Great Expectations Key Quotes

Question	Answer
PIP	PIP is the nickname he gave himself, a shortened version of his real name "Phillip Pirrip". He keeps this name, showing he keeps some of his childlike innocence. It is a PALINDROME. It represents Pip's character - he is like a seed or pip and is going to grow.
ESTELLA	ESTELLA sounds like 'stellar' or 'star', which symbolises how she is out of Pip's reach and is unattainable. It also symbolises her character - she is beautiful from a distance but painful to be close to.
MAGWITCH	MAGWITCH includes the supernatural creature "witch", which reflects on him being Pip's mysterious benefactor.
MISS HAVISHAM	HAVISHAM contains the word "sham", which means something is false. This reflects on the idea that wealth and class equates to or causes happiness.
MINOR CHARACTERS	JAGGERS - connotes ideas of sharpness, reflecting his bluntness and the fact that he works with criminals. ORLICK - the 'lick' sounds greasy and overpowering, like his character. DRUMMLE - rhymes with 'pummel', reflecting his abusive nature.
THEME OF SOCIETY AND CLASS	CLASS defines a person's worth in Pip's eyes and society. It divides people. SOCIETY is presented negatively by Dickens, as he criticises the justice ststem and the toxic ideas of CLASS equating to someone's worth.
"Her contempt was so strong, that it became infectious, and I caught it" PIP CHAPTER 8	DISEASE IMAGERY - Pip has "caught" Estella's beliefs about Pip's worth due to his class. Pip is beginning to believe that class is a measurement of someone's worth and value.
"I wished Joe had been rather more genteelly brought up, and then I should have been so too." PIP CHAPTER 8	Even though Pip has seen the negatives of being "genteelly brought up" (Estella's cruelty), he is still naive and foolish enough to think that being "proper" and of a higher class is more important than love and friendship.
"I took the opportunity ... to look at my coarse hands and my common boots." PIP CHAPTER 8	After Estella points out his "coarse hands" and "thick boots" Pip examines the characteristics he's always possessed, but with the new frame of Estella's world. These facts are patterned - "coarse hands" "common boots" - to reflect upon Pip's desire to be a gentleman and of a higher class.
" ...deeply revolving that I was a common labouring-boy; that my hands were coarse; that my boots were thick" " ... I was in a low-lived bad way." PIP CHAPTER 8	Pip continues to obsess over his hands and boots, believing they make him insignificant and worthless because they show his class. Pip immediately assumes the life at Satis House is nobler and better than his, due to the higher class, although it might not be true.
"I wanted to make Joe less ignorant and common, that he might be worthier of my society and less open to Estella's reproach." PIP CHAPTER 15	Pip's main desire to socially climb is due to Estella - he believes that if he is of higher class Estella will love him. Pip prioritises this over his friendship with Joe and forgets the importance of Joe's companionship. "my" = PERSONAL PRONOUN
" ... far out of reach ... Do you feel that you have lost her?" MISS HAVISHAM (about Estella) CHAPTER 15	Estella is still out of Pip's "reach", just as she was at the start of the novel when he was of lower class and relating her to a 'star'. This is key in delivering Dickens' message against classism - Estella doesn't love Pip when he's lower class and she doesn't love him when he's upper class.
" ... after binding her to secrecy, "I want to be a gentleman." " PIP (to Biddy) CHAPTER 17	Pip "binds" Biddy to keep his desire secret - he knows the absurdity in his desire and the improbability. Most of the people Pip knows have specific societal functions due to their societal roles, and they're content. Pip's dream is vague - a gentleman is indefinable.
THEME OF DREAMS AND AMBITION	Each character in the novel has DREAMS or and AMBITION - Pip wants to marry Estella after becoming a gentleman, for example. One by one these dreams all fail but Dickens presents hopes and ambition positively - the only person without ambition is Estella, and her life is bad.
"Miss Havisham and Estella and the strange house and the strange life appeared to have something to do with everything that was picturesque" PIP CHAPTER 15	Pip looks out onto the horizon and thinks of Estella and Miss Havisham. The horizon symbolizes the future and hope, telling readers that Pip feels closer to his dreams when looking at the horizon. This implies he fears having nothing on the horizon, meaning having a meaningless future.
"She reserved it for me to ... do all the shining deeds of the young Knight of romance, and marry the Princess" PIP ( about Miss Havisham adopting Estella) CHAPTER 29	Pip's dreams are made up of theatrical images and actions ("destroy the vermin") rather than realistic and real encounters. Instead of imagining a real moment of happiness with Estella, Pip imagines magically curing Satis House, showing his naive and child-like dreams.
"O the sense of distance and disparity that came upon me, and the inaccessibility that came about her!" PIP (about Estella) CHAPTER 29	Pip seems more interested in the distance between him and his dream (Estella) rather than the dream itself (Estella). This suggests that Pip wouldn't know what to do if Estella loved him back - he is still immature and childish. Pip seems to be in love with the fact that he can't have Estella rather than her.
"I was a blacksmith's boy but yesterday; I am—what shall I say I am—to-day?" PIP CHAPTER 30	Most people in Pip's life derive their identity from their job but Pip wants to be a gentleman who derives his identity from what he is rather than what he does. This emphasizes the ambiguity of what it means to be a gentleman, and why Pip's dreams are unrealistic.
"I thought with absolute abhorrence of the contrast between the jail and her" PIP (about Estella) CHAPTER 33	Pip dreams of Estella to escape the nightmare of the jail he's in. Pip thinks of the "contrast" between being trapped in a jail and loving Estella but they're not so different. Both are associated with death (Miss Havisham) and they're both locked up and inescapable.
"...report how I go on—I and the jewels..." ESTELLA CHAPTER 33	Miss Havisham claimed to have never tried to ruin Estella's life, but views her as more of an object than a person, seeing her the same as the "jewels".
"...how the ship in which I had sailed was gone to pieces." PIP CHAPTER 39	This connects the ships Pip would watch on the marshes and the one he used to help Magwitch escape. This shows the difference in the misery of the two lives. The ships are a metaphor for Pip's dreams, money, and privilege. Once Pip achieved his dreams they shattered because they're unattainable.
"...all a mere dream...I only suffered in Satis House as a convenience" PIP CHAPTER 39	Pip has begun to realise the foolishness in unrealistic dreams - his 'great expectations' only caused him to suffer. This is the point in the novel where Pip truly begins to mature and grow up - achieving the bildungsroman genre.
"went out to the memorable old house that it would have been so much the better for me never to have entered" PIP CHAPTER 43	Pip thinks he would have been happier if he had never gone to Satis House or met Estella, and it's likely to be true. Pip was first made to visit Miss Havisham in order to fulfil or attempt to fulfil the dreams and hopes of others, showing how dreams and hopes can be bad if they're unchecked.
"I think that in the endurance of her own trial, she forgot mine, Estella." PIP CHAPTER 44	Throughout the book dreams and ambition turn people destructive and cruel - even Pip. Despite this chooses to believe that humans are innately good, and just derailed by misguided dreams - he has grown up.
THEME OF FRIENDSHIP	Pip doesn't seem to deserve his friends - Joe, Biddy, Herbert, and Magwitch all show Pip unrequited loyalty and kindness. This shows the ill-effects of unchecked ambition.
"I said to her, 'And bring the poor little child. God bless the poor little child,'" JOE CHAPTER 7	Mrs Joe claims she brought Pip up 'by hand' and saved his life, but Joe convinced her to let Pip stay with him. Joe is already shown to be a true gentleman and a real friend to Pip.
"O dear good Joe, whom I was so ready to leave and so unthankful to...I feel the loving tremble of your hand...as if it had been the rustle of an angel's wing!" PIP CHAPTER 18	The fact that Pip and Joe are such great friends makes Pip's decision to leave the marshes all the more significant. Pip's dreams of winning Estella outweigh his love of Joe.
"You may be sure, dear Joe," I went on, after we had shaken hands, "that I shall never forget you." PIP CHAPTER 19	This is a cold and unusual thing for Pip to say to Joe, who was his father, brother, and best friend growing up. Pip's 'great expectations' are already changing him into a colder person.
"As soon as I could recover myself sufficiently, I hurried out after him...but he was gone" PIP CHAPTER 27	Pip's fortune may have brought him clothes, trinkets, and opportunity, but it's robbed him of Joe. One of Dickens' messages in the book is that wealth doesn't equal happiness - everyone rich in the novel is unhappy in some way and Pip becomes unhappy when he becomes rich.
"others walking in the sunshine should be softened as they thought of me" PIP CHAPTER 35	Pip is starting to grow up - he's dreaming that his friends to think of him warmly when he dies instead of being a gentleman. Ironically, he's more of a gentleman here than ever before. "sunshine" = LIGHT IMAGERY
"he took both my hands and put them to his lips, while my blood ran cold within me" PIP CHAPTER 39	When Pip realises Magwitch is his mysterious benefactor, he 'recoils' from him although Magwitch calls him his 'son'. Pip rejects Magwitch because his view of the world is more black and white - criminals are bad, and nothing more. Pip doesn't value friendships that don't fit into his dreams of the future.
"Herbert received me with open arms, and I had never felt before, so blessedly, what it is to have a friend." PIP CHAPTER 41	Pip says he's never felt what it's like to have a friend before, despite having known Joe and Biddy - he still rejects friendships that don't fit into his dreams. 'blessedly' = irony; Pip relates Joe to an 'angel' earlier on and now rejects his friendship.
"you've been more comfortable alonger me, since I was under a dark cloud, than when the sun shone. That's best of all." MAGWITCH (to Pip) CHAPTER 56	Pip is a good person despite his flaws and Magwitch knows that. This shows Pip's acceptance of Magwitch and his maturing - earlier his blood ran 'cold' but is now related to the 'sun', which is warm.
""you and me was ever friends. And when you're well enough to go out for a ride—what larks!" JOE CHAPTER 57	Joe was always Pip's friend even when he rejected to him and is the only true gentleman in the novel - he nurses Pip back to health, pays off his debts, and apologises for Mrs Joe's actions. Joe also knows things have changed and that he and Pip will never really go out for a ride together.
THEME OF LOVE	Pip's love for Estella drives his passion to be a gentleman but is it really love? Pip is more in love with the fact that he can't have Estella than Estella herself and characters like Joe and Biddy or Herbert and Clara are much happier and have less lofty ideas about love.
"her light came along the dark passage like a star." PIP CHAPTER 8	Dickens continually uses light imagery to refer to Estella to emphasise Pip's feelings about her - she is bright but getting too close to her would hurt and Pip can't understand that.
"I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness" PIP CHAPTER 29	Pip says he loves Estella because he finds her 'irresistible' - is it really love or is it lust? The list shows the strength of Pip's emotion and suggests he is in love with Estella.
"Love her, love her, love her! If she favours you, love her. If she wounds you, love her." MISS HAVISHAM CHAPTER 29	Miss Havisham is desperate for revenge on men, so much so that all she truly cares about is Pip loving Estella. Here she truly seems like a 'witch' - she's curses Pip to love someone he can never have.
"if the often repeated word had been hate instead of love—despair—revenge—dire death—it could not have sounded from her lips more like a curse." PIP CHAPTER 29	Miss Havisham is described as a 'witch' earlier on in the novel. Miss Havisham has gotten what she wanted - for Pip to fall in love with Estella and for her to break his heart. But is it really love if both Pip and Estella are so controlled?
"You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen ... in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets." PIP CHAPTER 44 (to Estella)	Even when Pip gives a dramatic love speech, the focus is still on himself - Pip's love isn't selfless, it's focused on himself. Pip grounds his description of love in images of nature and of the landscape that surrounds him: Estella isn't even human, she's so much a part of the particles around him.
THEME OF CRIMINALITY

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	Created by Emily Ball about 7 years ago