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Eng. 102 & Sec 81
March 8, 2010

The Pompous Prince and The Proper Popper: Who Is Pip?

In Great Expectations, one becomes aware of the sudden and acute changes in the life of a lone boy named Pip. Throughout the story Philip ‘Pip’ Pirrip undergoes, along with the passage of time, a metamorphosis from an orphan boy born to be a black smith to a gentleman appointed by an anonymous benefactor. These changes alone could cause for a well written Cinderella story but something changes within Pip as time progresses. It is not that same Pip that we see in Chapters one through seven that emerges in Chapter eight after visiting the white decrepit Miss. Havisham’s house. This Pip even changes again becoming the Pip that returns to Joe and Biddy in Chapters fifty-eight till the end of the book and ridding himself of his new Perspective for a mirror of his younger way of looking at the world. None of these changes are simple nor complete in Pip, while his perspectives change his ethical values remain the same, resurfacing as guilt and remorse for how he is behaving and acting. In truth it is accurate to say that Great Expectations has not one main character but three depend on the stage Pip is in his life.
The Proper Popper Pip (Stage One)
In the early stages of his life and the book Pip is about eight years old and very compassionate for other people regardless of their status, In chapter seven a year after meeting the convict in the church yard Pip is standing in the kitchen waiting for Miss Joe to come home with Joe at his side. Looking up at the stars he thinks back on that night in the marshes and thinks:
{...} the wind blew keenly, and the frost was white and hard. A man would die tonight of lying out in the marshes, I thought. And then I looked at the stars and considered how awful it would be for a man to turn his face up to them as he froze to death, and see no help or pity in all the glittering magnitude.” (Pg 43)
Pip feels for anyone who is alone and abandoned in this earth, even the convict that he is terrified of and hates for making him feel horrible for lying to Joe and Miss Joe about his supper as well as stealing from his father figure. This reflects Pip’s kind heart and who Pip is in the story thus far, His innocence untainted by the world of money and a beautiful scornful woman. This vision of caring changes after his visit to Miss Havisham’s in chapter thirteen. After being called course and common by Estella, Pip falls in love with her beauty and adapts himself to her code of beliefs believing that if he were no longer course and common he would have a chance at her hand. After several months of visiting Miss Havisham and Estella Pip is informed, in chapter eighteen to be precise, that he has been granted a large sum of money by a mysterious benefactor. Looking up at the same stars as before in Joe’s kitchen Pip says:
{...}Our kitchen door opened at once upon the night, and stood open on summer evenings to air the room. The very stars to which I then raised my eyes, I am afraid I took to be but poor and humble stars for glittering on the rustic objects among which I passed in life.”
These two statements, though made about ten years apart take place in the same kitchen with the same stars, are drastically different from each other. Pip has had a cosmic change in his perceptive. The stars have not really in reality changed at all but Pip’s view of them has changing from one of human suffering and the pity-less stars to that of the stars over Joe’s cottage being humble and poor compared to those over London. Another point that shows how Pip has changed in only ten short years is how he addresses what the stars shine on, first off he is worried about the man in the statement and his feelings and thoughts as he dies in the marshes. This reflects Pip’s kind heart towards other people. The later statement turns to material things, the rustic objects of his prior life being Pip’s main concern, the haunting reminders of his course and common background. The current Pip only focusing on his new gentleman status over his once respected apprenticeship to Joe.

The Pompous Prince Pip (Stage two)
Besides Pip’s actions changing as his perspectives are warped to that of the snobbish upper class the patterns of words used in the text also reveal Pip’s thoughts upon himself.