Monday, February 2, 2015

Discuss the changes in Pip's character up to chapter 19?Great Expectations by Charles Dickens include textural support.

From the time of his frightening encounter with the "man
in gray," who upends him and shakes him, Pip becomes penitential as he aligns himself
with the man he refers to as "my convict."  After he unlocks and unbolts doors as he
steals the file and the mincemeat pie and brandy from Mrs. Joe's cupboard, Pip runs back
to the appointed spot, but the damp seems


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riveted as the iron was riveted to the leg of the
man I was running to meet.



On
Christmas Day, Pip is chastised by Uncle Pumblechook to be grateful to "them which
brought you up by hand," and his guilt increases as he knows that Pumblechook will drink
the tar water that he has put in place of the brandy.  When the soldiers come to the
door, Pip is "in an agony of apprehension."  Then, on Joe's shoulders, Pip witnesses the
apprehension of his convict as well as the other.  And, as they return home, Pip feels
guilty for not having told Joe all that has occurred.


Pip
attends Mr. Wopsle's aunt's school and makes friends with her granddaughter, Biddy, who
helps hims with his letters and numbers.  When he takes his lessons home, he realizes
that Joe cannot read or write.  But,  Joe tells Pip to teach him "on the sly" so that
Mrs. Joe will not know; Pip has a new admiration for Joe, who is so loving and
considerate: 


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I had a new sensation of feeling conscious that I
was looking up to Joe in my
heart.



Then, when Pip is
summoned to play at Miss Havisham's, much changes for the young boy. He is ridiculed for
his social position, a bitter hurt now comes into his heart as the beautiful Estella
calls him "a common laboring boy" who has coarse boots and coarse hands, about which Pip
remarks despondently,


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They had never troubled me before, but they
troubled me now.  I determined to ask Joe why he had ever taught me to call those
picture cards jacks, which ought to be called knaves.  I wished Joe had been rather more
genteelly brought up, and then I should have been so
too.



He meets the melancholic
and eccentric Miss Havisham, who encourages Estella to break his heart, and experiences
mental cruelty from her and from Estella who ridicules him for
crying.


Having returned home, Pip feels more guilt after
lying about his experiences at Satis House.  When he confides in Joe, Pip is chastised
for his lying, but told that he is not common at all. Nevertheless, Pip has learned of
his social inferiority on this "memorable day."


When Pip
goes with Joe to Miss Havisham's and is apprenticed, he returns to the forge, feeling
that within "a single year all...was changed."  About his apprenticeship,
Pip declares, 


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I continued at heart to hate my trade and to be
ashamed of home.



Later after
seeing Miss Havisham again, Pip remarks,


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I felt more than ever dissatified with my home
and with my trade and with
everything.



After Mrs. Joe is
injured and Biddy comes to attend her, Pip feels happier as he has a confidante.  Pip
praises her for her learning, but he confides that he wants to be a gentleman; otherwise
he will be miserable


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unless I can lead a very different sort of life
from the life I lead now.



In
his misery, Pip notes,


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I resolved that it was a good time and place for
the admission of Biddy into my inner
confidence



He promises to
always tell her everything, but he feels "at the height of my perplexities" as he yet
holds dear feelings for Estella.

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