Pip
The narrator, Philip Pirrip, whose expectations of gentility lead him to misunderstand both money and love.
He wants to become a gentleman worthy of Estella, then has to discover what responsibility that ambition has concealed.
The book
Who they are in the book
Spoiler-freePip tells his own story with knowledge his younger self lacked. His ability to acknowledge shame and mistaken judgments becomes part of the change the novel traces.
How the book draws them
- Inventing parents from lettersIn Chapter I, Pip imagines his parents' appearance from their tombstones. His reading is touching and unreliable, introducing a child who must make sense of evidence without anyone to explain it.
- Acquiring a new shameIn Chapter VIII, Estella mocks his boots and hands. Pip begins to look at familiar parts of himself through her contempt; the wish to rise in class starts as a wound to his self-respect.
- Filling a silence with a fantasyIn Chapter XVIII, Jaggers refuses to name the benefactor. Pip supplies Miss Havisham as the answer himself, turning a lack of information into confidence that Estella belongs to his future.
- Rejecting the source of his comfortIn Chapter XXXIX, Magwitch's return horrifies him. The revelation exposes how thoroughly he has separated his desired identity from the labor and affection that paid for it.
- Staying beside a condemned manIn Chapter LVI, Pip visits the dying Magwitch, petitions for mercy and holds his hand. The relationship now requires public loyalty, with no fortune left to make it advantageous.
- Receiving care he has not earnedIn Chapter LVII, Joe nurses him and pays his debts. Pip's dependence reverses his earlier embarrassment about the blacksmith and makes gratitude a practical obligation rather than a polite sentiment.
If you like Great Expectations
If you like Charles Dickens
Explore authors with a similar voice, perspective, and influence.
Louis-Ferdinand Céline
The doctor of the Paris slums who wrote the century's blackest, funniest novel — and changed the sound of French prose.
View author
Henry Miller
The Brooklyn dropout who arrived in Paris broke at thirty-eight and wrote the exuberant, banned books that ended American censorship.
View author
Albert Camus
French Algerian novelist, essayist, journalist and playwright who used the absurd and revolt to ask how people should live without false consolation.
View author