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Similes
Book 2, Chapter 29
Explanation and Analysis—Doubles :
Many critics have noted that Great Expectations is filled with the motif of doubles: characters who mirror each other in a way that allows the reader to note similarity and difference easily. These symmetrical pairs act as foils for each other and for the developing aspects of Pip's character. Each pair also contains a strong element of irony, as the novel's commentary on class structure and good behavior plays out in relation to them.
Magwitch/Provis and Compeyson are both criminals, and yet only one is really morally corrupt. Provis stole for sustenance and fell into a life of crime by necessity, and later proves himself to be a thoughtful and caring person. Compeyson, however, is a violent, calculating thug, as Provis explains to Pip in chapter 43:
All sorts of traps as Compeyson could set with his head, and keep his own legs out of and get the profits from and let another man in for, was Compeyson’s business. He’d no more heart than a iron file, he was as cold as death, and he had the head of the Devil afore mentioned.
Dickens sets up a comparison here between a "good" criminal with an essentially kind heart (Provis), and a "bad" criminal with "traps" in him. While Provis is warm, especially later in the book, Compeyson is "cold as death," and uses his intelligence to con and harm people.
Another obvious double is that of Mrs. Joe Gargery and Miss Havisham. These women are both abusive parental figures who employ opposing techniques to change the behavior of their charges. Mrs Joe raises Pip "by hand" and shames him publicly to make him "improve." Miss Havisham, however, openly wants Estella to worsen and uses her influence to make Estella cruel and irresistible in equal measure, as Havisham says in Chapter 29:
I adopted her to be loved. I bred her and educated her, to be loved. I developed her into what she is, that she might be loved. Love her!
It might be said, given the above statement, that while Mrs. Joe raises Pip "by hand" to try and correct his faults, Miss Havisham in having mentally "bred" Estella "to be loved" has raised her to amplify her faults. Both maternal figures employ differing forms of cruelty, producing different results.
Estella and Biddy also act as foils for one another, as Estella is beautiful but bad, and Biddy is plain but good. Both of these young women are potential love interests for Pip. Both are apparently orphans, both are clever and perceptive, and both, as the novel later reveals, are from similarly unsophisticated circumstances. Estella starts the novel as an unattainable princess: by the time it ends, the reader knows she is Provis's daughter and she has been "attained" by Pip. Each pair represents two differing aspects of class and gender in Dickens's time.
Related Themes:
Book 2, Chapter 39
Explanation and Analysis—Magwitch, the Benefactor:
One of the most important situational ironies in a novel filled with irony is the true identity of Pip's benefactor. Provis, whom Pip originally encounters as Magwitch the terrifying criminal, is actually a generous and broadly upstanding person who devotes his labor to helping the boy succeed. Provis tells Pip at the climactic finale of the second volume that he has been his patron all along, only wishing to make up for his crimes and
“to know in secret that I was making a gentleman[.]"
Pip's "great expectations" rely on him being a gentleman. When he thinks Miss Havisham is supplying him with support, this doesn't seem problematic. Because her money comes from a reputable source that would link Pip to the social class he wishes to join, he's happy to believe she could be his patron.
When it's revealed that it has been Provis's aid in "making" him that has changed things, Pip feels frightened and confused. In his eyes, financial support from a convict with no family, connections, or good name is not a suitable source for advancement. Provis knows he will never be "genteel," but believes he can "own" a "brought-up London" gentleman. His idea of gentility is solely based on having money and security, not the social perceptions of its source. He wants to help Pip and to make up for how he treated him, but also to live vicariously through him.
The foundations of the young Mr. Pirrip's "great" progress, and the promise of his "great expectations," are ironically not at all "great" in the way Dickens's reader might have expected earlier in the book. The rich are not always generous, the criminals are not always bad, and almost no one is ever entirely as they seem.
Related Themes:
Book 3, Chapter 42
Explanation and Analysis—Doubles :
Many critics have noted that Great Expectations is filled with the motif of doubles: characters who mirror each other in a way that allows the reader to note similarity and difference easily. These symmetrical pairs act as foils for each other and for the developing aspects of Pip's character. Each pair also contains a strong element of irony, as the novel's commentary on class structure and good behavior plays out in relation to them.
Magwitch/Provis and Compeyson are both criminals, and yet only one is really morally corrupt. Provis stole for sustenance and fell into a life of crime by necessity, and later proves himself to be a thoughtful and caring person. Compeyson, however, is a violent, calculating thug, as Provis explains to Pip in chapter 43:
All sorts of traps as Compeyson could set with his head, and keep his own legs out of and get the profits from and let another man in for, was Compeyson’s business. He’d no more heart than a iron file, he was as cold as death, and he had the head of the Devil afore mentioned.
Dickens sets up a comparison here between a "good" criminal with an essentially kind heart (Provis), and a "bad" criminal with "traps" in him. While Provis is warm, especially later in the book, Compeyson is "cold as death," and uses his intelligence to con and harm people.
Another obvious double is that of Mrs. Joe Gargery and Miss Havisham. These women are both abusive parental figures who employ opposing techniques to change the behavior of their charges. Mrs Joe raises Pip "by hand" and shames him publicly to make him "improve." Miss Havisham, however, openly wants Estella to worsen and uses her influence to make Estella cruel and irresistible in equal measure, as Havisham says in Chapter 29:
I adopted her to be loved. I bred her and educated her, to be loved. I developed her into what she is, that she might be loved. Love her!
It might be said, given the above statement, that while Mrs. Joe raises Pip "by hand" to try and correct his faults, Miss Havisham in having mentally "bred" Estella "to be loved" has raised her to amplify her faults. Both maternal figures employ differing forms of cruelty, producing different results.
Estella and Biddy also act as foils for one another, as Estella is beautiful but bad, and Biddy is plain but good. Both of these young women are potential love interests for Pip. Both are apparently orphans, both are clever and perceptive, and both, as the novel later reveals, are from similarly unsophisticated circumstances. Estella starts the novel as an unattainable princess: by the time it ends, the reader knows she is Provis's daughter and she has been "attained" by Pip. Each pair represents two differing aspects of class and gender in Dickens's time.
Related Themes:
Book 3, Chapter 51
Explanation and Analysis—Estella's Parentage:
Estella Havisham's true parentage is an instance of emotionally intense situational irony in Great Expectations. Mr. Jaggers the lawyer explains in Chapter 51 that Provis is her father and her mother was another convict, and that nobody knew but himself. When he says these things to Pip, he couches the secret's gravity and his difficulty in keeping it in hilariously euphemistic and noncommittal lawyerly language:
Put the case that the child grew up, and was married for money. That the mother was still living. That the father was still living. That the mother and father unknown to one another, were dwelling within so many miles, furlongs, yards if you like, of one another. That the secret was still a secret, except that you had got wind of it. Put that last case to yourself very carefully.
Estella has spent her life as an aristocratic adoptee and has despised Pip for his "common" background throughout their acquaintance. This irony is compounded by the coincidence of their already knowing each other, and by the short distance between all the parties involved. Dickens stresses the irony by listing ever-decreasing units of measurement as Jaggers recounts them "dwelling within so many miles, furlongs, yards of each other."
What's more, Estella's actual parentage belies the fact that she is in fact the daughter of Pip's patron, reversing Pip's narrative of hoping that Miss Havisham had been sponsoring him. The irony is revealed to be even more bitter by virtue of the fact that Estella's mother Molly had been Jaggers's own employee, but the "secret was still a secret." The truth had been right in front of Pip the entire time. This situational irony also speaks to the novel's title: Estella has no "great expectations" to work toward because she already has everything she materially wants. Pip has nothing, and so when he discovers that the haughty and proud young woman's cruelty was really just ignorance, he is thrown into confusion.
Related Themes:
