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GREAT EXPECTATIONS:
Mr. Joe and Estella; Reality and Fancy
Mrs. E.A. Davids
Very few critics would now disagree with G.B. Shaw in calling Great Expectations
a 'most compactly perfect book'. Many are even inclined to call it his
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masterpiece, but criticism has not always been so favourable. Literary
appreciation steadily grew after the revolutionary essays by Georg Orwell and
Edmund Wilson. Yet, as late as 1949 Hesketh Pearson considered Great Expectations
to be 'overpraised in relation to Dickens's other novels, perhaps because it is
shorter than most, possibly because it is less complicated than most', and he
suggested that in attempting the new naturalistic convention Dickens failed to
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be true to his own creative talents. Making allowances for Pearson's unhappy
choice of words (apart from 'short', he also talks about 'abbreviated' and
'condensed' in connection with the weekly serials Hard Times, A Tale of Two Cities
and Great Expectations), there is indeed a great attraction in the supreme unity
of structure, theme and imagery that makes for the compactness Shaw referred to.
But is it really less complicated Certainly, when read superficially, the story
of Pip's growth is quite a simple and straightforward one, in which all the
characters, as with David Copperfield, contribute in some way to Pip's development.
This linear structure is emphasized by turning Pip into a first person narrator,
who comments on his own progress with the (somewhat affected) detachment of a
mature and experienced man. Compared to David, Pip appears to be a keen observer
with a limited interest: characters and events are described rather narrowly
and only in so far as they bear on the narrator's growth towards self-knowledge.
It is no longer a nostalgic recherche du temps perdu, but a painful self-scrutiny
through the recollections of selfish mistakes and false dreams. The result is
Pip's undeniably one-sided presentation that underlines once more this superficial,
simplicity. But as soon as we begin to question Pip's interpretations, we find
underneath a tightly woven pattern of unsuspected complexity, a complexity which
admittedly arises from the relationship between the narrator and reader.
Pip may be a self-engrossed egocentric, but we respect him for so honestly sittino
in judgement on his earlier self. There is, for instance, the embarrassing moment
when Joe has come to see Miss Havisham about the indentures, but will not talk
to her directly. The mature Pip recollects his uneasiness: 'I am afraid I was
ashamed of the dear old fellow', immediately rebuking himself for what might
