It is the story of a hopeful young man with a
strong animal body and powerful desires who is
called on at every turn to display, in the commonest
actions of his everyday life, the ideals of the
civilization into which he was born: continual self-
restraint, self-control, forgiveness of enemies,
fortitude in withstanding, not heroic combat, which
would be invigorating, but boredom and frustration
and insult He is so utterly persuaded of the
validity of these ideals that he never finds any
adequate opportunity for expressing, or even
recognize, his own interests and his own self.
By ignoring his natural impulses, he involuntarily aligns himself with
Miss Mavisham, not Estella, and Estella knows that.
She is a far more 'uncivilized' creature. Isolated as she was in Satis House,
she has no respect for society and its rules, and she seems much more governed
by her own natural instincts. The civilizing effect of her schooling in France,
one feels, is only superficial, and she is still attracted by passion and violence.
Thus, after Pip's passionate declaration of his everlasting love for her, she
looks at him with 'incredulous wonder' (XLIV,346), as if she realizes for the
first time that Pip is indeed a man with strong feelings, daggers is curious
to know who will have his way after the wedding, Bentley or Estella, brutal
strength of ruthless intellect. To Pip's discomfort, he drinks to
'Mrs. Bentley Drummle and may the question of supremacy be
the lady's satisfaction' (XLVI11,369)Unfortunately, it is not. Drummle beats
her into submission, and after many wretched years of humiliation, they separate.
Estella tells us in the last chapter that she had been remarkably submissive
in her marriage: the grounds of Satis House had been 'the subject of the only
determined resistance' LIX459she made. Was it her resignation before
entering upon this fateful marriage or Bentley's brutish treatment, that
had brought about this passivity And how are we to interpret the
following piece of melodramatic rhetoric:
'I have often thought of you', said Estella.
Have you
'Of late, very often. There was a long hard time
when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I
had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its
worth. But, since my duty has not been incompatible
with the admission of that remembrance, I have
given it a place in my heart'.
We cannot accept that a woman like Estella should entertain such a rigid sense
of duty towards a brutal husband that she cannot regret the wrong choice she
has made. Are we to assume that Estella is deliberately being 'good' to
impress Pip, or is it Dickens's own wishfulfilment to turn the 'new' Estella
into a gratuitous mixture of the old, sexually attractive Estella and the
dependable Biddy
- 58 -
