sound like mere self-justification, by adding 'I know I was ashamed of him'
(XIII,95). It is at moments like these that the complexity of the young Pip,
mature Pip and reader triangle is most keenly felt, since the reader is likely
to identify with the young Pip and feel almost equally rebuked by the mature
narrator. We must, if often unconsciously, recognize in the narrator a man
morally superior to ourselves, and it is at least arguable that this strong
element of catharsis adds greatly to the novel's appeal.
But is Pip equally honest in his judgement of others, especially those who
seem to enjoy making him miserable Which question returns us to the women
characters. For Pip is remarkably uninterested in Mrs. Joe and Estella for
their own sake; in neither do we find, as Angus Wilson notices of Estella,
'a recognition of a woman as an individual having her own demand on life'.
Mrs. Joe is a shrewish pseudo-mother whose harsh, unloving treatment and
tyranny have sown the first seeds of dissatisfaction, if not rebellion in the
breast of the impressionable youth. Because of her, the mature Pip realizes,
he is in 'perpetual conflict with injustice'; and as even the powerful Joe
is a hopelessly ineffective buffer against 'her capricious and violent coercion'
(VIII,57), he cannot come to terms with his conflict. Feeling lonely and
unprotected, both the young and the older Pipe blame the sister for his
timidity and sensitivity, his vulnerability, in other words. It is the reality
of her heartless dominance that, he believes, drives him to accept the dream
world or fairly taleworld that Satis' house represents. Though Estella treats
him cruelly, he has the satisfaction that the experience will improve him.
She very soon becomes his lodestar on his difficult journey to being 'a gentleman'
certain that once he has attained that glorious position, it will be his
privilege to
restore the desolate house, admit the sunshine into the dark
rooms, set the clocks a going and the cold hearth a blazing,
tear down the cobwebs, destroy the vermin, in short, do all the
shining deeds of the young Knight of romance, and marry the
Princess (XXIX,219).
Estella will be the reward for his endurance. Of course, the fairy-godmother
will provide him with all the bare essentials to facilitate the journey, which
is to be his 'Test'. The crisis in Pip's development, and indeed the climax
of the story, is when it is painfully brought home to Pip that he is in fact
living in a dreamworld; that is benefactor is a convict; that Estella is not a
princess but a criminal's daughter. Once more he is to suffer from an inner
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