Pip Flashcards
1
Q
How does Dickens show Pip’s view of identity and self-perception? (2)
A
- “As i recovered consciousness, i knew that i was in the place I had lost it”
- denotes Pip’s recovery from fainting, but can also relate to Victorian ideas of identity; this place could also be said to be where he lost his “consciousness” in terms of his sense of self, and also where he regained it. - “I could not separate his voice from these voices”
- Mag’s arrival made Pip lose his “self-possession” causing a kind of ‘identity dysphoria’ in which he makes the haunting realization that he finds himself uncannily similar to Magwitch
2
Q
How does Dickens show Pip’s view of family? (4)
A
Through the motif of hands.
- “I feel the loving tremble of your hand…as if it had been the rustle of an angel’s wing!”
- religious imagery with character extremes. Depicts Joe as a messenger of God that conveys the message of moral goodness as opposed to moral evil. His hand is kind here, and carries a gentle strength. - ”..his hand might be stained with blood” - justifies Pip’s fear, meeting him as a child in the Gothic dreams cape that his child mind conjured up may have been traumatizing.
- “Both my hands were burnt”
- fire has connotations of purification, so the fire coming out to “consume” M.H could be interpreted as an attempt to cleanse her of her hatred and desire for revenge. Pip’s burns must then signify an attempt at purification too. Hands has been a common motif, Joe’s hands carried a gentle strength, Mag’s hands were stained with blood, but Pip’s were burned, perhaps in the sense that M.H’s actions have scalded him, and that the emotional scars she caused have manifested into tangible and long-lasting physical scars. It could also mean that her death has caused his rebirth as fire is also associated with those themes, making Pip something akin to a phoenix. - “I felt his hand tremble as it held mine”
- described Joe as having a trembling hand too; signifies his acceptance of Magwitch as his second father
