Great Expectations Essay

Of all the ways to love, the characters in the book, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, distort and twist love until it becomes something else – almost unrecognizable. Although not all of the characters fail while trying to pursue love, most here have failed miserably, but when their faults have been identified, it was already too late. They could not ever make up for what they had done in the past, but one thing could relieve them from their suffering, if they only had known of this one term. Forgiveness, the one word that could have solved their problems, eased over the conflicts and could have had power to repair the past, but they knew not of such a thing. They all were sure they knew exactly what they were looking for, and all searched in different ways, but without forgiveness as a torch to lead your way and brighten your path through the darkest of nights, you are lost, and that pure love is impossible to find in the murky shadows that will cloud your way.
Forgiveness was apart of Joe’s everyday life, something he would never think twice about, because that was who he was. No one ever knew a kinder or gentler man, and innocence was written all over Joe as well. There was no one that Joe wouldn’t forgive, no matter the man’s wrong doings or reasoning. A criminal had eaten his family’s Christmas minced meat pie, but Joe was the farthest thing from upset, “We don’t know what you have done, but we wouldn’t want you starved for it… would us, Pip?” (Pg. 38) Purified by the fires of the forge, he knows how to separate good judgment from bad, divide the just from the unjust. Like a crucible works, separating the good gold from the scraps of metal and dirt that try to mix in. Joe stands for good Christian morals and a family love; Pip isn’t his own child, but he treats him like a son, the sweetest care and a most pure love. Pip doesn’t know forgiveness like Joe, even after living with him for 15 years he doesn’t know the meaning of forgiveness. If Joe, easily once, found room in his heart to forgive a criminal of his evils, then Pip should have no problems with coming back to Joe and asking for forgiveness for his stubbornness. Pip just doesn’t understand what forgiveness is. He could climb up to Joe’s door with just the clothes on his back, bottomed out broke and completely homeless and Joe would welcome him in warmly, but instead Pip chooses to suffer by himself, hoping the payments will all be made and hoping he will make it through the harsh winter, now alone, by the dying fire.
Herbert stayed with Pip as long as he could, but eventually he had to leave him. Building not only a sweet and charming love with Clara but he built a strong and steady brotherly love with Pip. Herbert was able to withstand Pip’s dreadful attitude; he stayed as the ultimate friend to Pip through thick and thin, keeping the gates on the bridge of their friendship open and the beams secure. Pip overlooked this bridge. He never found its full meaning, for he was too focused on what lay below the bridge where Miss Havisham and Estella were summoning him down. This image was what Pip was always edging towards, the one below the bridge, and always overlooked the opened gates leading to the bridge itself.
The path that led to Estella was a long jagged cliff downward, but Pip couldn’t see any of those aspects in his journey to her. He only saw the bright shining light that was beckoning him down, like a moth is attracted to a candle. The moth will always fly to the candle, for it wants the fire. Though the moth knows that the candle can do no good to him, he flies on anyway and the results are always the same, a burnt moth like the burnt heart. None of this is done by accident. It is sick to think that someone would purposely play with so many people’s hearts, and without the gratification of Miss Havisham, Estella would not be the woman she is today, and without Estella, many more men’s hearts would not be shattered and their positions in such disarray. Miss Havisham had Estella to get back at men, so Estella was just her shining star that was supposed to solve all her problems, all her angers, mend all her heartbreaks, but the whole plan led to more disappointment and broken hearts because Miss Havisham is lingering in the past. She knows not the phrase, “forgive and forget”, and she is still waiting for the one who broke her heart to come back and beg for her forgiveness, but the reality is, that after all this time, that will never ever happen. Staying hidden from the sun and the truth of this reality will not help her in any way, but she hides just the same and waits each day in a hope for the man to come, and still refuses to move on. Her dry wedding cake will stay dry and rotting, her deteriorating yellow wedding dress will stay yellow and deteriorating, and her negative approach will stay negative and possibly worsen, but all this waiting will amount to nothing; she’s stuck in these ruts forever until she changes or until she dies. Years and years have gone by wasted, and now in the blink of an eye, her life is close to ending, but she cannot forgive an age-old mistake and a scheming young man. With Estella’s actions from Old Havisham’s teachings all she will end up with is more broken hearts, formed the same way her was made. Learn from Havisham’s mistakes; if we are not especially careful, we can become the thing we utmost despise. Miss Havisham is the ideal example. “Sharper teeth than the teeth of mice have gnawed at me.” (Pg. 87) But by doing what she has done, she has just created a whole other set of teeth that have gnawed at the hearts of many, many men. Her actions here have not only ruined her life, but have soiled the lives of others – especially Estella.
Estella is a victim in Miss Havisham’s dying little hands, and was raised in such an unloving circumstance. Whatever anyone grows up around is what they are going to be when they are older, so now that Estella has walked this cruel path for so long, she knows no other way. If all one can do is break hearts, relations with people in general can never be good. Estella had no friends, she had no love, she had no life; she had Miss Havisham, but Miss Havisham was all she had. Havisham always worked through Estella. Estella had no choices in her life; she was barely her own person. “You should know I am what you have made me. Take all the praise, take all the blame, take all the success, take all the failure; in short take me.” (Pg. 305) Estella by now had thrown her life away because of the mistakes of another. If Miss Havisham could have learned how to forgive earlier than she had, this all could be avoided. The conflict that she had forgiven was much less complex than the one on her wedding day, but she learned her lesson far too late. At least she wasn’t ridiculously oblivious to the fact that forgiveness existed like Pip, though. Pip was never able to forgive himself. He is his own enemy because of his past mistakes and his insecurities. Forgiveness is truly the hardest concept of all for Pip, and he knows, “my life has been a blind and thankless one.”
Blind is correct – ever so blind to the obvious in front of him. Pip’s whole life he had Biddy there with him, but he chose to chase after the money, the beauty, the heartbreak. Beauty, money and power only shadow an ugly soul for so long, but Estella had a crippling hold on his heart, and Pip never wanted to escape it. Biddy on the other hand was the opposite of Estella. She had not the money, the power or the infinite beauty that Estella possessed, but she had a beautiful soul that could always show through her rougher exterior. Pip knows Biddy is a better woman and that Estella should be nothing to him, but he is convinced that no matter how hard he tries he will never be able to leave Estella out of his life. There is no persuading the “love”-struck, for they will not follow your guidance. Pip believes he is in love, yet he should know that he doesn’t know what love feels like, for he hasn’t gotten a taste of it all. His whole life, he has only liked one person. He even once confessed that he should love Biddy, and years later when he finally makes the decision to settle for Biddy, it is too late. Now the only two women in his life are married, and Pip is lost and has lost all meaning to his life, alone in a cold reality of realization. Nothing was ever his and he will never belong to anyone. At such a low point one thinks, “What is there left to live for?”
Apart from Joe and Biddy, and Herbert and Clara, the characters in this book had really made life hard for themselves. Miss Havisham has wrecked many people’s lives through a beautiful girl with the highest of expectations. Those expectations are now crashed with her own broken heart, after breaking so many others. Pip had Biddy all along, but he kept her waiting and waiting. She could have belonged to him, but he stayed blind to the evident love waiting for him, until many years later when the opportunities had passed and she was gone. It took him many, many years to see it – many, many years too late. Love is the foundation of life, something we long for and search for, grieve for and pray for, but love doesn’t come without forgiveness. When we cannot forgive another – or even ourselves – we can find ourselves lost in love’s maze, and in searching if one does not come upon the end soon enough, it may be too late. A true love will only come our way once in our lifetime, so make sure the disability to not forgive isn’t getting in the way of you and such dreams of a love to be fulfilled.