Great Expectations Coming Of Age Analysis

The coming-of-age novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens is a captivating story about a young boy named Pip who is experiencing all of life’s changes as he grows up. Throughout the book the reader see’s Pip grow for better or worse. Pip’s expectations grow in three stages. The first stage is Pip wanting so badly to be a respectable, wealthy gentleman, the second is Pip becoming a gentleman in hopes that Estella, a cruel hearted wealthy girl, will love him. Stage three is when he finally comes the realization that he will only become a real man when he starts to care more about character than class. Pip is a young orphaned boy who was raised by his cruel sister and her husband in the English marshes. He is very innocent and naïve at the beginning of the story but everything changes the first time he steps foot into Miss. Havisham's house. Pip thinks Estella, Miss. Havisham’s daughter, is "very pretty and seem(s) very proud" (Dickens.7) the first time he meets her. Although, it is this pretty and proud teenager who will change Pip’s view on himself and the world for the rest of his life. He arrives thinking he is a normal child but after spending time with Estella he realizes he is just a common poor boy and becomes very unhappy with his social standing. “I wished Joe had been rather more genteelly brought up and then I should have been too” (Dickens.8) Pip says with disappointment while thinking about if he were born rich. Pip begins to fall in love with Estella although he knows
Although it took Pip 59 chapters to learn his moral lesson, it truly is an important teaching. Throughout the first two stages of Pip’s expectations he is so focused on being upper class that he gets caught up and forgets what is really important and about the people who really care about him. The life lesson “inner worth is what really matters” is a teaching that still rings true