shedding light upon his own feelings on the matter. The deformity of the upper-class is added to by the character of Miss Havisham. By far the richest lady in the town, Miss Havisham comes off as a strange, depressed, and slightly insane hermit, consumed by her hatred of all men. Pip’s view is clearly mistaken, and is forced to change to a new outlook. Pip is quite taken aback from Miss Havisham; “ In an armchair.. sat the strangest lady I have ever seen, or shall see…I saw that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress and like the flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes… Wax-work and skeleton seemed to have dark eyes that moved and looked at me. I should have cried out, if I could” (56-57). Although Miss Havisham is rich, she is deeply disturbed, and is not the representation of what most think being rich is like. She is not distinguished and refined- quite the opposite: she is an estranged and distressed lady. Miss Havisham is not the only character that Dickens uses to get across ideas. Dickens bases many of his characters in his books on people he has met and known during his life, as well as on ideas that he has formed. Miss Havisham is only one of many whom Dickens personalizes in a new light to get across a larger idea. Pip’s brother in law, but acting father, Joe Gargery, is a great example. In Joe, Dickens has put a figure of love, understanding, and compliancy. This may be Dickens’ attempt to connect the readers to the poor, to dissolve the snobbery and prejudice against them. Pip himself feels embarrassed by Joe, whom he considers common and uneducated. Dickens tries to destroy these ideas about the lower-class, as Pip does, when Pip speaks at Joe‘s and Biddy‘s wedding: “I was thankless; … I was ungenerous and just… [Now] I honour you both, because you were both so good and true” (474). When Pip first receives his inheritance, he lets the money corrupt him, losing track of his priorities. Pip leaves Joe behind, thinking him shameful, instead making new acquaintances with the upper-class. Only now has Pip realized how wrong and misguided he was. Pip finally appreciates Joe, and the only one he considers shameful is himself. As Pip sees this, the reader’s mind is opened to new ideas about the lower class, and how kind and warm-hearted they can be. Mr. Jaggers is also used to get across some of Dickens’ ideas. Undisputedly an interesting character, Mr. Jaggers is, at first glance, a formidable, intimidating, and merciless man, but at heart holds passion and affection, truly caring for the trouble and predicaments of people in the world. As a criminal lawyer, he has seen atrocious crimes and how felons arrived at their occupation. Many convicts end up where they are because they were born into it, with no other options. His view of the plight of children may be some way of passing Dickens’ own hard childhood. Dickens has been orphaned, sent to work in strenuous conditions, and has worked in order to hold his whole family up, saving his father from debt multiple times and giving money to his family. When Jaggers reveals how he brought Estella to live with Miss Havisham, telling of his experience of children he says, “Put the case that he habitually knew of their being imprisoned, whipped, transported, neglected, cast out, … and growing up to be hanged. Put the case that pretty nigh all the children he saw … [were] to develop into the fish that were… prosecuted, defended, forsworn, made orphans, be-devilled somehow” (408). Mr. Jaggers, a criminal lawyer, has only seen the consequences of ill-treated children. Dickens may be portraying his feelings about his harsh childhood through this character. Ideas and feelings are not the only inspiration that Dickens uses to create his intriguing characters. At times, Dickens’ uses personalities of those closest to him. Pip’s sister, Mrs. Gargery, is based on Dickens’ mother. When Dickens’ father got out of jail, his debt paid, his mother wanted him to continue to work in the harmful and terrible Warren‘s Warehouse. Feeling betrayed, Dickens still remembers how he felt: “I never afterwards forgot, I never shall forget, I never can forget, that my mother was warm for my being sent back.” From then on, Dickens never forgave his mother. This attitude has passed on in Mrs. Gargery, a strict woman with a short and fiery temper, who has brought Pip up “by hand”. Neither Pip nor Dickens have much affection for their mothers. end sentence? As we follow Pip through his life, we also follow Dickens’. Their lives lead two parallel lines. Dickens’ life has merged with Pip’s, to share a common childhood, expectations, ideas, relationships, and people. Any author reveals much about themselves in their writing- and Dickens is no exception.