The Role of Imprisonment in Great Expectations
In the novel Great Expectations, there are many examples of imprisonment. The British world of the time placed great emphasis on crime and punishment. This resulted in great numbers of incarcerated people and a general fear of the law. Imprisonment consisted of being placed in a crowded jail or being put into a large decommissioned ship stationed off the coast. Convicts were omnipresent in Dicken’s literary world. Wherever Pip was located, there was always the presence of convicts and imprisonment. When Pip lived on the marshes he encountered Magwitch as an escaped convict for the first time. When he was in London, the presence of the Newgate prison was always a reminder of Pip’s “criminal” past. This presence of imprisonment pervades even the social and romantic components of the novel. Almost every character seems to be imprisoned by someone or something throughout the novel. There are many examples of psychological and social imprisonment in Great Expectations, but examples of it in the lives of Pip, Estella, and Magwitch are most prominent.
Estella imprisons Pip. Pip’s expectations are the results of her cold-hearted and condescending treatment of him. Pip no longer accepts himself for who he is and yearns to be the man fit for Estella. Pip’s first experience of Estella’s imprisoning effect left him feeling worthless. “..deeply revolving that I was a common labouring-boy: that my hands were coarse; that my boots were thick; that I had fallen into a despicable habit of calling knaves jacks; that I was much more ignorant than I had considered myself last night; and generally that I was in a low-lived bad way” (63). This first meeting led to Pip abandoning all that he had previously held close. Pip now considered Joe to be too unintelligent to be a satisfactory father and friend. When Pip confided with Biddy before his departure he revealed his change of heart towards Joe. “ ‘Joe is a dear good fellow – in...