Great Expectations

Magwitch wants to make Pip a 'gentleman'. In your opinion, how far
is he successful? Is Pip a 'gentleman' by the end of the book?

Throughout Great Expectations Pip fluctuates from the Victorian society
idea of a gentleman to the modern idea. He sees many examples of each,
and a few who fit into both categories (such as Herbert Pocket- who has
respect from both the upper-class Victorians in the book, and from the
reader) and in the end he must choose which way he wants to act. To the
high-class characters in the book, Pip is only considered a gentleman
when he is wealthy and well-mannered. However Dickens has done a
curious thing with the way he has written Great Expectations: he has
tried to make readers in his time question their own society. By giving
examples of 'gentlemen' in all senses, he gives an interesting twist to
old Victorian society rules and views, which must have greatly confused
some of the early readers of the novel. They must have found themselves
respecting Joe and Biddy, disliking Drummle, and basically having all
their original ideas turned on their heads.
Pip's wish to become a 'gentleman' begins when he meets Miss Havisham
and the beautiful Estella. At this time he is lower class, looking
forward to "the dignity" of following in his brother-in-law, Joe's,
footsteps, and becoming a blacksmith. Before he is summoned to Satis
House to play, it doesn't really cross his mind that he could be
anything else. He doesn't desire to be anything else, but is then
forced, by Estella, to see himself from a completely different
perspective:
"'He calls the knaves, Jacks, this boy?what course hands he has. And
what thick boots!'
I had never thought of being ashamed of my hands before; but now I
began to consider them a very indifferent pair." (Chapter 8)
He then sees everything in a new light, and becomes extremely ashamed
of his status. The things back home that had seemed ordinary, and the
people he used to respect, now seem lowly and common to him.
Then Magwitch's desire to make Pip into a gentleman comes into the
story. Mr. Jaggers turns up and gives Pip the news of his new
"expectations", and Pip realises he is able to live his dream- and
become the 'gentleman' he has longed to be. Pip is finally accepted as
a 'gentleman', in his own eyes, as well as in the eyes of Victorian
society, when he goes to London and receives his education. Now he can
go into public and be looked upon as a gentleman. Why is this? Because
he has fine clothes and manners. His way of speaking has changed so
much that when he goes back home, Trabb's boy makes fun of his
accent:
"'Don't know yah, don't know yah, pon my soul don't know yah!'"
(Chapter 30)
This change in voice is very much emphasised because all the way
through the book Dickens writes direct speech in dialect. For
example:
"'Darn Me if I couldn't eat 'em?and if I han't half a mind
to't!'"
What Trabb's boy says, however, is a pretty good approximation of the
way that Pip has begun to treat he people back at home. He is ashamed
of Joe and the fact that the man has little education.
Education, Dickens suggests, is one of the essential features of high
class. Pip, himself, is educated by Matthew Pocket, whose son is Pip's
best friend, and whose wife is a lady by very odd circumstances. Her
father had been knighted:
"?for handing some Royal Personage either the trowel or the mortar."
(Chapter 23)
Because of this, Mrs. Pocket has been brought up as a lady. Pip
says:
"?she had grown up highly ornamental, but perfectly useless." (Chapter
23)
She continues to ask Pip the most trivial questions, such as does he
like the taste of orange flower water? She has no idea how to handle
any of her numerous children:
"I saw that Mr and Mrs Pocket's children were not growing up or being
brought up, but were tumbling up." (Chapter 22)
Despite her obvious uselessness, Mrs Pocket is considered to be a lady
because of her ancestry.
In order to challenge Pip's, and the reader's, assumptions about what
a Victorian gentleman should be, Dickens introduces him to a variety of
examples. There is, for example, Bentley Drummle-who Estella does
accept as a suitable husband-and who is "the next heir but one to a
baronetcy". He has money, good social manners, and fine clothes.
However it is obvious that Drummle is not a pleasant man. When he
marries Estella he abuses her. He is unkind and contemptuous. Can he
therefore be considered a gentleman?
There is one more character who appears to the Victorian society
around him as a gentleman. However if they knew what he really was (as
the reader does) he would certainly not be given this distinction.
Compeyson is a perfect example of someone who is able to be classed as
a gentleman by those who meet him, and still be a criminal. In his
trial with Magwich he is given a lot less time in prison because his
manners and appearance are much better than the other man's. Of course,
the reader doesn't consider him to be a gentleman, and we feel that
Magwich, although he has a lot less charm and money, is more of a
gentleman by our standards, than Compeyson is. Even though Drummle and
Mrs Pocket are not pretending to be in high status, we still do not
consider them (the former, at least) to be 'gentlemanly' at all.
Neither does Pip. He finds Mrs Pocket very strange, and Drummle
disagreeable. The characters that the reader considers to be gentlemen
are mostly very different from those the Victorians would have
recognised as such.
To be a gentleperson, then, does not just involve education, ancestry,
money or stylish clothes. An essential quality would also have been
honour. This is something which Magwitch cannot buy for Pip, and
ironically he insists of Pip's removal from the very people-Joe and
Biddy-who try to teach him this. From the beginning of the book, a
modern reader would identify these two as the most noble characters in
the book. Biddy always stands by Pip and is the very soul of honour and
kindness. She has great respect for him and he, indeed, for her
(although sometimes he doesn't realise it). He wonders, in Chapter
17:
"Biddy was never insulting, or capricious?she would have derived only
pain, and no pleasure, from giving me pain?How could it be, then that I
did not like her much better of the two?"
He is, of course, referring to Estella, who he has met and who has
induced him into wanting to become a gentleman.
The man that we as readers find the most 'gentlemanly' is Joe,
although he is a blacksmith and not high class. When Pip does not visit
home, Joe doesn't bear any grudge. Pip treats him very badly and looks
down on him. He asks Biddy if, while he is away, she can "improve" Joe
in his manners. However Biddy asks what is wrong with Joe's manners.
She points out to Pip that in his own world, Joe's manners are fine. If
Pip were to take him into upper-class London places, Joe would be very
much frowned upon. Biddy suggests that perhaps:
"He may be too proud to let anyone take him out of a place that he is
competent to fill, and fills well and with respect?" (Chapter 19)
Indeed this is true of Joe: he fits his role as a blacksmith perfectly
and has a lot of respect from those who know him. This is not because
he has a lot of money or fine clothes, but because he is honest and
generous. His manners are sincere and unaffected. Suddenly Pip seems
very small-minded to us when he says to her:
"You are envious, Biddy, and grudging. You are dissatisfied on account
of my rise in fortune, and you can't help showing it." (Chapter
19)
Of course this is not at all the way Biddy is feeling. She is trying to
stick up for Joe and help Pip understand that Joe does not need
"improving" at all.
Both Joe and Biddy call Pip 'sir' and try to be as polite as possible
to him, which he resents. What he doesn't realise is that it is because
he has brought them so low in his mind, and is treating them as if they
are lower than him, that they have begun to do this.
The way Dickens describes Joe always gives a certain impression of
him, for example:
"?tender simplicity." (Chapter 7)
and:
" Joe laid his hand upon my shoulder with the touch of a woman. I have
often thought of?his combination of strength with gentleness." (Chapter
18)
He is portrayed as a sympathetic and gentlemanly character. While he is
so condescending towards Joe, the reader cannot accept Pip as a
gentleman.
The use of a retrospective narrative also introduces this idea that Pip
is looking back and can see how terribly he had acted towards Joe, and
how he had not realised how honourable and good Joe was:
"Oh dear good Joe, to whom I was so ready to leave and so unthankful
to?I feel the loving tremble of your hand upon my arm, as solemnly as
if it had been the rustle of an angel's wing." (Chapter 18)
It is as if only much later he sees what a true gentleman Joe is. There
are many places where Pip looks back like this and curses his
stupidity. At the end of the book Pip finally comes round to the fact
that Joe is a much better person than so may of the seeming 'gentlemen'
he has met, and realises how much more he respects Joe.
By going through all the changes in Pip, the reader, like him, has
their own opinions questioned. The book is written in such a way that
we only think of Pip as a "gentleman" when he is a "gentleman" at
heart, and is honestly good and kind. The reader accepts the narrator
Pip- who can see exactly where he went wrong- as a gentleman.
So was Magwich successful? I believe he was. He may not have been able
to make sure Pip ended up in high status, but it was his money that
took Pip through so many experiences. It was these same experiences and
encounters that ensured that Pip learned for himself what a gentleman
is, and what isn't. Pip remains a genuinely good person throughout the
whole novel. We can see this when he does good deeds such as when he
finds a job for Herbert. It is obvious that Pip was always meant to be
a true gentleman.