Guilt and Shame in Charles Dickens' Great Expectations

The purpose of this essay is to analyze guilt and shame in Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations through Philip Pirrip, who is more known as “Pip”, the main character which is not gratified by his life and tries to get a better life.

Guilt and shame are emotions that really close to each other. We feel guilty when we feel responsible for an action that we regret and shame is when we feel disappointed about something inside of us or people around us, and these two emotions are mostly what Pip feels during the novel.

Pip traits include gentleness and demureness, but already from the first chapter it becomes clear that he begins to feel guilty and almost to the very end this guilty remains with him.

Pip begins his life in guilty environment, because his sister Mrs. Joe makes him feel guilty about everything he does. Even during Christmas lunch all guest annoyed Pip with all silly questions and advices. Mr. Wopsle even did a comparison between Pip and pig. “What is detestable in a pig, is more detestable in a boy”. And everyone else try to make him guilty, because he is being such burden on his sister and Mrs. Joe also could not stop herself to join them. As he said “I was always treated as if I had insisted on being born in opposition to the dictates of reason, religion, and morality, and against the arguments of my best friends” this sentence as no others can describes his feeling of guilt on having been born.

But his visible first feeling of guilt appears when he steals some food and drinks from the pantry for Magwitch to help him escape. He knows that stealing is a crime and he also feels bad that he cannot say about this act to nobody and especially to his best friend (brother-in-law) Joe. “But I loved Joe, – perhaps for no better reason in those early days than because the dear fellow let me love him, – and, as to him, my inner self was not so easily composed.” 

Later he feels also guilty for lying to Mrs. Joe, and Pumblechook about his experience at Miss Havisham house. “I felt convinces that if I described Miss Havisham’s as my eyes had seen it, I should not be understood.” 

Pip first ashamed of his life and his family once he starts to visit Miss Havisham and saw there Estella, because he loves only Estella and he wants really impress her, but Estella, charming lady who had been adopted by Miss Havisham and growing up as a «revenge on all the male sex» is manipulating men's feelings and always tries to hurt them so as she does to Pip. He is ashamed of being a blacksmith and wear his clothes and boots next to Estella, because she considers him as a low class “boy”. “With this boy! Why, he is a common laboring boy!” Also Pip feel ashamed and completely uncomfortable when they went to visit Miss Havisham with Joe, because Joe does not know how to act and talk in front of high class people. “I am afraid I was ashamed of the dear good fellow – I know I was ashamed of him – when I saw that Estella stood at the back of Miss Havisham’s chair, and that her eyes laughed mischievously.” 

While Pip is in London he tries to forget his past and everyone related to the past too, and whenever he returns from London to his home he always visits only Miss Havisham, because he believes that she is his benefactor, so he comes only to visit her. He does not go to visit her sister or Joe, later when Mrs. Joe dies, Pip feels ashamed, angry and guilty to himself for what he has done or maybe it is more about what he has not done. However, Joe comes to London to visit Pip, but Pip being ridiculous, he does not want Joe to be introduced to his friends and was in a hurry to send him back to home, because Joe’s manners is brusque and he is clumsy. And only after Joe has left, Pip realizes how rude he was and he started to feel guilty once again.

When Pip found out that his benefactor is Abel Magwitch and not Miss Havisham he was disappointed and disgusted of him, because he believed that it was Miss Havisham and thought that she wanted to help him to become a gentleman and marry to Estella. In the end Pip realized that Abel is a good man and he is even better father than Joe, because Abel really does make Pip into a gentleman. And Pip feels also shame and guilt about this fact.

In my opinion is also important to mention that in the novel it was another characters who feel guilty about what they have done. Pip comes to London to start a new life, but it happens that he changes one guilty environment to another one, because Mr. Jaggers is Pip’s guardian and Miss Havisham’s lawyer is connected to guilty criminal as it is a part of his job. Mr. Jaggers washes his hands constantly, because he is trying to get rid of all the dirt on his and also his client’s guilt off of his hands.

Orlick is another character, he is a journeyman at Joe’s forge who seems to symbolize the shadow of Pip’s guilt. It feels like he is everywhere where is a Pip. Ends up making it clear that Orlick attacked Mrs. Joe and even if Pip did not knowingly know and was not an accomplice, but to some extent he wanted this to happened, because he wanted to take revenge on his sister for all the guilt that she made him feel from childhood.

Pip is a main character and during the novel he had a life full of all emotions and feelings. Nonetheless, feel of guilt and shame are preponderance in his life. He has this feeling with almost everyone he was with. I think that Pip is a good young man who wants to achieve more in life and become a real gentleman, he has great expectations and unlike many other characters, he has feelings of guilt and shame and this makes him more human.