Great Expectations Response - Two Sided Wimerick
There's a time for work and there's a time for play and in the novel, Great Expectations, Wemmick, a clerk for a dignitary lawyer, knows this well. At work he has this seriousness about him. He has to collect money, sometimes taking their jewelry that was from their late loved one, yet when he comes home he looses that seriousness. In the book Dickens had said that Pip even saw Wemmick's face loosen when he stepped into his house, becoming happy and kind.
The theme of the novel is to love, and be loved by another, and Wemmick illustrates the love of escapism. He works all day at a job that he doesn't like that much, but when he comes home he becomes a totally different person -- a fun and caring person.
Great Expectations Response II - Quote Response
Imagine growing up as a small, innocent child in the lower classes of Victorian England, only destined to be what your parents are, and then there were the children with no parents, no one to love them, no one to take care of them. Pip was one of those children, the kind with no parents, though he did have his sister, Mrs. Joe, and her husband, Joe, to care for him, even then he was destined only to apprentice Joe when Pip came to age. After apprenticing for Joe for a short time, Pip received an anonymous benefactor, later discovering the identity as the convict, Abel Magwitch, that Pip had met in his early years on the street in England. This benefactor wanted him to move to London and learn how to become a gentlemen, which Pip did; it was his chance to move up in society. While in London, Pip changed. He lost his innocence and replaced it with ignorance, and surely proved to everyone that he was arrogant.
When Joe came to visit Pip in London he told him, “Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings welded together, as I may say, and one man’s a blacksmith, and one’s a whitesmith, and one’s a goldsmith, and one’s a coppersmith. Diwisions among such must come and must be met as they come.” (pg.223)Even though Joe came all the was to London to tell Pip this, Pip didn't listen until Joe continued on bringing up Estella, a cold-hearted, higher-class woman that Pip had been infatuated with when he was young, yet she only looked down on him because of Joe, but by now Pip's infatuation with her had grown to real love, and yet again she turned him down. As Joe continued and he could tell that Pip was troubled by his presence and Joe left before Pip could regain his self. Later on, Pip's darkness and guilt envelopes his life, his guilt for ignoring one of the most valuable people in his life because of his arrogance for the lower class and his ignorance to his family.
Great Expectations Response III
Home -- a place of comfort and love, yet young Pip doesn't seem to have those feelings about his home. His sister, who basically raised him, treats him rudely, getting out the tickler to hit him with when he doesn't come home. She told him that people that don't ask questions are told no lies when he asked her husband, Joe, questions about hulks. His sister had also said that the criminals who end up on hulks start out asking questions and then they begin stealing, and murdering people. After she had said this Pip had thought to himself that he would end up on a hulk because he was asking questions and he was going to steal from Mrs. Joe to feed the hungry criminal. Mrs. Joe had sent him to bed after that and Pip felt scared going up to his room -- a feeling children should never have in their own home. As for Mrs. Joe's husband, Pip and him had an odd relationship. Dickens had stated that Pip felt as if they were both equals compared to Joe being a higher authority figure. Joe and Pip often acted as if they were both young brothers. The relationship between Joe and Mrs. Joe isn't any better either. Mrs. Joe had grabbed Joe by the shirt and had knocked him around because he wouldn't respond to her question. This really struck me as an unhealthy household.
Great Expectations Response IV - Final
In the novel, Great Expectations, Charles Dickens represents the theme, love, through his many characters. Dolge Orlick has a stoney evil binding his soul; a man full of rage and jealousy, and a man who portrays the theme as the love to hurt others.
Orlick was first introduced in the novel while Pip was working as Joe's apprentice. This disgusting man had lived in a sluice house and was in charge of cleaning the sluice gates. This symbolism of death, since in that time period many animals would die and be put into rivers and carried down stream to be caught in a sluice gate. At Joe's forge Orlick had made Pip's life quite unpleasant while he worked for Joe. He had once told Pip that the Devil was living in one of the corners of the forge which terrified the innocent boy. He had done this for the pure joy of scaring Pip, having no remorse for his actions: an evil and oafish man.
Soon after Pip's encounter with Orlick at the forge Mrs.Joe was attacked and brain damaged. While Pip was on his way home from Havisham's one day he noticed Orlick lurking in the shadows. Upon arriving home he learned of Mrs.Joe and Orlick fight that took place about Orlick taking a holiday, and shortly after that she was struck in the head becoming brain damaged and later on leading to her death. Orlick had took his rage out on Mrs.Joe almost killing her, yet they did not find this out until later in the novel when Orlick almost kills Pip. This scene in which Orlick attempts murdering Pip takes place in the misty marshes, he admits to killing Mrs.Joe, then blaming Pip for coming between him a young girl, and now feels that it is time for his revenge. This man, so revengeful, so evil, loving to hurt others almost takes Pip's life, but Pip's friends save him.
How could a man be that evil? How could he like to hurt others? Orlick had the rage and jealousy as his motives and his drinking and love for hurting people only fueled it, and it didn't help the situations when Orlick became more violent with his victims. Our world has many violent people, even those like Orlick with rage and jealousy, as well as alcoholism, and sometimes they can't be helped.
