pip

• “you are in every line I have ever read”

  • Estella’s beauty, grace and prospects represent the opposite of Pip’s humble existence
  • Estella symbolises all he can’t have (nomenclature ‘star’)
• John Locke’s philosophy

  • nurture is more pivotal in Pip’s development than his intrinsic nature
  • Pip as ‘tabula rasa’ - his life is molded by those around him
• “you are part of my existence, part of myself“


  Estella is internalized in Pip - intrinsic part of him
• How is Pip a victim of Havisham?

  she exploits his inferiority complex developed by years of Mrs Joe’s abuse
• “coarse and common” 


  motif - harsh consonance echoes disgust and self loathing, which is catalysed by Estella
• “it is a most miserable thing to be ashamed of home”


  superlative emphasises his shame of “home”, which is a euphemism for his social class and family
• “her contempt for me was so strong, that it became infectious and i caught it.”


  metaphor of poverty as a disease - social class limits his prospects
• “I am disgusted with my calling and my life.”


  entrapped by social class
• “If i could have kept him away by paying money, I certainly would have paid money”


  epistrophe of ”money” echoes Dickens’ critique of money as central to upper class happiness
• “the abhorrence in which i held the man, the dread I had of him, the repugnance with which I shrank from him”


  senantic field of horror at revelation Magwitch is his benefactor - elucidates newfound supercilious attitude