Charles Dickens: Great Expectations- Estella

Estella, in Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, is presented with flat attributes and as a very static character. Estella shows her flat attributes when she tells Pip how she feels about love: “ ‘ You must know,’ said Estella, conceding to me as a brilliant and beautiful young women might, ‘ that I have no love in my heart- if that has anything to do with my memory….. Oh! I have a heart to be stabbed in or shot in, I have no doubt,’ said Estella; ‘and of course, if it ceased to beat, I should cease to be. But you know what I mean. I have no softness there, no-sympathy-sentiment-nonsense’ ” (Dickens 238). Estella tells Pip that he should not be disappointed she does not love him because there might be something wrong with him, but because she does not know what it is or how to give it/receive it. Estella tells Pip to get over her and move on because she does not believe that she will ever be right for him or learn how to love. Estella is especially static when Pip asks,: “ ‘If I say yes, may I kiss the check again?’ ‘You should have asked before you touched the hand. But, yes, if you like.’ I leaned down, and her calm face was like a statue’s. ‘Now,’ said Estella, gliding away the instant I touched her check, ‘you are to take care that I have some tea, and you are to take me to Richmond’ ” (269). Estella shows static side of her character because just like the first time, when Pip kissed Estella, she just shrugged it off like it did not mean anything to her and was just like a handshake. Estella demonstrates she still does not feel anything for Pip even though he is deeply and madly in love with her. Estella is presented as a very flat and static character with her actions and words always expressing the same meaning about how she feels about people and