The evolution of a person can be complicated when one has "great expectations." In Charles Dickens' finest novel, "Great Expectations," a young boy named Phillip Pirrup known as Pip who's great expectations are a dramatized exploration of human growth and the pressures that distort the potential of an ordinary individual, especially in the process of growing up. Pip is a simple blacksmith's boy who aspires to cross social boundaries when he realizes his own upbringing is common; however, he has no means to change; mysteriously, he is given the means, but wealth only brings him arrogance. He learns that happiness in life can be achieved only by hard work and the great expectations not grounded in reality can only lead to tragedy and heartache. Uncommonness on the inside is more important than uncommoness on the outside.
Pip progresses through three stages of life, all of which he goes through different goals.
English: Miss Havisham, Pip, and Estella, in art f...
Book illustration from Great Expectations
Screenshot showing Pip and MagwitchIn Pip's first stage of life he is an innocent boy with a good heart, whose goals are to be apprenticed as a blacksmith with his friend and guardian, Joe Gargery. Perhaps, he doesn't have very many goals as a seven-year-old because he doesn't know what the world has to impact upon him. This shows that Joe is a role model to Pip and is a factor of his life. In Pip's second stage of life, his goals change a bit to which makes him change his attitude toward his loved ones; he meets Estella, a rich snobby, but beautiful girl, whom rejects Pip, therefore Pip has a goal to become a gentleman to be in the company of Estella. This shows that Estella is an influence to his goals and affects his attitude in life. This also reveals that Pip becomes arrogant because of the...