Pip And Estella Research Paper
Kelleher 1
Sara Kelleher
Professor Hawks
Writing the Modern City
February 28, 2014
Pip and Estella: a Comparison
Though superficially Pip and Estella appear to be complete opposites, in reality they are not. Viewed by their benefactors as objects, tools developed by Magwitch and Miss Havisham to be used in exacting their revenge upon society, they are understood better as two sides of the same coin.
Both Miss Havisham and Magwitch equate their charges with possessions
Estella is associated with Miss Havisham’s jewels and Pip is associated with land and stocks. Because
Estella and Pip are likened to objects that can bought, Miss Havisham and Magwitch think that their charges themselves can be owned. However, the two young adults, at least at first, only feel …show more content…
Analogous to the jewelry, Estella 's value as a potential lover comes from her beauty and her wealth
.
Magwitch also sees Pip as an object. Magwitch arrives in Australia as a convict in irons.
To the colonists there by choice, he was to be ridiculed. He knew he could never rise above those who mocked him in status once one is a convict, one is always a convict but he could create someone to make that ascent for him, and in doing so, achieve vicariously that which he could not accomplish himself. Magwitch tells Pip of his response to their taunts, “ I says to myself, 'If I ain 't a gentleman, nor yet ain 't got no learning, I 'm the owner of such. All you owns stock and land; which on you owns a broughtup London gentleman? This way I kept myself a going”
(242). Similarly to how the colonists used their money to buy stocks and land, the convict is using his money to "buy" himself a gentleman. Essentially just like stocks and land, Pip is an investment, though a far better one in Magwitch’s mind because by “owning a gentleman”
Magwitch can finally get one up on the colonists.The convict’s desire to avenge himself, to …show more content…
She is hysterical when
Estella tells her,
“Mother by adoption, I have said that I owe everything to you. All I possess is freely yours. All that you have given me, is at your command to have again. Beyond that, I have nothing. And if you ask me to give you what you never gave me, my gratitude and duty cannot do impossibilities” (230). This is Estella’s way of rebelling against being used as tool. Because she cannot actively defy Miss Havisham’s wishes, the young girl turns herself into a doubleedged sword. In creating Estella as her tool and teaching the girl to actively scorn the qualitative aspects of a relationship, Miss Havisham has taught the girl to view their own relationship as quantitative.
Magwitch likewise believes that all in the world can be bought and sold, and that by providing Pip with wealth he now owns the young man. The convict goes so far as to declare himself Pip’s second father (241). During the Victorian era in particular, the role of father connotes a degree of ownership, as a father is head of the house and very much in control of
Sara Kelleher
Professor Hawks
Writing the Modern City
February 28, 2014
Pip and Estella: a Comparison
Though superficially Pip and Estella appear to be complete opposites, in reality they are not. Viewed by their benefactors as objects, tools developed by Magwitch and Miss Havisham to be used in exacting their revenge upon society, they are understood better as two sides of the same coin.
Both Miss Havisham and Magwitch equate their charges with possessions
Estella is associated with Miss Havisham’s jewels and Pip is associated with land and stocks. Because
Estella and Pip are likened to objects that can bought, Miss Havisham and Magwitch think that their charges themselves can be owned. However, the two young adults, at least at first, only feel …show more content…
Analogous to the jewelry, Estella 's value as a potential lover comes from her beauty and her wealth
.
Magwitch also sees Pip as an object. Magwitch arrives in Australia as a convict in irons.
To the colonists there by choice, he was to be ridiculed. He knew he could never rise above those who mocked him in status once one is a convict, one is always a convict but he could create someone to make that ascent for him, and in doing so, achieve vicariously that which he could not accomplish himself. Magwitch tells Pip of his response to their taunts, “ I says to myself, 'If I ain 't a gentleman, nor yet ain 't got no learning, I 'm the owner of such. All you owns stock and land; which on you owns a broughtup London gentleman? This way I kept myself a going”
(242). Similarly to how the colonists used their money to buy stocks and land, the convict is using his money to "buy" himself a gentleman. Essentially just like stocks and land, Pip is an investment, though a far better one in Magwitch’s mind because by “owning a gentleman”
Magwitch can finally get one up on the colonists.The convict’s desire to avenge himself, to …show more content…
She is hysterical when
Estella tells her,
“Mother by adoption, I have said that I owe everything to you. All I possess is freely yours. All that you have given me, is at your command to have again. Beyond that, I have nothing. And if you ask me to give you what you never gave me, my gratitude and duty cannot do impossibilities” (230). This is Estella’s way of rebelling against being used as tool. Because she cannot actively defy Miss Havisham’s wishes, the young girl turns herself into a doubleedged sword. In creating Estella as her tool and teaching the girl to actively scorn the qualitative aspects of a relationship, Miss Havisham has taught the girl to view their own relationship as quantitative.
Magwitch likewise believes that all in the world can be bought and sold, and that by providing Pip with wealth he now owns the young man. The convict goes so far as to declare himself Pip’s second father (241). During the Victorian era in particular, the role of father connotes a degree of ownership, as a father is head of the house and very much in control of