Great Expectations Quote Analysis

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Throughout the novel, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Pip’s childhood encounters with Miss Havisham and her entrancing daughter, Estella, continue to cloud his judgment, choices, and overall perspective on life. Soon after Pip inherits his fortune from an unknown benefactor, he mentally deserts Joe and Biddy, his only family, to become a gentleman. Without attempt to create a balance between his new and old life, he accepts his fortune, leaves home, and prepares to win his prize, his one true love and consuming obsession, Estella. Pip lives in an illusion of destiny and promised wealth, ultimately separating him from his loved ones, ruining his chances of happiness, and silently crushing his dreams of true moral and literal affluence. Betimes in the morning I was up and out. It was too early yet to go to Miss Havisham's, so I loitered into the country on Miss Havisham's side of town - which was not Joe's side; I could go there tomorrow- thinking about my patroness, and painting brilliant pictures of her plans for me. She had adopted Estella, she had as good as adopted me, and it could not fail to be her intention to bring us together. She reserved it for me to restore the desolate house, admit the sunshine into the dark rooms, set the clocks a-going and the cold hearths a-blazing, tear down the cobwebs, destroy the vermin - in short, do all the shining deeds of the young Knight of romance, and marry the Princess.” (223) Pip’s attitude in this passage, while ironic to readers who know the true identity of his benefactor, Provis, illustrates Pip’s fixation on this fantasy life and his disillusionment from a young age. Pip portrays himself as foolish and misguided by obsessing over a woman who makes him feel miserable, and visiting a ragged old woman who longs for the heartbreak of men everywhere. In reality, Miss Havisham and Estella play minute roles
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