Perhaps because "Great Expectations" was serialized, Dickens often has his narrator, Pip, end sections with almost jounal-like reflections. For example, at the end of Pip's first visit to meet Miss Havisham and Estella, Pip reflects,
That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been...[This day was] the formation of the first link...
At the end of the First Stage, Pip records his feelings regarding his parting from Joe and Biddy to London:
I walked away at a good pace, thinking it was easier to go than I had supposed it would be. The village was very peaceful and quiet, and all beyond was so unknown and great that in a moment with a strong heave and sob I broke into tears. I was better after I had cried than before--more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle....And the mists had all solemnly risen now, and the world lay spread before me.
From this world "spread" before him, Pip learns to forgive Miss Havisham for having made Estella so heartless: "I want forgiveness and direction far too much to be bitter with you." From Magwitch Pip learns that goodness can come from the wretched of the world. In gratitude Pip tells the Magwitch, "I will never stir from your side...I will be as true to you as you have been to me." Pip's gratitude extends to Herbert:
We owed so much to Herbert's ever cheerful industry...that I often wondered how I had conceived that old ideas of his inaptitude, until I was one day enlightened...that perhaps the inaptitude had never been in him at all, but had been in me.
And, of course, Pip returns to the forge to give Joe his "penitent remonstrance.
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