My heart really goes out to Pip. On top of his home issues and strange convicts he now has to deal with Miss Havisham and Estella. Estella is arrogant and thinks herself so much better than the "commoner" that Pip is. Yet is she really better than Pip? Even if we assume she is related to Miss Havisham, she is still not a member of the aristocracy, and somehow I get the feeling that she is not as privileged as she has made herself out to be. She is as rude as they come and I want to smack her across the head. I felt like crying when Pip started to weep!
Miss Havisham seems like a total creeper. Why does she want to watch them play? Does she enjoy watching Estella belittle Pip? She is so sick. I just imagine her saying "I want to watch you play" and I get freaked out. I wonder if she's a child predator. She does have that whole thing with broken hearts, though, and she's still wearing her wedding gown. Does she want Pip to care about Estella, even though the brat shoots him down all the time? It's a messed up situation.
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| The pompous little brat (from Great Expectations: Masterpiece) |
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| The creepy spinster (from Great Expectations: Masterpiece) |
Not going to lie, Miss Havisham creeped me out so much. All I could picture was a shrivled up old woman in a one room basement. In the dark. "Playing" with kids. I seriously almost could not read the part with her and Pip, she freaked me out THAT much. However, I pushed through and read it anyways. This did not stop me from thinking about child predators, like you said Shruthi, because that's what I imagine her to be like.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that bothered me was how excited Mrs. Joe and Pumblechook got when they were setting up this play date. Where does Mrs. Joe get off in thinking that she will get anything out of the high class relationship (if it goes anywhere, which I doubt).
ReplyDeleteMrs. Havisham honestly makes me want to throw up! She is like someone in a nightmare that I might have had that causes me to wake up feeling sick. She is disturbing in how she forces joy into others because she can't acheive it herself. Obviously Estella has grown up that way by the way she treats Pip. It's sad that Pip is so influenced by such a mean girl. It reminds me of school with people trying to fit in with the popular crowd even though the popular crowd are usually not the best company.
ReplyDeleteMrs. Joe and Pumblechook think they can benefit off of Pip's sudden popularity with the wealthy. Pumblechook wants credit for setting up the alliance and Mrs. Joe is an ambitious social climber. Both of them make me want to gag. Poor Pip!
ReplyDeleteAs both of you said, Miss Havisham makes me mad. There is something off in the way she manipulates Estella. It also makes me upset how Pip like Estella so much and she's a snob to him, probably because of Miss Havisham. In one part of Section 2, (around ch. 11/12) she gets really upset when she realizes Pip is growing, probably because she doesn't want Estella to develop feelings towards Pip. Wretched old woman!
I think Pip is becoming the pompous little brat now. I can almost understand why Estella acts the way she does because she was raised that way by Havisham, but I *expected* more from Pip. He was just given an opportunity that, before his head grew, he would have embraced. Now, he is being ungrateful and snotty about it. I'm disappointed with how Pip is becoming. Maybe that was Dickens plan. He wanted the reader to start with these great expectations for Pip because he seemed so pure, and now he is showing what greed can do.
ReplyDeleteI agree that I feel disappointed in Pip's mortification. At the same time, I think all of us at some point have felt a little ashamed about our heritage, or upbringing, or even our outfits!
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in elementary school (and PLEASE DON'T TELL ANYONE THIS; IT IS SO MORTIFYING HAHAHAHAHA) I thought my name was too embarrassing because it stood out. I wanted a "normal" name, the kind my peers were having. So the brilliant solution I came up with was to give myself the name of my favorite animal at the time: Dolphin. Luckily, it only stuck for about two weeks before I came to my senses!!! Looking back, it's just kind of a silly story to tell people, but if I think about it farther, I was embarrassed because I didn't like feeling different, different meaning having an Indian heritage and parents from another nation. Now I take pride in my culture but at the time I knew I shouldn't be ashamed of who I was, but I couldn't help it.
You can tell Pip knows his attitude was bad, since the story is narrated in past tense. Many times he claims that he is embarrassed that he was ashamed in many situations. Unfortunately for him, the consequences were much greater than for me.
I feel sooooo bad for Pip! He gets this great oppurtunity and everyone is ruining it for him! The way that Pumblechook and his sister only look at it in ways that will help them in society makes me sick. Just let the child do what he wants! It also makes me sad how much Estella is affecting Pip. He was so happy with his life before (well, maybe not happy...but at least happier than he is now). I just hopes that he snaps out of this mindset soon.
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