Contents: introduction chapter. I about Charles dickens biography

2.2. The World of Desire vs. The World of Guilt
Pip’s feelings of guilt come to a climax when Magwitch enters his life for a second time. When Magwitch returns, Pip is forced to face the reality of his new life. He finally finds out that his benefactor is not Miss Havisham but Magwitch. Added to his feelings of loss and guilt is the "task .a fairy godmother by an escaped convict; or . . . the world of desire by the world of guilt" [Trotter x]. Pip realizes that Magwitch has provided for him without asking for anything in return. When he believed that Miss Havisham was his benefactor, he thought that he was part of a grand plan that would end in his marrying Estella and keeping her away from the isolated life that Miss Havisham has led. It was difficult for Pip to understand why Magwitch would work so hard to make him a gentleman. Pip was scared of Magwitch and he wanted to get as far away from him as possible at first. However, in the end, Pip realized that even though Magwitch had committed many crimes, he was a good man at heart. He grew to love this man who was his “second father” . Dickens places Pip in a world layered with guilt in Great Expectations to show the reader the effect that environment has on development. The reader watches Pip’s journey through a life that began with an uneducated boy in a blacksmith’s forge and ended with a man who had become a true gentleman. By making Pip a gentleman with a convict as his benefactor, "Great Expectations maintains that the upper-class world of the gentleman is implicated in the criminal domain of the underclass, and that the relationship between the two, far from being mutually exclusive, is redolent of complicity and interdependence" [Morgentaler 4]. Through his journey, Pip learns that in this interdependent world a true gentleman is not found by climbing up the social ladder but by looking into a person’s heart. Through Pip’s development in a world of guilt, Dickens shows the reader that the "issues of a young man’s rise or fall are conceived as a drama of the individual conscience; enlightenment [partial or best] is to be found only in the agony of personal guilt"Great Expectations has impelled various kinds of evaluations from different critics using an array of critical approaches. In this study, the researchers are keen on applying "the psychoanalytical theory whose progress has had an enormous impact on literary criticism" . The authors [Saoudi, et al., 2021] maintain that psychoanalytic criticism could be approached in many ways including laying the focus on the way Dickens's own life impacted his work, on the readers' psychological identification with the characters in the novel, on the relationships between a character and society, and/or on the psychoanalytic analysis of one or more characters. The current study focuses on the last approach. A number of studies, mentioned in Saoudi, et al. [2021], have analyzed Great Expectations from psychoanalytic perspectives. One of the reasons is that the novel "enters the abyss of Pip’s inner self" [Bloom, 2010, p. 1]. In "Great Expectations: 'The Ghost of a Man's Own Father'" [1976], Dessner examines the multifaceted relationship between Dickens, the dreamer and Pip, his dream. Brooks [1980] explores Great Expectations using the concept of repetition in Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle. In "Repressions in Great Expectations" [2004], Lehman scrutinizes the novel for the ways "repressed feelings, thoughts, and actions offer greater depth of meaning to the plot and its characters" [para. 1]. In "The Superego, Narcissism and Great Expectations" [2008] Ingham sheds light on the ways narcissism may be perceived as a product of the superego. Tyler [2011] probes the "delineation of Pip’s future-oriented psychology" and defines "Pip’s feelings of uncertainty about the future" [p. 1]. Reynolds [2015] examines Pip and Estella's love relationship and the way they "have resolved some of their maladaptive psychology" [2015, para 8]. Freud's basic psychoanalytic notions of the id, ego and superego have not been fully investigated in relation to the theme of love in Great Expectations. Hence, it is crucial to address the gap and probe Pip's psyche using basic Freudian jargon. Pip falls in love with Estella from first sight and continues to love her until the end of the novel, admitting that every day she grows more and more a part of his thoughts [Dickens, 1861, Chap. 12]. Estella, meaning star, is a "very pretty" and "very proud" girl [Chap. 8, p. 96]. She also studied abroad and developed sophisticated manners [Chap. 29]. Besides, the older she gets, the more beautiful she becomes, and the more fascinated and charmed Pip becomes [Chap. 29]. He spends his time fantasizing about her [Chap. 19]. He grows even fonder of her after she returns from France a gorgeous woman [Chap. 29]. He convinces himself that Miss Havisham has adopted both him and Estella to raise them to be married to each other. He mistakenly understands the great expectations supposedly offered him by Miss Havisham as meaning that after Estella has retaliated against the male gender, her hand would be given him in marriage by the old lady as a reward [Chap. 38]. This is driven by the fact that Miss Havisham talks excitedly to Pip about Estella, inciting him to "love her, love her" even if she perseveres in breaking his heart [Chap. 29, p. 425]. She states that real love ought to be like hers, "blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the whole world, giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter - as I did!" [Chap. 29, pp. 425-426]. Soon Pip's motivations become wholly determined by Miss Havisham's stimulation and Estella's outlook, his only concern being to have the latter look up to him [Chap. 14] In Chapter 33, Pip expresses his confidence that if he lives with Estella forever that would mean ultimate happiness for him. He already imagines himself and Estella residing at the Manor House with its windows flung open widely all around welcoming the sunshine and breeze in [Chap. 29]. In Richmond, he visualizes how blissful he would be if he lived with Estella [Chap. 32]. Pip has a great affection for Estella but is not aware of the extent of his love. He does not comprehend how evident his fascination with her is to others. When he tells Herbert about his love for Estella, he is shocked to hear that Herbert was already aware of it [Chap. 30]. His love for her proves to be genuine as he prioritizes her happiness over his own. [Chap. 44]. Even after she had been married to, ill-treated, and divorced by her now deceased husband, Pip still desires to return to the Satis House to ruminate about her In fact, Pip loves Estella in spite of all cautions and warnings. He himself declares that he "loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be" [Chap. 29, p. 411]. Even when Estella warns him that she has no heart, "I have no softness there, no - sympathy - sentiment - nonsense," Pip refuses to believe her [Chap. 29, p. 421]. She wants him to "take warning" of her feelings but he insists she does not mean it [Chap. 38, p. 475]. And Even when he discovers her relation to convict Magwitch, his love and respect for the young lady never wavers [Chap. 30]. Other people might show neutrality towards Estella, but not Pip. He is troubled by the contrast between Mr. Jaggers' "cold presence" and his own earnest feelings for Estella [Chap. 29, p. 431]. Mr. Jaggers disregards her and pays no attention to her beauty. Yet, for Pip, Estella is "part of his existence, part of [him]self" [Chap. 44, p. 646]. Pip's Actions Besides being expressed through his feelings, Pip's deep unrequited love for Estella is also articulated through his actions. He perseveres, makes sacrifices, and blindly complies with Estella's values. For Estella's sake, and for almost eight months, Pip accepts to push Miss Havisham in a wheelchair from her room to the hall and back [Chap. 12]. He also kneels in front of Miss Havisham and kisses her hand [Chap. 19]. When he is far distanced from Estella, he exploits every opportunity to journey back to meet her [Chap. 28 and 43]. Impatient and restless to see Estella, he arrives at the coach station five hours ahead of her arrival. [Chap. 32] When, in Chap. 44, he eventually breaks down and confesses his love for Estella and she rejects him, he never gives up until the end. Towards the end of the novel, and even though he knows Estella got married to Drummle, he revisits the Satis House to recall his memories with the girl who jilted him [Chap. 59]. Pip also declares that he is bent on becoming a gentleman for Estella's sake, dreaming of being acceptable and loved by her [Chap. 17]. That is why he refrains from identifying with Joe's "uncommon" ethics, focused as he has become on Estella's attitudes and standards by which he will abide for a long time [Chap. 9]. His goals and values change with his infatuation with Estella. He soon grows dissatisfied with the life that "was all coarse and common" even though it had made him happy before meeting Estella [Chap. 14, p. 188]. He starts studying autonomously and strains to share his education with Joe in the hope of instructing him out of commonness so that he "might be worthier of my society and less vulnerable to Estella's reproach" [Chap. 15, p. 193]. Pip openly declares to Biddy his displeasure with his work at the forge and his ambition to be a gentleman so that Estella stops deriding his commonness [Chap. 17]. When he returns to the village in Chapter 28, he avoids the forge and stays at the Blue Boar to satisfy Estella. He does not waver about not visiting Joe, knowing he would fall out of favor with his beloved [Chap. 29]. He "necessarily" and not only "naturally" cuts off all connections with his past "companions" for the only sake of Estella . Pip, of course, does not want the career that had seemed to him as a small child the most desirable one in the world. Now he likens the ceremony of being bound apprentice to being had up as a criminal, and goes on to describe the scene in the Town Hall when Pumblechook pushes him forward 'exactly as if I had that moment picked a pocket or fired a rick' [p.132]. Again there is an implied criminality and in fact Pip hears people ask, 'What's he done?'. In the recounting of his life story Pip often makes such personal associations with criminality, as iffor that first act of combined charity/theft when he stole food for the convict he remains convicted yet unpunished. As they leave the court after his indentures are signed, they have to get rid of a crowd ofboys 'who had been put into great spirits by the expectation ofseeing me publicly tortured, and who were much disappointed' [p.133]. In contrast with this public, anticipated form of punishment Pip's private agonies are strong and powerful, and he analyses them: How much ofmy ungracious condition of mind may have been my own fault, how much Miss Havisbam's, how much my sister's, is now of no moment to me or to anyone. The change was made in me; the thing was done. Well or ill done, excusably or inexcusably, it was done. [pp.l34-5] He has here named his two female enemies [loving EsteIia, he omits her] and the tone of bitter resignation suggests that Pip's changed state, his indentured condition, is a form of imprisonment, an exile from all he sees as desirable: that object ofsexuality and upper class status, Estella. When Dolge Orlick is introduced into the narrative Philip Pirrip, from an adult perspective, pronounces that the name 'Dolge' is 'a clear impossibility' [p.139] - just as the character too is a clear impossibility. His presence in the novel defies the usual moralistic pattern of classic realist texts. Despite the disturbing crimes of violence Dolge commits, he remains, oddly and uncharacteristically in Dickensian fiction, unpunished. In 1960 Julian Moynahan suggested that Orlick in fact is Pip's dark side, that he is 'a monstrous caricature of the tender-minded hero' ,11 a sort of Mr Hyde to Pip's Dr Jekyll, administering the revenge Pip yearns for and then dispensing the punishment Pip feels he deserves. And as recently as 1986 Jeremy Tambling in examining the relationship between Di~kens' writing and Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish, acknowledges his debt to Moynahan's article.l2 Orlick is distinguished by the epithet 'slouching' and is described as 'broad-shouldered, loose-limbed and swarthy' [p.I40]. lbis description could also include Bentley Drummlehe and Orlick are intriguingly similar both in appearance and habits. And Drummle, like Orlick, is empowered by the novel to carry out revenge on yet another wom~ who has treated Pip with violence. As Moynahan points out, both characters are like instruments of vengeance enacting the aggression that Pip, as hero and putative gentleman, is prevented from carrying out himself. Mrs Joe is the first ofthe violent women in Great Expectations to be punished, violently. She has created a terrible scene screaming abuse at Orlick in the smithy, and the narrator, recalling this scene, adds: I must remark of my sister, what is equally true of all the violent women I have ever seen, that passion was no excuse for her, because it is undeniable that instead of lapsing into passion, she consciously and deliberately took extraordinary pains to force herself into it, and became blindly furious by regularstages. [p.142] lbis comment is interesting on two counts. It suggests that Pip has had many encounters with violent women, but more sinisterly suggests that such violence is performance, that rage is deliberately simulated to create effect and to cause confusion and upheaval. Placed together, Pip's two observations could suggest that he believes many women, in the quest for some power, of any form, take on the undeniably negative and unpleasant roles of termagant and·harridan - as Joe has said earlier to Pip, 'I don't deny that your sister comes the Mo-gul over us' [p.79]. The outcome of Mrs Joe's eruption ofrage is that J~ flattens Orlick; but nevertheless both Pip and Orlick obtain the halfholiday Joe had promised and to which Mrs Joe had so violently objected. Mrs Joe has committed an extraordinary and flagrant trespass. She has shifted from her own sphere, the house, into the forge, Joe's workplace 'where Joe is master, and her punishment follows quickly. On his way home that same evening Pip agrees to turn aside with Mr Wopsle into Pumblechook's and to take part in a reading of George Lillo's tragedy George Barnwell. First produced in 1731, this popular and very violent play was still being staged in Dickens' time. What is strange here is that Pip takes on the role ofthe murderer, and says: Even after I was happily hanged and Wopsle had closed the book, Pumblechook sat staring at me, and shaking his head, and saying, 'Take warning, boy, take warning!' as if it were a well-known fact that I Contemplated murdering a near relation. [p.145] On his return home Pip discovers that his sister has been brutally attacked: lying without sense or movement on the bare boards where she had been knocked down by a tremendous blow on the back of the head, dealt by some unknown hand when her'face was turned towards the ftre - destined never to be on the Rampage again. [p.147] The word 'Rampage' reminds the reader of this woman's character and effectively eliminates any sympathy for her condition. Moreover it is here, at this dramatic moment, when Pip has just played the part of a murderer of a near relation, that Dickens ends the week's instalment of the serial - as only Dickens knew how - with his readers wondering if Pip couId have possibly committed the crime - and thus ensuring sales for the next issue. In the next instalment Pip also makes a very incriminating statement: 'I was at first disposed to believe that I must have had some hand in the attack upon my sister' [p.147], and states he believes himself to be a 'more legitimate object of suspicion than anyone else'. Pip too, as it turns out, has provided the weapon, the leg-iron sawn from Magwitch's leg so long ago with the file little Pip brought him from the forge. Nowhere in the text is Pip's propensity for guilt more strongly indicated than here, and although he soon accuses Orlick of the crime, that peculiar self-accusation remains intermixed with the other, confirming Moynahan's reading of Orlick as Pip's alter ego, as does the final encounter between Pip and Orlick. So intriguing is this, the reader might well overlook the happy change in Mrs Joe. Violence has rendered her a passive human being, and although her mind and hearing are irretrievably impaired, her temper is greatly improved and Joe is able to appreciate the greater quiet of his life [p.150] which is now truly domestically ideal. The harridan and termagant has been effectively silenced. What is more Mrs Joe continually asks for Orlick, showing 'every possible desire to conciliate him, and there was an air of humble propitiation in all she did' [p.15!]. She seems here to be seeking the forgiveness of her attacker, a form ofself-oppression in which she continually acknowledges the man who found the means to control and restrain her. She has 'the bearing of a child towards a hard master' [p.151] Pip tells us, perhaps recalling instinctively his own bearing towards his sister's 'hard and heavy' regime. Perhaps it is because Orlick has brought about this long-desired social improvement that he is never punished for the violent assault on Mrs Joe.