Love in Great Expectations

Love, as much as any other theme or motif, drives the storyline of Dickens’ Great Expectations.

As the naturalists of the era believe, characters are the products of their circumstances, and so Great Expectations is an exploration into the psychology of a young boy, based on the circumstances into which he is placed. Pip, the protagonist, is motivated by love, the love of a young girl named Estella. However, while he tirelessly pursues Estella, another young girl, Biddy, expresses her affection for him. Everything that Estella is, Biddy is not; Estella is cold and indifferent, while Biddy is warm and supportive. Estella represents an idea of perfection for Pip, who makes his entire raison d’être to win her affections. To this end, he ignores Biddy, whose love is a constant in his life.

In Dickens’ Great Expectations, Pip’s idealization and love of Estella blinds him to the love that he could attain with Biddy. This blindness is caused by Pip’s misperceptions of the dichotomy between Biddy’s and Estella’s personal qualities.Estella and Pip’s love is based on a total idolization of Estella. Ever since Pip’s first meeting with her, it was clear that she represented perfection in his eyes. Estella treated him horribly; she never responded to his advances and blatantly flirted with other men in his presence.

She insulted him, from their very first interaction; however, Pip chose to misinterpret her rudeness. Instead of concluding that she was not the right match for him, he became determined that he must elevate himself, in order to win her. He started with the misconceived notion that Estella resided on some sort of lofty pedestal. He, for the first time in his life, questioned his existence, as he said,“I took the opportunity of being alone in the courtyard to look at my coarse hands and my common boots. My opinion of those accessories was not favorable.

They had never troubled me before, but they troubled me now, as vulgar appendages. I determined to ask Joe why he had ever taught me to call those picture-cards Jacks, which ought to be called knaves. I wished Joe had been rather more genteelly brought up, and then I should have been so too.” (62)Estella then proceeded to dehumanize Pip by bringing him bread and meat on a rock.

Her cruel gesture brought the young boy to tears. Despite this blatant denigration, Pip is only momentarily discouraged. Pip blindly devoted his life to winning Estella, without realizing that Biddy’s loving heart was accessible to him.Biddy loved Pip before he became a gentleman. Biddy was kind and gentle, and always did the responsible thing. Despite Pip’s immaturity and his own cruel treatment of Biddy, their potential for a great relationship was embedded in the text, “I reposed complete confidence in no one but Biddy; but, I told poor Biddy everything.

Why it came natural to me to do so, and why Biddy had a deep concern in everything I told her, I did not know then, though I think I know now.” (132) Pip was almost oblivious to Biddy’s love for him, until it was too late. A short time after their kiss, he found that she had married Joe. Pip’s misperception of Biddy was governed largely by her class- Estella represented the upper class, and Pip’s “new” life as a gentleman, while Biddy represented Pip’s “old”, “common” life.

Part of Pip’s constant decision of Estella over Biddy could be explained by the fact that Biddy was always available, while Estella remained unattainable. Like her name, Estella was almost a “star”, beautiful to look at, but much too far to reach. Biddy, on the other hand, was accessible to Pip, almost willing to do his “bidding” regardless of Pip’s social standing or class. She was so pure, that even by the end of the novel, when she could have had Pip or Herbert, she chose Joe, showing that class was irrelevant to her. This dichotomy between Biddy and Estella was painfully apparent to Pip, with Estella choosing Bentley Drummle and settling into an abusive marriage, despite her lack of feelings for him.Pip and Estella do share one fundamental thing in common; they are both fundamentally dysfunctional when it comes to love.

Despite having the option of Biddy, Pip chose masochistically to pursue Estella. Estella, because of her rearing in the home of Miss Havisham, matures without a heart. However, while some might say that Estella is simply toying with Pip the entire time, it is possible that Estella does truly love Pip. As she says, she has no heart, but she lets Pip know that she doesn’t tease him as she does all other men.

However, by the end of the novel, it is hinted that she and Pip might have a healthy love after all. Estella says, “Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching… I have been bent and broken, but—I hope—into a better shape.” (451) Estella and Pip’s mutual dysfunction may give their love a chance, after both have grown and matured, in the context of their Great Expectations.