·
When Pip goes Satis House he learns he is ‘a
common labouring boy’. Henceforth the dominant purpose in his life will be toe
become a gentleman and win Estella. Money seems to buy him the status of a
gentleman. When he is about to leave the forge, his new clothes bring new
respect from Trabb and Pumblechook but not from those who love him.
·
In time
he learns the superficial habits of a gentleman, but he doesn’t behave in a
gentlemanly way when Joe visits him in London or when Trabb’s boy mocks him on
his return to the town.
·
Herbert pocket and his father have the tactful
instinct of gentlemen, even when they are quite poor, while Drummle is a stupid,
cruel man, though he is clearly a gentleman in social terms.
·
Dickens shows us that the life of a ‘brought-up London
gentleman’, can be idle and dissipated, corrupting Pip’s better instincts.
·
Dickens further develops this theme through Magwitch's
hatred of Compeyson, who is a gentleman in style but the source of so much evil
in the book.
·
In contrast, Joe is an instinctively gentle man
although he can deal with the evil Orlick or the bullying Jaggers if he has to.
His humane response to Magwitch on the marshes contrasts markedly with cruelty
and oppression around him. He may look absurd in his Sunday clothes but Pip’s
recognition of him as ‘a gentle Christian man’ marks Pip’s moral regeneration
and escape from false gentility.
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