Final Paper

The Lions and the Lambs

While the idea of a fixed social class, a caste, is more deeply engrained in collectivist Eastern cultures, the same concepts are omnipresent in Western cultures as well. People often speak of the spoiled brats of the rich, who never work for what they have and yet ‘have it all’, while there is equal, if not greater, scorn for those who are too lazy to pick themselves up by their bootstraps and get out of the lower class. Charles Dickens, with scathing insight and keen symbolism, mocks both these groups, taking the shining stereotypes of both and picking away at the gold leaf or rugged leather. Great Expectations, in stark, almost sick, detail, shows that the lambs of the lower class cannot mix with the noble lions, and that the rigid social structures of his time were fueled by ignorance, arrogance, and the iron grasp of control the upper classes possessed. Dickens shows the perverse dark side of success, the hopelessness of irrational love, and the impassible divide that exists between groups: male and female, rich and poor, country folk and city slickers. Through much of the book, Dickens flips these roles, making the main character flit back and forth between the binaries as he searches for a stable identity not ruled by others.

Names are how individuals define themselves and how others define those around them. New parents fret over their child’s name and some figures will be known more by the power of their false titles and aliases than they could ever hope to by their formal address. Dickens makes his point of this right from the start, speaking as the main character, “My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip” (Dickens, 3). While this might be a funny nickname for perhaps the first few years of someone’s life, this name never leaves him. From cover to cover, he’s referred to as Pip, with the exception of one character he meets after he comes into fortune, who comes to call him Handel. However, he’s the only one; to the rest of the world, he still exists as Pip. So, what is the difference between Pip and Handel? Truly, nothing. As Ferdinand Saussure, the 20th century philosopher who specialized in the language of language, points out, the name is entirely dependent on the situation. He explains that “[the name we attach to something] is unmotivated, i.e. arbitrary in that it actually has no natural connection with [the idea behind a name]” (Saussure, 79). While Pip might be the name assigned to him by the general society, it’s arguable that Handel is his true name, since Herbert, the friend who gave him this name, seems to treat him the same regardless of his financial status.

Herbert is likely one of the few in this tale who wasn’t at one time or another obsessed with Pip’s class. At the book’s start, Pip is seen as little more than an inconvenience. His sister beats him for minor infractions against her and the order of the house, and the rest of the community focuses on Pip, like all children, as a bottom feeder, a leech who has no gratitude for his sister bringing him up “by hand” (a term Dickens satirically links to the frequent physical abuse). Even Pip, after he meets with the beautiful, noble born Estella, begins to feel grimy, and looks down on people he used to respect or even possibly love. The prime example of this is his brother-in-law, Joe. Joe is, in a book filled with a near universally cynical view, one of the few shining characters. The main reason for this is his honesty. Joe does not put on airs, he is unashamed of his status as a laboring blacksmith, nor does he bend others to his will; he is someone who is entirely knowledgeable of their place in the world, if not much else. However, after meeting Estella and falling into a love that borders on obsession, Pip, formerly content with his aims in life to join Joe at the forge, becomes frightfully aware of his own place in the world, and how his former ambitions will make a life with Estella impossible. He says that his “young mind was in that disturbed and unthankful state, that I thought long after I laid me down, how common Estella would consider Joe, a mere blacksmith” (Dickens, 69). While previously he had looked up to Joe and had loved the idea of working alongside his hero, as soon as he caught a waft of the upper class, he wanted that instead.

Estella, despite being an obviously beautiful and feminine character, is highly masculine in most of her behaviors. While it is normal to assume that in the classical romances, the woman would be unable to put out the passions in her heart, here it is Pip who takes on this feminine role. Estella is, in many ways, a twist on old fairy tale romances. Pip first meets her after being transported to Satis House, a castle that’s just outside of town, at his sister’s heavy handed insistence, to be essentially a plaything to Ms. Havisham, the old noble who inhabits it. Ms. Havisham adds to this aura, acting as a dragon with the beautiful, hopeless young maiden trapped by her side. Estella is Ms. Havishim’s adopted daughter, and has been brought up under her harsh rule, with men as the prime targets of her poisoned barbs. Ms. Havisham still wears a dress from a wedding that was called off eons ago, with her as the sad bride. She uses Estella as a method to her end: to retaliate at all men for the damage that one caused. Estella, like an automaton, obeys the command, and proceeds to break Pip into tears within their first meeting. Ms. Havisham revels in his pain, constantly asking him how much he loves Estella and re-enforcing how beautiful she is. In “The Politics of Culture”, Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan discuss this concept of culture from above, wherein those high in social class “[allow] only certain kinds of imagery and ideas to gain access to mass audiences…inevitably further[ing] attitudes as perceptions that assure its continuation” (Rivkin, 1026). Ms. Havisham furthers her ideal scenario of Pip being psychologically crushed by forcing the idea of Estella as beauty incarnate, forcing him to realize his own worthlessness. When the three first meet, Ms. Havisham asks the following of Estella:
“Let me see you play cards with this boy.”
“With this boy? Why, he is a common labouring-boy!”
I thought I overheard Miss Havisham answer — only it seemed so unlikely —
“Well? You can break his heart.” (Dickens 58).

Here she tips her hand, expressing her entire reason behind inviting Pip and, to a larger extent, why she brought up Estella by her teachings. She knows that Estella is likely to enjoy making Pip suffer, since that is how she was ‘programmed’. Ms. Havisham has become so locked in the moment of her greatest loss, her greatest dishonor, that the clocks in Satis House have been stopped at the exact moment she lost her fiancé, she refuses to acknowledge the day of the week, or even her own birthday, and she’s dressed like she’s still ready to walk down the aisle. While often it is supposed that, as Simone de Beauvoir states, “woman has always been man’s dependant, if not his slave,” here it is Pip that acts the slave (de Beauvior 79). Furthermore, one often challenges that women cannot exist without men, while Ms. Havisham exists almost in spite of men. In one case, she’s proven her strength, overcoming the difficulty of being a woman of class who is so flagrantly shamed before her fellow nobles. However, she became so upset, so frustrated towards all men that she not only decided to sequester herself away from them, effectively banishing them from her life, but she also adopted a daughter just so she could make sure her goal was still completed even after she was gone, essentially demonstrating that despite her ability to live without them, she needs their suffering to make herself feel empowered.

Ms. Havisham, despite being one of the most obvious and flagrant examples of it, is not the only character who uses those around them for their own gain; in fact, it seems to be a condition that was quite contagious during this period of English history. Ms. Havisham uses Estella as a puppet to advance her own philosophy to the world, even after she’s gone, and Pip is used as a test subject. Pip’s sister uses him for menial labor when he’s seven years old, another of Dickens’ pointed barbs at the view of children in his time. Pumblechook, a grocer who is responsible for bringing Pip to Satis house, uses him as a totemic representation of all that is wrong with the world of children-that is, until Pip gains his fortune, then he is treated as a gentleman that was groomed under Pumblechook’s precise and loving tutelage. He tries to link himself to Pip as soon as he hears of his fortune, and “that [he] should have been the humble instrument of leading up to this, is a proud reward” (Dickens 147). Everyone seems to be so obsessed with being upper class or having some level of dominance over another that they all end up weakening their own relationships and their real status or identity in the world by extension.

The characters who seem the healthiest are those who are the most comfortable, the least focused on shifting their social standing. Examples of this include the industrious Joe, who Pip claims looks even worse in his Sunday best than he could ever in his usual forge clothes, and Herbert, who has a very positive outlook towards his fellow man, regardless of their class. Pip remains immune to this bug after getting his fortune. He begins to flex his wealth, and his among his first plans are raising Joe’s status, perhaps to make up for his own embarrassment about him. He extols his virtuous plan to Biddy, his tutor, remarking that “If [he] were to remove Joe into a higher sphere, as [he] shall hope to remove him when [he] fully comes into his property,” Joe might have a decent chance of being a gentleman much like himself (Dickens, 143). Biddy and he get into a fight where Biddy argues how proud Joe is already of himself, an honest pride, while Pip is getting a pride backed not by his achievements, but rather only received through the nigh impossible circumstance of his fortune. He acknowledges his own luck in this, but still looks down on all the friends he had while growing up due to their lack of class. The problem seems to have persisted with modern day upper classes as well. In Bret Ellis’ Rules of Attraction, the characters are only using each other to find their next fix, be it sexual, romantic, or pharmaceutical. Lauren describes her encounter with one of her fixes as though she’s completely disconnected from the whole situation, as if watching it as someone else. “In the Freshman’s room now. What’s his name? Sam? Steve? It’s so…neat! Tennis racket on the wall. Shelf full of Robert Ludlum books. Who is this guy?” (Ellis, 15). The students here all only want to interact on their terms, when it is most beneficial for them to do so, and only want to have relationships that directly benefit them, even if it’s only a meaningless night in bed. While Dickens’ characters seem to be fitting a need a little higher on Maslow’s hierarchy, they are still guilty of essentially the same crime.

Perhaps the most important theme of the book is this: attempting to act above yourself, or reach farther than perhaps you were meant to, will only bring you deeper dissatisfaction. In some ways, this may reflect a caste system. The characters that seemed the most unbalanced or troubled were the ones that tried too hard to manipulate others. Estella, who seeks a rich husband only so she can be financially stable, openly admits to Pip that she is cold-hearted. Despite the grace and noble beauty she flaunts, her personality and her methods of reaching her goals are often more feral than refined. At the end of the book, Pip has to return to his old town to make amends with Joe. He does not return to work there, choosing instead to work and live with Herbert and his wife, making a modest if successful living. While there, however, he is accosted by Pumblechook, his ‘old patron’ who has been saturating the town with stories of how his intervention brought Pip to his great heights, only to have Pip selfishly spurn his new fortunes. Pumblechook, before a restaurant bustling with people, demands that Pip pass along a message:
“Says you…‘In [Pip] being brought low, [Pumblechook] saw the finger of Providence. He knowed that finger when he saw it, Joseph, and he saw it plain. It pinted out this writing, Joseph. Reward of ingratitoode[sic] to earliest benefactor, and founder of fortun’s[sic]. But that man said that he did not repent of what he had done, Joseph. It was right to do it…and he would do it again.’ ‘It’s a pity…that the man did not say what he had done and would do again’” (Dickens, 459).

Notice Pip’s recently developed vertebrae! Pip, who originally dealt with all the abuse by turning his anger inwards, growing guilty for being a bad son, an unfit pupil, someone whose fortunes in life could never hope to be reached without someone’s assistance, finally looked his abuser turned sycophant in the eye and told him that he was bluffing. Pip has, in many ways, self-actualized, becoming an independent person as opposed so someone ruled and commanded by others. He’s come to realize how much unhappiness his wealth brought him, and instead chooses a life that is of his own personal design. Simone de Beauvoir explains that “the master does not make a point of the need that he has for the other; he has in his grasp the power of satisfying this need through his own action; whereas the slave, in his dependent condition, his hope and fear, is quite conscious of the need he has for his master” (de Beauvoir). Pip has long been the slave to many masters: his sister, Pumblechook, Estella and Ms. Havisham, but has finally ‘grown his mane out’ and become a lion in his own right, though without the predatory implications.
Dickens, in one of his darker works, exposes his ideas on the vapid, rampant materialism and inhumane tendencies that were so common in his era, and likely continue to this day. He exposes the evils of the upper and lower classes, against each other and themselves, each striving to gain that extra bit of gold in the hopes that they will finally find the meaning their lives have been sorely without. They use and abuse others to make their own positions of weakness seem a little less pathetic, though the lambs they see fit to prey on often turn into the noblest lions.

Works Cited

Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies. 3rd ed. Sage Publications Ltd, 2008. Print.

de Beauvoir, Simone. “Woman as Other”. Literary Theory: An Anthology.  Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan.  Malden: Blackwell, 1998.

Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. Barnes & Noble Classics, 2005. Print.

Ellis, Bret. The Rules of Attraction. MacMillan, 1988. Print.

Saussure, Ferdinand. “Course in General Linguistics”. Literary Theory: An Anthology.  Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan.  Malden: Blackwell, 1998. 76-89.

Rivkin, Julie, and Michael Ryan. “The Politics of Culture”. ”. Literary Theory: An Anthology.  Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan.  Malden: Blackwell, 1998. 1025-1027.