THE REPRESENTATION OF CHARLES DICKENS’ LIFE AS REFLECTED IN PIP IN THE GREAT EXPECTATIONS: A BIOGRAPHICAL STUDY
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters
By
Karisma Kurniawan Wijayanto Student Number : 044214112
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTEMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2009
i ii iii It is better to be a lion for a day than a sheep all your life
(Sr. Elizabeth Kenny)
iv Imagine there‘s no heaven It’s easy if you try No hell bellows us Above us only sky
Imagine all the people Living for to day
Imagine there’s no country It’s hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religions too
Imagine all the people Living life in peace
You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one I hope some day you’ll join us, and the world believed as one
Imagine no possession I wonder if you can No need, no greed, no hungry A brotherhood of men
Imagine all the people Sharing all the world
(John Lennon)
v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my Almighty
Allah SWT who gives me the chance to enjoy this beautiful world and for all of the uncountable blessing which are given to me. I also thank Him for the excellent guidance along my way in finishing this undergraduate thesis. Then, I would thank the greatest prophet Muhammad SAW for being my ‘great tauladhan’.
I would like also express my deepest appreciation to Dewi Widyastuti, S.Pd.,
M. Hum for the time to have some consultations. I also thank her for her kindness, understanding, and the patient guidance along the writing process of this thesis.
Without her kindness, it is impossible for me to finish this thesis. I also would like to express my greatest thank to Drs. Hirmawan Wijanarka, M. Hum as the reader of my thesis and also to Adventina Putranti, S.S., M. Hum as the main examiner in my thesis defense.
Then, I would like to express my sincerest thank to my dearest family, especially for my Mom and Dad who always encourage me to be a better man, and also for the support to finish my study in Sanata Dharma University. I also would like to express my thank to my sisters who always cheer my life up every single day. I would like also to express my thanks to my special friend, Elis Wahyu Indarti for her unconditional love and support.
I am also indebted to the lectures and the staffs of Faculty of Letters especially for Mbak Niek for the patience during my study in Sanata Dharma
vi University. Besides, I also thank to all my friends such as Ardi for fixing my computer, Oos for the support and inspiration, Lucia for the support and the great friendship, Bayu for the great love sharing, Elly for being my great listener, SRV and
Eric Clapton for their great sounds which accompanied me during the writing process of this thesis, Sanata Dharma University for accepting me to be one of the students, Sanata Dharma University Library for the books and the sources to finish this thesis, Panda for the blues materials, Mario, Iwan, Arie, my brother in
LOLENLONES, and all my friends who I cannot mention one by one, I owe a particular debt of gratitude to them for giving me spirit to finish this thesis.
Karisma Kurniawan W
vii TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE ...... i APPROVAL PAGE ……………………………………………… .. ii ACCEPTANCE PAGE ...... iii MOTTO PAGE ...... iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...... vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... viii ABSTRACT ...... ix ABSTRAK ...... x LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN ...... xi PERNYATAAN KEASLIAN KARYA ...... xii
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ...... 1 A. Background of the Study ...... 1 B. Problem Formulation ...... 5 C. Objective of the Study ...... 5 D. The Definition of Terms ...... 6
CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL REVIEW ...... 7 A. Review of Related Studies ...... 8 B. Review of Related Theories ...... 10 1. Theory of Character ...... 11 2. Theory of Characterization ...... 12 3. Relation between Autobiography and Literature ...... 14 C. Review on the Biographical Background ...... 16 D. Theoretical Framework ...... 19
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY ...... 21 A. Object of the Study ...... 21 B. Approach of the Study ...... 22 C. Method of the Study ...... 23
CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS ...... 25 A. Pip’s Characteristics ...... 25 B. The Representation of Charles Dickens’ Life...... 43
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION ...... 60 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 63 APPENDIX …………………………………………………………. 65
viii ABSTRACT
Karisma Kurniawan Wijayanto (2009): The Representation of Charles Dickens’ Life as Reflected in Pip in The Great Expectations: A Biographical Study. Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University.
This thesis analyzes the novel The Great Expectations written by Charles Dickens. Based on the novel, the writer of this thesis finds that Charles Dickens’ life experience becomes the inspiration in writing his works. From this topic, the writer formulates two problems and they become the objectives of the study. The first problem is to find out how Pip, as the main character is characterized in the novel. The second problem is to find out how the characteristics from the first problem represent Charles Dickens’ life. This thesis is a library research. The primary data are taken from the novel The Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. The others data are taken from some supporting books, such as theoretical books, dictionaries, and some sources which are cited from the internet. The writer of this thesis uses biographical approach as the approach of the study. This biographical approach enables to help the writer making an analysis which has a relation with the author’s biography. Firstly, having analyzed the novel, the writer finds that Philip Pirrip or Pip is described as a round character because the character develops from a poor village boy who is wise in using money into a well-prosperity person who is splendid and wasteful. His early character changes to be mature in his next life. Secondly, the writer also finds some similarities between Pip’s and Charles Dickens’s life which ensures the writer that Charles Dickens’ life has a big chunk in influencing his work. The similarities, such as Pip and Dickens both are lonely child, they both have the same way in learning something, they both have unfulfilled-love. They both also have a big debt. Besides those similarities, there are also some representations such as Pip orphanage is the representation of Dickens’ loneliness, the humiliation is the representation of Dickens’ feeling when he worked in the factory, and Pip’s sister’ bad characteristic is the representation of Dickens’s disappointment toward an injustice condition at that time. Actually, most of experiences are sad experiences and this kind of experience really influences Charles Dickens in writing his novel The Great Expectations.
ix ABSTRAK
Karisma Kurniawan Wijayanto (2009): The Representation of Charles Dickens’ Life as Reflected in Pip in The Great Expectations: A Biographical Study. Yogyakarta: Program Study Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma.
Skripsi ini menganalisis sebuah novel karya Charles Dickens yang berjudul The Great Expectations. Berdasarkan novel tersebut, penulis skripsi menemukan bahwa pengalaman hidup Charles Dickens menjadi sebuah inspirasi dalam penulisan karya-karyanya. Dari topik tersebut, penulis merumuskan dua permasalahan yang menjadi objek dari penelitian ini. Permasalahan pertama adalah menemukan bagaimana Pip sebagai karakter utama digambarkan di dalam novel. Permasalahan kedua, menemukan bagaimana penggambaran karakter dari masalah pertama dapat mewakili kehidupan Charles Dickens. Skripsi ini merupakan penelitian pustaka. Data-data utamanya diambil dari novel The Great Expectations karya Charles Dickens itu sendiri. Data-data lainnya diambil dari buku-buku pendukung seperti buku-buku teori, kamus, dan beberapa bahan informasi dari internet. Penulis skripsi menggunakan pendekatan biografi sebagai pendekatan yang digunakan di dalam penelitian ini. Pendekatan biografi tersebut, memungkinkan untuk menolong penulis membuat analisis yang memiliki hubungan dengan riwayat hidup sang pengarang. Pertama-tama, dalam menganalisis novel tersebut, penulis menemukan bahwa Philip Pirrip atau dikenal sebagai Pip digambarkan sebagai karakter yang dinamis karena karakternya berkembang dari orang kampung yang miskin dan hemat menjadi orang yang kaya dan sangat boros. Karakter awal yang disuguhkan berubah menjadi lebih dewasa pada kehidupan selanjutnya. Kedua, penulis juga menemukan beberapa kemiripan antara Pip dan Charles Dickens yang meyakinkan penulis kalau pengalaman Charles Dickens benar-benar mempengaruhinya didalam penulisan karyanya, seperti keduanya sama-sama anak yang kesepian, mereka memiliki persamaan dalam mempelajari sesuatu, mereka juga sama-sama memiliki cinta yang bertepuk sebelah tangan, dan mereka juga memiliki hutang yang besar. Selain beberapa kesamaan tersebut, ada juga beberapa representasi seperti status yatim piatunya Pip merupakan pengambaran kesepiannya Charles Dickens, perlakuan yang tidak menyenangkan merupakan penggambaran perasaan Charles Dickens ketika bekerja di pabrik, dan perwatakan buruk kakaknya Pip adalah penggambaran kekecewaan Charles Dickens terhadap kondisi pada saat itu. Sebagian besar pengalaman yang terdapat di skripsi ini adalah pengalaman buruk dan pengalaman itulah yang mempengaruhi Charles Dickens dalam menulis The Great Expectations.
x LEMBAR PERYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS
Yang bertanda tangan dibawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma:
Nama : KARISMA KURNIAWAN WIJAYANTO Nomor Mahasiswa : 044214112
Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul:
THE REPRESENTATION OF CHARLES DICKENS’ LIFE AS REFLECTED IN PIP IN THE GREAT EXPECTATIONS: A BIOGRAPHICAL STUDY beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikiam saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data, mendistribusikannya secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di internet atau media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya maupun memberi royalti kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis.
Demikian peryataan ini saya buat dengan sebenarnya
Dibuat di Yogyakarta
Pada tanggal: 31 Maret 2009
Yang menyatakan
(KARISMA KURNIAWAN WIJAYANTO)
xi PERNYATAAN KEASLIAN KARYA
Saya menyatakan dengan sesungguhnya bahwa skripsi yang saya tulis ini tidak memuat karya atau bagian yang lain kecuali yang telah disebutkan dalam kutipan dan daftar pustaka sebagai mana layaknya karya ilmiah.
Yogyakarta, 31 Maret 2009
Karisma Kurniawan Wijayanto
xii CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
Literature is a common thing to discuss for us as a student of English
Letters, but we do not really know what actually literature is. Some say that literature is a kind of creative work, it can be a fiction or non-fiction and it involves the creator’s mind to create it, but what about a comic such as Superman then. It is a comic, but can it be considered as a literary work? (Eagleton, 1995: 2)
Actually, literature itself has no exact definition about what exactly literature is, because literature is always in the form of written work but in the contrary, all kinds of written work can not be called as literature.
According to a book Encyclopedia of General Knowledge by S. Graham literature is the written and printed products of human thought, generally divided into fiction and non-fiction (Graham, 1958: 304). Then, according to Oxford
Advanced Learner’s Dictionaryliterature is writing that are valued as work of art, especially fiction, drama, and poetry (Hornby, 1995: 687). Based on those two definitions of literature, we can draw the conclusion that literature is written or printed work and it has value of art.
According to Terry Eagleton in her book Literary Theory an Introduction, literature is not merely a written work that uses ordinary language as we use every day in our daily conversation, but literature uses language in a peculiar way, as stated in the book:
1 2
Perhaps literature is definable not according to whether it is fictional or ‘imaginative’, but because it uses language in peculiar ways. On this theory, literature is a kind of writing which, in the words of the Russian critic Roman Jacobson, represents an ‘organized violence committed on ordinary speech’. Literature transforms and intensifies ordinary language, deviates systematically from everyday speech (Eagleton, 1995: 2).
We can see the peculiar way of literature in using language when we are reading poetry.In poetry, the poets often use the ‘extra ordinary language’in order to maintain the rhyme and the beauty in writing his or her literary work. They usually use metaphor, personification, violence the structure, rhythm and resonance of words in excess an abstract meaning to make their words more
‘unfamiliar’(Eagleton, 1995: 2).
It is different when the authors are writing a novel. In writing a novel, the authors sometimes also use this kind of extra ordinary language, but sometimes they do not, because in writing a novel the authors sometimes use ordinary language to convey their idea through their work. In a novel, the authors usually want to reveal his or her own experience to the reader with daily language due to get the reader easier to understand what the whole novel is talking about.
Sometimes, authors also add some factual or historical events in their work. This method is used in order to invite the reader to feel or to share the author’s experience or the historical event to the readers.
According to some statements above, we know that literary works are nothing without its authors. The author is the more important person of literary work because; the creator of literary works is the author. Rene Wellek and Austin
Warren in their book Theory of Literature said that the most obvious of a work of art is its creator, the author (1949: 75-78) so, it is obvious that the author is the 3
main cause of the existence of their works including all the characters inside it.
There is also a close relationship between literary works and its authors because as stated before that sometimes in writing their works, the authors include also their experience of life in their work, but the work itself is not a copy of their real life.
The statement above occurs because the literary work is their media to release their emotion or just a place to share their experience in the past. They also include their biography into their work and represent it through the character of their work. It is because biography is an ancient literary genre. Biography is a part of historiography and it makes no methodological distinction in status, so everyone may have their own biography no matter they are a statesman, a general, an architect, a lawyer, and a man who plays no public role (Wellek and Warren,
1949: 75). For example Charlotte Bronte, the author of Jane Eyre, she reveals her past experience when she was a governess through the character of Jane Eyre.
Another author who reveals the past experience is Charles Dickens. This great
Victorian era author revealed his past experience when he was a worker through his famous work David Copperfield and The Great Expectation which considered as his semi autobiographical novels.
According to Rohrberger and Woods in their book Reading and Writing about Literature, there are indirect relationship and similarity between the work and the author. An author’s work including the character perhaps is “a kind of mask which is surely based on the author’s experience of life” (Rohrberger and
Woods, 1971: 8). It means that the literary work which is based on the biography 4
of the author can be a place to hide their weakness in the past through the character of their work. As stated in the book Theory of Literature
The work may be a mask, a dramatized conventionalization, but it is frequently a conventionalization of his own experience, his own life (Wellek and Warren, 1949: 79)
It can be about unhappy childhood, about love, or may be about anything else that make a significant event recorded in author’s mind and they are described in their literary work direct or indirectly.
From those statements above, now we are paying attention to Charles
Dickens’work, The Great Expectations. In this novel, Charles Dickens reveals almost all significant event of his life through the character of Phillip Pirrip (Pip) the main character of this novel. Although the character is created as a fiction,
Charles Dickens creates it as if he is a real character who resembles to his past experiences. He created the character imaginatively but, he used his actual life as the important material to build the plot in this novel, so the story really reflects his own experience. It can lead us to the significant part of the author’s experience of life and share it to the reader about what kind of life which the author had in the past. Like in this thesis which titled THE REPRESENTATION OF CHARLES
DICKENS’ LIFE AS REFLECTED IN PIP IN THE GREAT EXPECTATIONS: A
BIOGRAPHICAL STUDY, the writer of this thesis wants to try to study the similarity between Charles Dickens’s life with the main character of his novel,
Phillip Pirrip (Pip) which is built by the past experience which influences Dickens to write the novel. The reason why the writer of this thesis wants to study about it, because The Great Expectations is one of Charles Dickens’ famous novels, the 5
writer wants to study further about Charles Dickens’sbiography as one of greatest
Victorian era writers, and wants to reveal how near the author’s experience effects to his literary work.
B. Problem Formulation
In order to analyze the problem above, which is about how near the reflection between Charles Dickens’ life with the main character of his novel Pip, the writer of this thesis formulates it into two problem formulations
1. How is Pip characterized in The Great Expectations?
2. How do Pip’s characteristics represent Charles Dickens’ life?
C. Objectives of the Study
As the problem formulations above, it is clear that to find out about the relation or reflection between the author with the character in The Great
Expectations (Pip) is the objective of this study. The writer of this thesis agrees that past experience of life can influence the literary works because past experience can be the author’s inspiration in writing hiswork. Not only past experience which influences the author in writing his work, but a difficult condition can also influence the author during writing the novel and it is proven in
Dickens’ “The great Expectations”in which the main character reflects to its author’s life experience although not merely the same. 6
D. The Definition of Term
To highlight and clarify the terms which are used in this thesis, the writer includes this part in order to avoid un-understandable term. The writer of this thesis uses some terms which are very important in this essay, and they are as follows
1. Autobiography
According to A Glossary of Literary Terms Forth Edition (Abrams, 1981:
15), autobiography is a biography written by the subject about himself, in
which the emphasis is not on the author’s developing self but, on the
people he has known and the events he has witnessed and from the private
diary or journal, which is a day-to-day record of the events in a person’s
life.
2. Character
According to A Handbook to Literature Fifth Edition (Holman and
Harmon, 1986: 81), a character is a brief descriptive sketch of a personage
who typifies some definite quality. The person is described not as an
individualized personality, but as an example of some vice or virtue or
type, such as a busybody, a glutton, a fop, a bumpkin, a garrulous old man,
a happy milkmaid, etc.
3. Characterization
According to A Handbook to Literature Fifth Edition (Holman and
Harmon, 1986: 81), a characterization is the creation of imaginary persons
so that they exist for the reader as a lifelike. CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL REVIEW
In this chapter, the writer of this thesis divides it into four parts. The first is a review of related studies. This part discusses the previous essays which have been done by other students or experts who have also studied the same novel “The Great
Expectations”written by Charles Dickens. These related studies are used to make a comparison between the analysis done by the other researchers and the analysis done by the writer of this thesis. The second is a review of related theories which will discuss the theories that are going to use to analyze the novel. The third will be a review of the historical or biographical background of Charles Dickens as the author of the novel. Actually this part is necessary because this thesis is analyzing the autobiography and anything which is related to the past experience of Charles
Dickens which influences him in writing the novel, so the writer of this thesis attaches it in order to review the social background or the biographical background of the author of the novel which is analyzed in this thesis. The biographical background above is also used by the writer of this thesis to help him illustrates what is the condition in the Victorian era when Charles Dickens lived. And the last part is the theoretical framework. Theoretical framework will explain one by one the contribution of the theories applied in this thesis to solve the three problems which have been formulated in previous chapter.
7 8
A. Review of Related Studies
In finishing this undergraduate thesis, the writer uses two related studies in order to make a comparative study with the previous students who have studied the same novel and they have almost similar opinion toward the novel itself. These related studies are also used to help the writer to strengthen his opinion in finishing this thesis. The writer uses two related studies written by Edmon Jabes and Wayne
Huang. Both of them have their own opinion which is almost similar toward the novel which is titled The Great Expectations written by Charles Dickens. These two related studies are cited from the internet in website www.penguingroup.com and www. victorianweb.org. From these two websites state the same conclusion that they agree The Great Expectations is one of Dickens’ autobiographical novels besides his popular novel David Copperfield. In his essay, Jabes said that the creation of the character Phillip Pirrip or known as Pip in this novel is a kind of remembrance or excavation of his childhood sad experience as a worker in Warren’s Blacking factory in order to solve his family economical problem:
The writing of The Great Expectations, and by the extension of its protagonist, Pip, therefore, can be viewed as a kind of excavation for its author, a cathartic attempt to come to terms with the painful facts of his childhood particularly the family’s chronic economic instability, culminating in his father’s imprisonment due to financial insolvency (http://us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/greate expectations.html).
Jabes also added in his thesis that before Dickens began to write The Great
Expectations, he burnt all his papers which are related to his past experience and this 9
action is represented in his novel although not as exactly as the real event, when Pip got his hand burned when he was trying to help Mrs. Havisham from fire.
Huang added that before Dickens began to write his The Great Expectations, he also read his previous autobiographical novel David Copperfield besides he burnt all his papers related to his life:
Shortly before he began to write The Great Expectations, Dickens wrote a fragment of an autobiography, which he kept to him self. A sort time later he shorted through, re-read, and burnt many personal letters, and also re-read David Copperfield, perhaps the most overtly autobiographical of all his novels. (http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/ge/huang cd.html)
According to the quotation of Huang’s essay above,it is impossible to read The Great
Expectations without sensing Dickens’presence in the book by portraying his younger life in the character of Pip.
Charles Dickens also describes the character of Pip as an “orphan”including his solitary life because of having no parents and no one of his family members care of him except his brother in law named Joe Gargerry. According to Jabes’opinion, this is also a kind of portrait of Dickens’ life when he was twelve years old, he was compelled to work in blacking factory due to solve his family financial problem, and lived separately from his parents. As written in his essay, Jabes also said that this kind of situation led little Dickens into sad childhood experience which influenced his psychological condition at that time.
…also paramount in his psychological make-up were Dickens consignment at the age of twelve to work as a child worker at Warren’s Blacking factory and his subsequent separation from his family as a result of it. This period in the young boy’s life, then, represents both literal and meta-phoirical “orpaning” 10
and was certainly the crucible in which his personality was formed. (http://us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/great expectation. html)
After that kind of condition, Dickens tried to build a better life from these ruins of childhood life which had haunted him all his life. He rose from a humble beginning into success and fame. He became one of the great novelists in the Victorian era.
Tthe two related studies above, the writer sees that Charles Dickens often involves his past experience in writing his works such as in The Great Expectations.
He wrote about the orphanage, poverty, and another sad thing in this novel as the representation of his sad experiences in his past time. Instead those matters, actually
Dickens reveals other significant events in this novel which are related to his past experience. As the writer of this thesis has found in the novel, the “other significant events” which are reflected in the novel, the first is his failed love experience with
Maria Beadnell, and the second or more important is about “the debt” whichhas a big chunk in changing Dickens’life orientation.
B. Review of Related Theories
This part consists of several theories which will be used by the writer to help him making the analysis toward the novel (The Great Expectations). In this part, the writer uses three kinds of theories to analyze the novel. They are the theory of character, the theory of characterization, and the relation between autobiography and literature. Then, these tree theories will help the writer to finish making the analysis in this thesis. 11
1. Theory of Character
When we read a novel, prose or other fictional work, the word ‘character’ usually refers to a person who acts in a particular place and time. M.H. Abrams’ book
A Glossary of Literary Terms (1985: 23) defines that characters are the persons presented in a dramatic or narrative work, who are interpreted by the reader as being endowed with moral, dispositional, and emotional qualities that are expressed in what they say and what they do. The grounds in the characters’ temperament, desire, and moral nature for they speech and action constitute their motivation. A character may remain essentially stable or unchanged in outlook and disposition from the beginning to the end of the work or may undergo a radical change, either through a gradual process or motivation and development or as the result of a crisis.
In the book An Introduction of Fiction by Stanton, also gives the definition of character. A character in the individual who appears in the story and it refers to the mixture of interests, desires, emotions, and moral principles that makes up each of these individuals. Furthermore, he also distinguishes character into two types which are main or major and minor character. Major character is the most important person in the story or the story tells about this character, but he can not stand on his own. He needs the other character to have conflicts or to make the story more convincing and lifelike. While, minor character is the character which is less important than the main character (Stanton, 1965: 17).
Furthermore, the novelist E.M. Forster also distinguishes character into two types, which are flat character and round character. According to him, flat character is 12
relatively simple and usually has only one trait. It is uncomplicated, but that is probably part of what the author is getting at. Usually flat character is static, at the end of the story the character is pretty much what the character was at the start. On the other hand, round character is the character which embodies several or even many traits that cohere to form a complex personality. A round character is likely to be dynamic, it is changing considerably as the story progresses (Abrams, 1985: 24).
2. Theory of Characterization
This is the way how the author conveys to the reader the characters and the personalities of the people he writes about. In other words, how he conveys to the reader what short of people they are, how he makes the reader get to know and understand them. This theory works like when we try to observe somebody in the real life. We will try to learn about his or her outward appearance, how they talk, what accent they use, the behavior, etc. all of those matters will give us the knowledge which will help us observing somebody’s characteristic. As written in the book
Understanding Unseens by M.J. Murphy, there are nine ways in which the authors attempt to make their character understandable to the reader. They are:
a. Personal description
The author can describe a person’s appearance and clothes.We will tell about the
outward appearance. 13
b. Character as seen by the other
Instead of describing a character directly the author can describe the character in the novel through the eyes and opinions of the other. The reader gets, as it were, a reflected image. c. Speech
The author can give us an insight into the character of one of the persons in the book through what that person says. Whenever a person speaks, whenever the character is in the conversation with another, whenever the character puts forward an opinion, the character is giving us some clue to its character. d. Past life
By letting the reader learn something about the person’s past life the author can give us a clue to events that have helped to shape a person’s character. This can be done by direct comment which is given by the author through the person’s thoughts, through his conversation or through the medium of another person. e. Conversation of others
The author can also give us clues to a person’s character through the conversation of other people in the novel and the things they say about him. People do talk about other people and the things they say often give as a clue to the character of the person spoken about. f. Reactions
The author can also give us a clue to a person’s character by letting us know how that person reacts to various situations and events. 14
g. Direct comment
The author can describe or comment on a person’s character directly.
h. Thoughts
The author can give us direct knowledge of what person is thinking about. In this
respect he is able to do what we cannot do in real life. He can tell us what
different people are thinking. The reader then is in privilege position; he has, as it
were, a secret listening device plugged in to the inmost thoughts of a person in a
novel.
i. Mannerisms
The author can describe a person’s mannerism, habits or idiosyncrasies which
may also tell us something about his character.
These are some ways which are used by the author to make the reader gets to know the personalities and the characterizations of the characters in his or her novel. The author does not exclusively use them one by one but, blend them into a good narrative, so the reader will tend to think that the characters in the novel as the real people (Murphy, 1972: 161-173).
3. Relation between Autobiography and Literature
The next is the relation between autobiography of the author and literature.
The writer of this thesis finds that an autobiography or past experience of the author can be the influence of his or her work. Based on that statement, it is possible that literary work has a close relation with its author, because the work itself is built by 15
using the author’s life experience. So, the analysis of this thesis will be based on the idea that a person’s life influences his or her work, and then the writer tries to find the similarity between the work and the author’s life. When considering some biographical aspects of the author, there will be a close relation between the work and the author’s life that can not be separated. According to Rene Wellek and Austin
Warren, there is a close relationship between the work of art and the life of the author, but the work of art is not totally the copy of life. The work of art is only a place to hide his weakness, so in writing his work, the author depends on his mood
(1949: 75-78).
The other writers that have the same opinion above are Mary Rohrberger and
Samuel H. Woods. In their book Reading and Writing about Literature, they say that there is an indirect relationship between the work and that author. The work including the character inside it perhaps is “a kind of mask which is surely based on the author’s experience of life” (1971:8). So, the use of the biography of the author is very helpful in this study. The writer of this thesis should attempt to learn as much as he can about the life of the author. There is a quotation that says:
They insist that a work of art is a reflection of a personality, that in the esthetic experience the reader shares the author’s consciousness, and that at least part of the reader’s response is to the author’s personality. Consequently, they attempt to learn as mush as they can about the life and development of the author and to apply this knowledge in their attempt to understand his writing (Rohrberger and Woods, 1971: 8)
Still concerning on the importance of the author’s life experience or biographyin influencing his work, according to George Perkings in his book The Theory of 16
American Novel states that the result of the author’s work is influenced by the author’s experience
Now, when it comes to talking about the experiences of writer, I think I should say some thing that perhaps most of you realize. The work of any writer, and for that matter of any artist in any of the seven art, should contain within it the story of this own style (Perkings, 1970: 293).
Now, we can see that the biography, including a series of events which have been witnessed, and any story in life can influence the literary work.
C. Review on the Charles Dickens’ Biographical Background
In order to finish this thesis, the writer of this thesis needs to know about
Charles Dickens’ biography to be the source in analyzingthis thesis. Then, this
Charles Dickens’ biography will give the information to the writer about what kind of experiences which Charles Dickens has during his life before or after getting his popularity as the great novelist in his era, and his autobiography as in below
Charles John Huffam Dickens was born in Landport near Portsmouth,
Hamshire, on February 7th, 1812. He was the second child of John Dickens and
Elizabeth nèe Barrow. His father was a naval pay clerk in Navy Pay-office. Very soon after the birth of Charles Dickens, the family moved for a short period to
Norfolk Street, Bloomsbury, when Charles Dickens was five, his family moved to
Chatham Kent and when he was ten they relocated to 16 Bayham Street, Camden town in London (Chesterton, 1956: 24). His early years were an idyllic time, he spent his time outdoor, and reading some novels by Tobias Smollet and Henry Fielding. 17
His family was moderately well-off, and he received some education at the private
William Giles’School, but all of these beautiful lives changed when his father was imprisoned for debt at Marshalsea Debtor’s Prison because of spending too much money entertaining and retaining his social position.
When he was 12 years old, he was withdrawn from school because of his father’s imprisonment then, he started to work for ten hours a day in a Warren’s boot- blacking factory which was located near the present Caring Cross railway station and lived separately with his family. After his father’s imprisonment, his mother opened a small girl’s school in the north of London to make some money, but no students would come (Chesterton, 1956: 30). So, this mother’s small girl’s school made the family condition became worst, she caused more debt, and then led her into the
Marshalsea prison. Dickens spent his time pasting labels on the jars of thick polish and earned six shilling a week. He used this money to pay his lodging in Camden
Town and to help to support his family which most of them were living incarcerated with his father in Marshsalsea (Hennessy, 1970: 26-27)
After a few months he was able to release his family from Marshalsea and he was possible to back to school at Wellington House Academy, London and at Mr.
Dawson’s school until 1827. Although his family was released from Marshalsea but, their economical condition was not improved at all, this situation let him to still work in the same blacking factory and lived with the working class society. In May 1827, his formal education was ended then he began to work in the office of Ellis and
Blackmore as a law clerk. He latter became a shorthand reporter at Doctor’s Common 18
at the age of 17. At the age of 18, he applied for a reader’s ticket at British Museum, where he could read eagerly the work of Shakespeare. In the 1830-32s, Dickens wrote for True Sun and 1832-34 for The Mirror of Parliament. In 1834 he became a journalist reporting some of parliamentary debates for Monthly Magazine and The
Evening Chronicle and edited Bentle’s Miscellany. His journalism was published from 1833 in the form of sketches and in 1836, it was published in the book form named Sketches by Boz. In the same year, he led to write his first novel The Pickwick
Papers (Hennessy, 1970: 28-42).
On April 1836, he married Catherine Thompson Hogarth, the daughter of
George Hogarth, the editor of Evening Chronicle but, divorced in 1858. After a brief honeymoon in Chalk, then they lived in Bloomsbury where they had produced ten children. Dickens’ success as a novelist was proven by continuing writing Oliver
Twist in 1837, then Nicholas Nickleby in 1838-39. In 1840-41 he wrote The Old
Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge which were published as a series in monthly installment before being made into a book in 1841. This popular was not ended until that year, after his visiting to America with his lovely wife, he continued his success by writing A Christmas Carol in 1843. This novel was the first of his Christmas book which was reputedly written in a matter of weeks (Chesterton, 1956: 118-125).
After living briefly abroad in Italy in 1844 and in Switzerland in 1846,
Dickens continued writing his masterpiece Dombey and Son in 1848, David
Copperfield in 1849-50, Bleak House in 1852-53, Hard Time in 1854. In 1856, his popularity allowed him to buy Gad’sHill Place in Higham Street, his dream house 19
when he was a child. In this large house he continued with Little Dorrit in 1857, a historical novel A Tale of Two Cities in 1849, The Great Expectations in 1861, Our
Mutual Friend in 1865, and his last novel before he died The Mystery of Edwin
Drood which was published in 1870, but Dickens did not manage to finish it because his suffering of “stroke attack”. This very last novel actually was planned to produce it in 12 monthly parts but the fact that it was compelled only in 6 numbers. He died on 9 June 1870 at Gad’s Hill Place and was buried in the Poet’s Corner of
Westminster Abbey (www.vivtorianweb.org/authors/dickens/dickensbio1.html).
D. Theoretical Framework
In this part the writer will explain one by one the contribution of the theories in solving the two problems of the study. In solving the problem formulation which had been formulated in the previous chapter, the writer chooses three theories which are the theory of character, the theory of characterization, and the relation between autobiography and literature. These theories were chosen in order to help the writer in analyzing the novel. The characters are important in undergoing the story of the novel and the process of creating the character by the author is called characterization, so by considering that, the writer chooses the theory of character and characterization to make an analysis in this thesis. Both of them will be applied to reveal the subject character Pip which becomes the main subject of this study. By applying those two theories, the writer will recognize what kind of character Pip is, what kind of personality he has, and how the author makes the reader gets to know and understand 20
the character itself. The next because the topic of this thesis is related to the autobiography of the author which related or reflected to the main character of his literary works, so the relation between autobiography and literature is needed to solve the problem about whether is it right or not the past experience of the author really influences his or her works so, the representation of the author’s life is reflected in his work and to find what kind of relation that the author and Pip have. CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY
A. Object of the Study
The Great Expectations was firstly published periodically as sketches in
December 1st, 1860 by London Daily News and it was published as a book in 1861 by
Messrs. Smith and Elder. The writer of this thesis uses The Great Expectations written by Charles Dickens which was published in 1959 by Collins Clear-type. Ltd.
London as the primary source. This novel contains 59 chapters in 412 pages. The
Great Expectations is telling about a kid named Phillip Pirrip or called Pip in the novel that has a great expectation to be a real gentleman to elevate his family social background in order not to be underestimated by anyone at that time.
Pip is an orphan child who lives with his sister whose husband is a blacksmith named Joe Gargery. His sister is a rough woman who always does a rough action toward him and his brother in law, Joe. In his childhood, Pip is sent to work at Mrs.
Havisham house and becomes Joe’s partner. Pip is always dreaming to be a real gentleman and a better life. One day his dream comes true when Mr. Jagger comes and takes Pip to get a better education in London to be a real gentleman. This novel takes place in the Victorian era or about 19th centuries in London.
21 22
B. Approach of the Study
Some approaches are extremely needed to analyze literary works because the approach is used to view the works which is going to analyze. Since the writer of this thesis has chosen the topic of this thesis is related to the biography of the author, so the biographical approach is appropriate to use in analyzing the problems. According to Wilfred L. Guerin’s A Handbook of Critical Approaches to literature, a biographical approach sees the literary work chiefly, if not exclusively, as a reflection of its author’s life an times or the lifeand times of the characters in the work (1999:
22). So based on this biographical approach, the writer will try to find what kind of experience that causing the writer wrote The Great Expectations as a biographical novel and it really reflects his life experience.
To explain something in the work which has a close relation with the author’s biography or to know what is the author’s reason in creating that kind of character which is considered as the representation of his life, the writer of this thesis uses two autobiographical books which are written by Una-Pope Hennessy and G.K.
Chesterton beside The great Expectations written by Charles Dickens to be the source of this analysis. Then, the writer has to read those books and make a comparison between the life of the character and Charles Dickens’ life. According to Mary
Rohrberger and Samuel H Wood in their book Reading and Writing about Literature, in order to apply the biographical approach in a paper, we should learn as much as possible about the life and the development of the author in order to understand their work better (1971: 8). So based on the quotation, the writer of this thesis should know 23
or understand the development and the life of the author, in this case is Charles
Dickens’s life in order to apply this biographical approach in the analysis better.
C. Method of the Study
The research method that the writer uses in this paper is a library research. All the main and supporting data to finish this paper are collected from books and other supporting sources such as the sources from internet, which have valuable information to finish analyzing the problem formulations in this thesis. The most important source used in this study is the novel The Great Expectations written by
Charles Dickens, and some secondary sources such as An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory by Peter Barry; Understanding Unseen written by M.J. Murphy;
Theory of Literature written by Rene Wellek and Austin Warren; Reading and
Writing about Literature written by Marry Rohrberger and Samuel H Woods; and some sources cited from internet such as the abstract titled The Book of Questions written by Edmon Jabes; Problem of Autobiography and Fictional Autobiography in
The Great Expectations written by Wayne Huang; and the last data is Charles
Dickens Autobiography which was quoted from many related books and sources from internet.
There are some steps in analyzing The Great Expectations by Charles
Dickens. The first step was reading the novel several times in order to get a deep understanding and mastering the novel. After the writer understood the story in the novel, then the writer decided what topic was going to analyze and of course the title 24
of the paper. The second step was reading and understanding the autobiography of
Charles Dickens which was cited from many sources above. After the writer information and understood the autobiography of the author, then the writer tried to find the closest relation between Charles Dickens and the main character of his novel
(Pip) by searching some similarities about the author and the character was going to be analyzed as many as the writer could. The more similarities were found, the closest relation they had. The last step was drawing a conclusion. The conclusion contained the writer’s finding from his analysis presented in this paper. CHAPTER IV
ANALYSIS
In this chapter, the writer will discuss the analysis of this undergraduate thesis, the analysis will be divided into two parts of discussions. The first, the writer will start the discussion on how Charles Dickens characterized Pip as the main character in the novel. Second, the writer will discuss some representations of Charles
Dickens’ life which stated in the novel.In this second part, the writer will try to find some representations or similarities between the main character’s life and the author’s. These two parts of discussion are made in order to answer the two problems which have been formulated on the previous chapter.
A. Pip’s Characteristics
In a novel, characters are very important things to build the story. The characters can also be an idea of the moral constitution of human personality, the presence of moral uprightness, and the simpler notion of the presence of creatures in art that seem to be human being (Holman and Harmon, 1986: 81). In the novel The
Great Expectations, the writer finds that Phillip Pirrip or Pip is the main character of the novel only focuses on him and of course his life story is told from the beginning until the end of the novel. Here, Pip is completely described from he is still a child until he finds his benefactor and becomes a gentleman with great properity.
25 26
At the first, Pip is described as an orphan child whose age is seven years old.
His parents had died and also his five little brothers.
As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them (for their days were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies regarding what they were like, were unreasonably derived from their tombstones. The shape of the letters on my father’s,gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair. From the character and turn of the inscription, “Also GeorgianaWife of the Above, I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly. To five little stones lozenges, each about a foot and a half long, which were arranged in a neat row beside their grave, and were sacred to the memory of five little brothers of mine—who gave up trying to get a living exceedingly universal struggle (Dickens, 1953: 15).
By looking at the above quotation, we know that Pip never has the chance to meet his parents. He does not have either their picture so, he can only guess or imagine what his parents look like by looking at the letter on their grave. By looking at the quotation above, we know that Pip is also a creative child because he is able to make a description of his parents only by looking at the letter on their grave.
Pip is afraid of his sister because of his sister’srude behavior. Here, Pip lives with his rough sister and Joe Gargery, his sister’s husbandwho is a blacksmith. She always treats him bad and often hits Pip and her husband.
My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older than I, and had established a great reputation with herself and the neighbours because she had brought me up “by hand.” Having at that time to find out for myself what the expression meant, and knowing her to have a hard and heavy hand, and to be much in the habit of laying it upon her husband as well as upon me, I supposed that Joe Gargery and I were brought up by hand (p.19).
The above quotation shows that his sister has a heavy hand and she often used it to beat him and her husband, so that Pip is afraid of her. 27
Pip is often humiliated and blamed even by his relatives because of any miserable things in the house. For example, when Pip family holds a Christmas dinner at their house, they also invite other relatives such as uncle Pumbechook, Mr.
Wopstle, Mr. and Mrs. Hubble. Before the dinner is started, Mr. Wopste starts to give a sermon and it ends with a proper aspiration that we should be grateful and uncle
Pumblechook said to Pip:
“Especially,” said Mr. Pumblechook, “be grateful, boy, to them which brought you up by hand” (p.34)
This speech makes other people start to think that Pip is a child whom never be grateful to his sister who has taken care of him since he was a baby. The one who starts to think that way is Mrs and Mr. Hubble as shown in the quotation below:
Mrs. Hubble shook her head, and contemplating me with a mournful presentiment that I should come to no good, asked, “Why is it the young are never grateful?” This moral mystery seemed too much for the company until Mr. Hubble tersely solved it by saying “True!” and looked at me in a particularly unpleasant and personal manner (p.34).
Here, Pip is not only blamed as shown previously but also humiliated by Mr.
Wopsle. It is shown when uncle Pumblechook mentions pork as the reflection of the subject which is ungrateful, and then Mr. Wopsle says:
“Swine,” pursued Mr. Wopsle, his deepest voice, and pointing his fork at my blushes, as if he were mentioning my Christian name; “Swine were the companions of he prodigal. The gluttony of Swine is put before us, as an example to the young.” (I thought this pretty well in him who had been praising up the pork for being so plump and juicy.) “What is detestable in a pig, is more detestable in a boy.” “Or girl,” suggested Mr. Hubble “Of course, or girl, Mr. Hubble, “assented Mr. Wopsle, rather irritably, “but there is no girl present” (p.34). 28
By looking at the above quotation, we can see that Mr. Wopsle is humiliating Pip by pointing his fork and mentioning Pip’s Christian name as “Swine”. All people in the house, they are considering Pip as a child whom never feels grateful because he only spends some shillings everyday and always gives some troubles to his sister.
The next, Pip is described as a child who has no friend except Joe Gargery, his sister’s husband. As described in the book, when Joe is still working at his forge,
Pip always goes to the churchyard where his parents and his little brothers are buried to spend his time and when Joe has finished working, Pip plays with Joe (p.19). This condition makes their relation closer than anyone else.
I do not recall that I felt any tenderness of conscience in reference of Mrs. Joe, when the fear of being found out was lifted off me. But I love Joe— perhaps for no better reason in those early days than because the dear fellow let me love him—and, as to him, my inner self was not so easily composed. It was much upon my mind (particularly when I first saw him looking about for his file), that I ought to tell Joe the whole truth. Yet I did not, and for the reason that I mistrusted that if I did, he would think me worse than I was. The fear of losing Joe’s confidence, and of thenceforth sitting in the chimney-corner at night, staring drearily at my for ever lost companion and friend, tied up my tongue (p.46).
By looking at the above quotation, we can see that Pip loves Joe so much. He is afraid of losing his companion with Joe, so he will tell everything to Joe including about the incident when Pip steals Joe’s file from his forge to help the convict breaking the handcuffs.
Little Pip is an honest child. He is afraid of doing something bad such as lying and stealing. As the example, when the convict treats Pip to steal Joe’s file and to bring some foods, Pip is forced doing it and lying to Joe about this action.He does it 29
because he is afraid of the convict who will kill him if he does not bring the file to the convict and some meals to eat. From this incident, Pip is haunted by his guilty feeling all day long (p.23-26). His fear of doing something bad comes from his belief that if someone has done something bad, he or she will get a bad consequent such as being picked up by police as shown below.
I fully expected to find a Constable in the kitchen, waiting to take me up. But not only was there no Constable there, but no discovery had yet been made of the robbery (p.30).
The above quotation shows that Pip expects there is a police officer in the kitchen who will pick him up to release him from his guilty feeling of this robbery.
Pip has a strong desire to be an educated person. We know that Pip comes from poor family and he does not have money to have a better education, so he learns from anything around him. He learns how to read by practicing to read his parents’ tombstones.
At the time when I stood in the churchyard, reading the family tombstone, I had just enough learning to be able to spell them out. My construction even of their simple meaning was not very correct, for I read “wife of the above” as a complimentary reference to my father’s exaltation to a better world….(p.48).
The above quotation shows that Pip always tries to develop his reading skill from something simple around him such as reading the tombstone of his family.
The other evidence that Pip has a strong desire to develop his skills, when Pip becomes a teenager, he begins to learn anything from Joe. He asks Joe to teach him how to read and write. Pip also works to have money and collect them in a box to pay the tuition as shown in this quotation. 30
When I was old enough, I was to be apprenticed to Joe, and until I could assume that dignity I was not to be what Mrs. Joe called “Pompeyed,” or (as I render it) pampered. Therefore, I was not only odd-boy about the forge, but if any neighbour happened to want an extra boy to frighten birds, or pick up stones, or do any such job, I was favoured with the employment. In order, however, that our superior position might not be compromised thereby, a money-box was kept on the kitchen mantel-shelf, into which it was publicly made known that all my earning were dropped (p.48).
The quotation above shows that Pip’sdesire to have a better knowledge is very strong. He will do anything in order to get money and collect them to pay the fee. He gains his knowledge in Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt school. In this school Pip learns writing and reading properly with his teacher, Biddy and when the school time is over, he learns and practices writing, reading, and spelling with Joe at home (p.49-
50).
The next evidence that Pip has a strong desire in improving his knowledge is proven when Pip tells Biddy that he wants to be the real gentleman. Pip does not want to have a monotonous life and he has tired to lead his life as a worker and as a common villager, he wants to have a better education. Here, Pip shows that he has tired with his life as a common villager and as common worker, so he wants to be a better person as shown in quotation below.
“Biddy,” I exclaimed impatiently, “I am not at all happy as I am. I am disgusted with my calling and with my life. I have never taken to either, since I was bound. Don’t be absurd” (p.118).
“Well then, understand once for all that I never shall or can be comfortable—or anything but miserable—there, Biddy!—unless I can lead a very different short of life from the life I lead now” (p.118). 31
The two quotations above show that Pip is tired with his monotonous life in the village. He wants something new in order to improve his life although no one agrees with him. He ignores all what people say including Biddy. He is still in his own words although other people do not agree with him.
The last evidence, after being in London, Pip’s desire to reach his expectation becomes stronger. He starts to learn anything from Mr. Mathew Pocket and treat him as his teacher and his master as well, as shown in quotation bellow.
He advised my attending certain places in London, for the acquisition of such mere rudiments as I wanted, and my investing him with the function of explainer and director of all my studies. He hoped that with intelligent assistance I should meet with little to discourage me, and should soon be able to dispense with any aid but this. Through his way of saying this, and much for similar purpose, he placed himself on confidential terms with me in an admirable manner; and I may state at once that he was always so zealous and honorable in fulfilling his compact with me, that he made me zealous and honorable in fulfilling mine with him. If he had shown indifference as a master, I have no doubt I should have returned the compliment as a pupil; he gave no such excuse, and each of us did the other justice (p.175).
The quotation above shows that Pip is zealous in learning every little thing such as taking a walk exploring London, and Mr. Pocket as the explainer for him to gain the knowledge. Pip also very respects Mr. Mathew Pocket not only as his teacher, but also as his friend.
Besides having a strong desire, Pip also has a strong heart. He always tries to be firm in facing some insulting words from others without revolting what somebody does to him, for example when Pip is working at Satis House, Mrs. Havisham’s 32
house. At Satis House, Estella and Mrs. Havisham always despise Pip by saying something which is very insulting Pip’s feeling. When Pip and Estella are playing cards and Estella says.
“He calls the knaves, Jacks this boy!” said Estella with disdain, before our game was out. “And what coarse hands he has. And what thick boots!” I had never thought of being ashamed of my hands before; but I began to consider them a very indifferent pair. Her contempt was so strong, that it became infectious, and I caught it. She won the game, and I dealt. I misdealt, as was only natural, when I knew she was lying in wait for me to do wrong; and she denounced me for a stupid, clumsy labouring-boy (p.62).
The above quotation, Pip is very insulted by Estella’s words. She always despises Pip and tries to make Pip shame of himself because of having coarse hands and thick boots. Here, Pip tries to be strong and be patient by ignoring all of insulting speeches from Mrs. Havisham and from Estella.
The other evidence that Pip has a strong heart is shown in the quotation below, when he has finished playing card, and then having his meal in a courtyard
She came back, with some bread and meat and a little mug of beer. She put the mug down on the stones of the yard, and gave me the bread and the meat without looking at me, as insolently as if I were a dog in disgrace. I was so humiliated, hurt, spurned, offended, sorry—I cannot hit upon the right name for the smart—God knows what its name was—that tears started to my eyes (p.64).
By looking at the previous page quotation, we know how hard Pip’s mental burdenin receiving that kind of action, but Pip has no strength to revolt Estella’s and Mrs.
Havisham’saction toward him. He only tries to be strong however his heart is broken. He can only cry and hide his face, so someone cannot see his true feeling. He 33
also has to receive this kind of humiliating action from both Estella and Mrs.
Havisham as long as he is working at Satis House.
Pip is a polite boy. Pip is always polite with everyone he speaks to even with someone who is very insulting. For example, when Pip is on the way to downtown with uncle Pumblechook, Pip tries to greet Pumblechook’s wretched companion in a parlour behind the shop to have breakfast as illustrated in the quotation below.
On my politely bidding him Good-morning, he said pompously, “Seven times nine boy!” And how should I be able to answer, dodged in that way, in strange place, on an empty stomach! (p.57)
Here, the man whom Pip greets does not answer Pip’s greeting by saying “Good- morning” as Pip has said to him, but he says in pompous manner “Seven times nine boy!”. This kind of answer does not match to answer Pip’s greetingand the way he answers in pompous manner also is not proper to answer somebody’s greeting even for a child like Pip.
The next example, when Pip for the first time comes to Mrs. Havisham’s house, he tries to behave when he is inside the house and when he has a conversation with the dweller of the mansion. Here, the quotation shows that even Pip is not in the house yet and still on the way there, he has prepared how to behave when he is already inside the house.
For such reason, I was very glad when ten o’clock came and we started for miss Havisham’s; though I was not at all at my ease regarding the manner in which I should acquit myself under that lady’s roof (p.57}.
The above quotation shows that Pip always tries to be polite to everyone, although the “everyone” cannot do so to him. Again, when Pip has been in front of the house, 34
he meets with a house keeper of the house and tries to be polite to her. He always answers all the questions from her and chats with her in shyness and polite manner, though she is not (p.58-59).
Pip also talks politely to Mrs. Havisham and Estella, although they never do it as the writer explains on the previous pages about how Mrs. Havisham and Estella treat Pip. The next evidence that Pip is polite is when he meets with a man still at the same house, Pip calls him “sir” and always answers his question politely but, the man says.
“Well! Behave yourself. I have a pretty large experience of boys, and you’re a bad set of fellows. Now mind!” said he, biting the side of his great forefinger as he frowned at me, “you behave yourself!” (p.81)
The last evidence is when Pip will depart to London, he come to Mrs.
Havisham to say goodbye to anyone in the Satis House including to Ms. Sarah Pocket but, she conducts Pip down as if he is a ghost who must be sent out. Then, when Pip says goodbye to her, she only stares at him and says nothing as if she ignores all what he has said to her, including his farewell (p.143). From those quotations about Pip’s polite manner show that he always tries to be polite to anyone else, but the “anyone” are always in the contrary and even hurt his feeling.
Pip is a good boy. It is proven by Mrs. Havisham’s remark when she has a conversation with Joe at Satis House. This conversation is held because Pip’s decision to retire himself from his weekly-working at Satis House and he wants to be
Joe’s apprentice. At the end of their conversation, Mrs. Havisham says. 35
“The boy has been a good boy here, and that is his reward. Of course, as an honest man, you will expect no other and no more” (p.97).
Based on the quotation above proves that Pip is a good boy by concerning Mrs.
Havisham’ remark about him. Although in that house Pip is always treated badly but, he does not take any revenge and even being polite to anyone else including all the servants of the house and he always does his job well. From the quotation, we can also see Mrs. Havisham’s care towards Pip, when she tells Joe not to expect some money from Pip and let the money which Pip has earned from the house to be his property to reach his dream.
The next, sometimes Pip feels ashamed and uncomfortable with everything belongs to him including his new job with Joe as a blacksmith and his little house.
This feeling because of the condition of his house is totally different with Satis House which is very large and luxurious.
Home had never been very pleasant to me, because of my sister’s temper. But Joe had sanctified it, and I had believed in it. I had believed in the best parlour as a most elegant saloon; I had believed in the front door, as a mysterious portal of the Temple of State whose solemn opening was attended with a sacrifice of roast fowls; I had believed in the kitchen as a chaste though not magnificent apartment; I had believe in the forge as the glowing road to manhood and independence. Within a single year, all this was changed. Now, it was all coarse and common, and I would not have had miss Havisham and Estella see it on any account (p.100).
The quotation above shows that Pip is comparing his house with Satis House where
Mrs. Havisham and Estella live and where all kinds of luxury lay on. Pip also does not want Mrs. Havisham and Estella see his common living in his common house.
Moreover, Pip is also comparing the meal and the place where he will have the 36
supper with the meal he has had when he is still working in Mrs. Havisham’s. He feels ashamed of his own house and the supper menus in his house.
After that, when we went in to supper the place and the meal would have a more homely look than ever, and I would feel more ashamed of home than ever, in my own ungracious breast (p.102).
Pip is a humble and a low profile person. It is proven when Pip has been promoted by his benefactor, Pip is still working in Joe’s forge as usual, though he has come into ‘a handsome property’. He also does not want to look so glamour with his well-new-clothes which he will order in preparation on his departure to London.
“I have been thinking, Joe, that when I go down town on Monday, and order my new clothes, I shall tell the tailor that I’ll come and put them on there, or I’ll have them sent to Mr. Pumblechook’s. It would be very disagreeable to be stared at by all the people here” “Mr. and Mrs. Hubble might like to see you in your new gen-teel figure too Pip,” said Joe, industriously cutting his bread, with his cheese in it, in the palm of his left hand, and glancing at my untasted supper as if he thought of the time when we used to compare slices. “So might Wopsle. And the Jolly Bargemen might take it as a compliment.” “That’s just what I don’t want, Joe. They would make such a business of it —such coarse and common business—that I couldn’t bear myself” (p.132).
The conversation above shows that Pip is a humble and low profile person. He does not want other persons make some compliments toward his new clothes. He also does not want to be ‘prettier’than the others with his new clothes. He wants to be himself, to be usual Pip with his common clothes, not the well one.
The other evidence that shows Pip is a low profile person is proven when Pip has been a gentleman in good property, he still wears his thick boots or the same model of boots he had worn when he was a worker. It can be proven when Mr. 37
Drummle indirectly comparing Pip’s boots with his by looking at his own boots, and then looking at Pip’s again and again (p.305). It shows that indirectly Mr. Drummle wants to compare Pip’s boots with his boots and he wants to say that a gentleman should get dress as a gentleman, with well suit and well boots, not like a common people.
Pip is a common villager who never sees a big city such as London before. It can be proven when Pip for the first time comes to London, he feels so uneasy. This feeling comes because of some reasons. The first, Pip is scared of the immensity of
London. It can be seen from his expression when he was in the coach as below.
We Britons had that time particularly settled that it was treasonable to doubt our having and our being the best of everything: otherwise, while I was scared by the immensity of London, I think I might have had some faint doubts whether it was not rather ugly, crooked, and dirty (p.147).
Second reason is the condition of London itself. It can be seen when he is taking a look around while waiting for Mr. Jaggers, to know about what London looks like.
After a certain times of walking, Pip finally knows what London looks like after he is in the court and sees the gallows where some bad persons are to be hanged. Then, Pip comes to the conclusion about London as quoted below.
….heightening the interest of that dreadful portal by giving me to understand that “four on‘em” would come out at that door the day after to-morrow at eight in the morning, to be killed in a row. This was horrible, and gave me a sickening idea of London….(p.148).
After knowing the fact about what London looks like as in the quotation above, Pip is little bit disappointed with London. Besides disappointing feeling about
London, Pip is also disappointed after knowing where he will live during in London. 38
He lives in a small inn which is very miserable and totally different with what in his mind before he comes to London.
So imperfect was this realization of the first of my great expectations, that I looked in dismay at Mr. Wemmick. “Ah!” said he, mistaking me; “the retirement you of the country, So it does me” (p.155).
After this escape, I was content to take a foggy view of the Inn through the window’s encrusting dirt, and to stand dolefully looking out, saying to myself that London was decidedly overrated (p.155).
By looking at the quotations above, it is clearly seen that Pip is a common villager who sees a big city as a better place to gain a better life where people can easily make their fortune and where the prosperity lies on than still living in the village.
The next chapter describes Pip as a person who is easy in making friend. He can be close easily with somebody he just meets. It can be seen when Pip meets the
Pockets who is the owner of Barnard’s Innat the first time. The closeness between
Pip and the Pockets is seen when Pip helps Mr. Pocket Junior or Herbert Pocket to hold his paper-bag while he is struggling to open a stuck door (p.156). After that, they become closer moreover, after knowing that Herbert Pocket is the pale young gentleman whom Pip has ever met and fought with when he works in Satis House.
The pale young gentleman and I stood contemplating one another in Barnard’s Inn, until we both burst out laughing. “The idea of its being you!” said he. “The idea of its being you!” said I. and then we contemplated one another afresh, and laughed again. “Well!” saidthe pale young gentleman, reaching out his hand good-humouredly, “it’s all over now, I hope, and it will be magnanimous in you if you’ll forgive me for having knocked you about so.” I derived from this speech that Mr. Herbert Pocket (for Herbert was the pale young gentleman’s name) still rather confounded his intention with his execution. But, I made a modest reply, and we shook hands warmly (p.157). 39
The above quotation shows the closeness between Pip and Mr. Pocket Junior or Herbert Pocket though they have ever fought in the first time they meet. After that,
Herbert Pocket becomes Pip’s closest friend in Londonand they will help each other in chasing their dreams, not only Herbert Pocket, but also his father, Mr. Mathew
Pocket, then Mr. Wemmick, and Mr. Jaggers who also become Pip’s best friendin
London.
Pip is also characterized as a wasteful and splendid person. After being in
London, Pip’s characteristic is changing from a very plain to a glamorous person. It happens because he wants to boast his great prospect as a gentleman and a scholar as well by buying some expensive properties and to patronize Herbert Pocket (p.188).
Pip is also often wasting his money to go to cinema, go to the theaters, go to have some drinks with his friends in certain clubs in London, and have some expensive dinners. This condition is caused by his discretion and being too free to spend his money which will soon lead him into a great debt which is increasing day by day.
In the next chapter, Pip is characterized as a curious person. Pip always wants to know everything around him so, he often asks his friends including Herbert to tell him some information which he is curious about. The thing that makes him so curious is the information about Mrs. Havisham and about who actually Estella is. It is shown when at the first time Pip and Herbert have their dinner in Barnard’s Inn, Pip asks
Herbert to tell the story about Mrs. Havisham, and Pip always tries to dig the information deeper by asking Herbert some questions as follow. 40
“How did you bear your disappointment?” I asked. “Pooh!” said he, ”I didn’t care much for it. She’s a tartar.” “Miss Havisham?” I suggested. “I don’t say no to that, but I meant Estella. That girl’s hard and haughty and capricious to the last degree, and has been brought up by Miss Havisham to wreak revenge on all the male sex.” “What relation is she to Miss Havisham?” “None, “ said he. “ Only adopted.” “Why should she wreak revenge on all the male sex? What revenge?” “Lord Mr. Pip!” said he. “Don’t you know?” “No,” said I. “Dear me! It’s quite a story, and shall be saved till dinner time. And now let me take the liberty of asking you a question. How did you come there that day?” (p.158).
By looking at the quotation above, we can see that Pip is very curious about
Mrs. Havisham’s reason to take a revenge on all man, and how Estella is adopted by
Mrs. Havisham. This inquiry is postponed by the dinner, and after the dinner has finished, Pip again tries to get more information by asking Herbert to continue his story about Mrs. Havisham.
We had made some progress in the dinner, when I reminded Herbert of his promise to tell me about Mrs. Havisham (p.160).
By looking at the quotation above, it is clear that Pip is a curious person who wants to know further about something which is arousing his interest, although the story is postponed by the dinner.
The other evidence which shows Pip is curious person is when Pip wants to know about Provis’s family. He asks Herbert to tell everything about who Provis’s wife is, who his daughter is, why he is imprisoned, etc while Herbert is helping him to replace the bandage with the new one. Here, Pip’s hands are burnt so badly when he is trying to help Mrs. Havisham out from the fire which is destroying her great 41
house. Because of his curiousness, Pip does not feel any hurt when Herbert is replacing the bandage but in reverse, Pip is always asking Herbert and listening to every words Herbert says (p.347-349).
The next, Pip is a forgiver. It is proven when Mrs. Havisham has got very bad injury after the flame incident in her house, she regrets all the things she has done in the past time and asks Pip’s forgiveness. Before he goes home, he takes care of her and forgives all the bad things she has done in the past, as shown in the quotation below.
At about six o’clock of the morning, therefore, I leaned over her hand touched her lips with mine, just as they said, not stopping for being touched , “Take the pencil and write under my name, ‘I forgive her’” (p.345).
Actually, Pip has forgiven her for long time ago since he is still working to her and he never takes any revenge toward her although, she has ever tried to humiliate, despise, hurt, and do any miserable things to him. In the reverse, Pip always takes care of her, always comes to her house to inform his birthday, and takes the time to visit her in order to see her and her condition. He also forgives Estella who has done the same things as Mrs. Havisham.
Pip is good in keeping a secret. It can be proven when Mr. Wemmick asks Pip to not expose or to keep his marriage with Miss. Skiffins in secret, Pip does that. He does not tell to anybody in Little Britain about Mr. Wemmick’s marriage including to his master, Mr. Jaggers (p.388). 42
Pip is a faithful person. It can be proven by seeing the way he loves Estella.
He still loves Estella although, she has married with Mr. Drummle besides her wicked thing which she has ever done to him, but he is still loyal to his love. He also decides to be a bachelor however his best friend Herbert Pocket has married with
Clara. Pip also cannot get Estella away from his mind. It is shown when Biddy asks him a question whether he has forgotten Estella or not as shown below.
“Dear Pip,” said Biddy, “yoou are sure you don’t fret for her?” “Oh no—I think not, Biddy.” “Tell me, as an old friend. Have you quite forgotten her?” “My dear Biddy, I have forgotten nothing in my life that ever had a foremost place there, and little that ever had any place there (p.410).
From the quotation, it is clear that Pip cannot forget Estella because she has dwelled in a special place inside Pip’s heart.
The next evidence which proves Pip’s faithfulness to Estellais when he comes to the ruined Satis House to call back his old memory about that place, and finds Estella there. She is not as pretty as she was but, Pip still admires her charm.
The freshness of her beauty was indeed gone, but its indescribable majesty and indescribable charms remained (p.411).
By looking at the quotation in the previous page, it is seen that Pip is still admiring
Estella although, she is not like the previous one who is prettier than others. After a long of conversation, finally Pip tell to Estella that he still have her in his heart.
“You have always held your place in my heart,” I answered. And we were silent again, until se spoke. “I little thought,” said Estella, “that I should take leave of you in taking leave this spot. I am very glade to do so.” 43
“Glad to part again, Estella? To me, parting is a painful thing. To me, the remembrance of our last parting has been ever mournful and painful” (p.412).
The above quotation shows how faithful Pip is to love Estella although, he cannot posses her as his beloved. That quotation also shows that Estella gives to Pip another pain by taking another parting which is considered as painful and mournful thing in
Pip’sview.
B. The Representation of Charles Dickens’Life
In this second discussion, the writer of this thesis wants to discuss the representation of Charles Dickens’ life experience which is stated in his work.The writer of this thesis finds that there is a close relation between the author and his work as stated in this thesis, that the author’s life experience influences the story of his work. Here, the writer tries to reveal the similarities between Charles Dickens’s life and Pip’s life in order to answer the second and the last problem in this thesis. The more similarities are found, the nearer reflection they can be. This discussion will be based on the autobiography of Charles Dickens which is quoted from two books which have the same title, CHARLES DICKENS. The first book is written by Dame
Una Pope-Hennessy, and the second book is written by G.K Chesterton. Beside those two books, the writer also uses the previous discussion as the source in this discussion.
Charles Dickens’ novel The Great Expectations is actually talking about an orphan child name Phillip Pirrip or Pip who really represents his own life when he 44
was a child laborer. In this novel, Charles Dickens describes an agony and a humiliation as the same as his feeling when he was a laborer at Blacking factory. The writer has found some similarities between Pip and Charles Dickens from the novel and based on those similarities, the writer is able to make an analysis as follows.
In The Great Expectations, Pip is characterized as an orphan child. He lives with his rude sister and stands to bear all kind of miserable things in his life. The writer will start the analysis from the reason why Pip is characterized as an orphan child and he why he leads a difficult life to get a better life. Actually, the word
“orphan” is a representation of Charles Dickens’ loneliness when he had to live separated from his parents when he was a child laborer and his parents were imprisoned. He also did not have any companion to share or to play with. This condition is the same as Pip. As stated in the previous discussion that Pip is described as a seven years old child whose both of his parents and his five brothers have died.
Moreover, he lives with his sister who is a bad temper woman, so he does not get love as he wants from his sister. Actually Pip is a lonely child. He does not have any friends except Joe and Biddy. Pip will do anything to maintain his companionship with them, especially with Joe as quoted below.
I love Joe—perhaps for no better reason in those early days than because the dear fellow let me love him—and, as to him, my inner self was not so easily composed. It was much upon my mind (particularly when I first saw him looking about for his file), that I ought to tell Joe the whole truth. Yet did not, and for the reason that I mistrusted that if I did, he would think me worse than I was. The fear of losing Joe’s confidence, and of thenceforth sitting in the chimney-corner at night, staring drearily at my for ever lost companion and friend, tied up my tongue (Dickens, 1953: 46). 45
The statement above is quoted when Pip has a conflict in his mind, he does not know whether he should tell Joe the truth that he had stolen Joe’s file or not. This mind- conflict is caused by his self guilty and the effect of losing his companionship with
Joe. In addition, in the novel, Dickens created Joe Gargery as a companion of Pip, who would spend his time to play with Pip. Joe also became a teacher who gave all he knew to Pip.
This condition is very different when we compare with the condition which
Charles Dickens had. Dickens did not have any friend to play with after the fall of his family, if he had any friend, perhaps he would like Pip, he would do anything to keep his friend and he also did not want to lose his friend. In addition, when he became a laborer, he lived alone in a lodging-house in Camden Town. Besides trying to help his family out from the prison, he also started a difficult life to help himself by working to get out from this difficult condition because he did not have anybody to help him (Chesterton, 1956: 35). He also did not have any teacher who taught him any knowledge. He studied and practiced himself. In this case, Dickens’ need to have a friend to get his loneliness away is not fulfilled. So, he used his work to be a device to hide his illness or even his weakness of being lonely. According to the book
Theory of Literature
The work may be a mask, a dramatized conventionalization, but it is frequently a conventionalization of his own experience, his own life (Wellek and Warren, 1949: 79). 46
Based on the above quotation, he used his work to be a mask to hide his real weakness by creating a ‘fictional-character’ which he dreamt about to cheer up his solitary life. Besides leading a solitary life, Dickens also lived in inappropriate condition with inappropriate food. This kind of condition is totally in the contrary with his previous life. In the early time of young Dickens was a glorious time because his father was a clerk in the Navy Pay-Office. He lived in the middle-class society and had all the family’s prosperity.
He was born and grew up in a paradise of small prosperity. He fell into the family, so to speak, during once of its comfortable period, and he never in those early days thought of himself as anything but as a comfortable middle-class child, the son of a comfortable middle-class man (Chesterton, 1956: 26).
Living in that social class, enables Charles Dickens to have a beautiful dream, having a good education in a commercial school, and having a good place such as
Gads-Hill (Chesterton, 1956: 29). When he lived with a good prosperity as stated in the above quotation, he was able to have anything he dreamt for, such as a beautiful dream having a good education, and Gads-Hill. Unfortunately, after the fall of his family, all of his prosperities were gone and his great father was imprisoned in
Marshalsea prison because having a big debt. This situation totally changed his view about his life. It also made his dream of his family good prosperity was gone.
He regarded himself as a child of good position just about to enter on a life of good luck. He thought his home and family a very good spring- board or jumping-off place from which to fling himself to the positions which he desired to reach. And almost as he was about to spring the whole structure broke under him, and he and all that belonged to him disappeared into a darkness far bellow (Chesterton, 1956: 29). 47
From the quotation above, we can see the transition which Charles Dickens had to face, from a middle-class to working-class. It happened to him in his twelve years old. He lived separately from his family, his father and his mother were in
Marshalsea prison. His mother was also imprisoned because of her effort to help the economical condition of the family by opening a small girl’s school in the north of
London was not successful because nobody would go to her school (Chesterton,
1956: 30). This condition made the family’s debt became higher and un-payable then, it also made his mother lived in the same prison with his father. Moreover, he was also withdrawn from the school and insisted to work to pay the family’s dept. This condition gave a shock in young Dickens’s mind to bear a life transition from middle- class to working-class which indeed influenced his psychological condition.
Besides describing Pip as an orphan, Dickens also describes Pip as a child who is often being humiliated by anyone, even by his relatives including his own sister. Moreover, when Pip is working at Mrs. Havisham’s house, he is also humiliated and underestimated by Estella. Here, Pip was insisted to be strong to bear these kinds of treatment from Mrs. Havisham and Estella. He was also treated in inappropriate way as stated in quotation bellow.
She came back, with some bread and meat and a little mug of beer. She put the mug down on the stones of the yard, and gave me the bread and the meat without looking at me, as insolently as if I were a dog in disgrace. I was so humiliated, hurt, spurned, offended, angry, sorry—I cannot hit upon the right name for the smart—God knows what its name was—that tears started to my eyes (Dickens, 1953: 64). 48
The statement above shows us that Pip was treated in inappropriate way by Estella.
Pip’s feeling was hurt by this kind of treatment. He could only cry, because of having no strength to revolt and hiding his face because as a boy he did not want somebody to see him cried.
But, when she was gone, I looked about me for a place to hide my face in, and got behind one of the gates in the brewery-lane, and leaned my sleeve against the wall there, and leaned my fore-head on it, and cried. As I cried, I kicked the wall, and took a hard twist at my hair; so bitter were my feelings, and so sharp was the smart without a name, that needed counteraction (Dickens, 1953: 64).
The quotation above shows that although Pip was crying but, he did not want anybody saw him cried. By the quotation above, it becomes clear that this kind of characteristic in which Dickens has created Pip as the main character in his novel is really reflected and has a relation with Dickens’ childhood experience. Actually, the inappropriate and humiliation treatment from Mrs. Havisham and Estella are the representation of Charles Dickens’ feeling when he was working at blacking factory.
He was tortured by the condition where he lived at that time and the condition he must deal with, as a child laborer who worked to get his parents out from jail and to fix his family’s economical condition. He was withdrawn from the school where he gained some knowledge, he must work at a blacking factory from morning until night. He also could not get any proper food because of 1 shilling he got from the factory every day was not enough to buy it then, when he did not have money for food, he went to Covent Garden to stare at pineapple (Hennessy, 1970: 27). He worked there with a disappointment, because actually he wanted to be a grammar 49
school student which would lead him to enter Cambridge. This factory also changed his perception toward his parents, because they had abandoned him as if they pleased him to go working for them.
He describes himself as sunk in ‘a deep sense of abandonment’. The worst pang of all was that his parents seemed pleased to have him off their hands. With despair in his heart he realized that they frankly welcomed his being entered to servitude (Hennessy, 1970: 25).
Besides having that abandoned feeling of his parents, the young Charles
Dickens also felt that he was abandoned by James Lamert, a relation of his mother, who offered him to work in that factory. This situation is similar with Pip when he was promoted by Mr. Pumblecook, a relation of his sister’s husband to work at Satis
House. There, he also felt dreary and got some humiliating treatment from Mrs.
Havisham and Estella. Pip also was abandoned by his sister, as if she pleased to let him working at Satis House just because of money. He was powerless to make a refusal about it.
As the writer’s previous statement that when Pip was working in Satis House, he had to stand to bear all kinds of miserable thing he had got from Mrs. Havisham and Estella. All those feelings are the representations of young Dickens’ feelingwhen he was working at the factory. Dickens also had the same impression when he was working at the blacking factory as expressed by G.K. Chesterton in the book
I really think that his pain at this time was so real and ugly that the thought of it filled him with short of impersonal but unbearable shame with which we are filled, for instance, by the notion of physical torture, of something that humiliates humanity. He felt that such agony was something obscene (Chesterton, 1956: 32). 50
From the quotation above, it is clear that the experience of being a child laborer is too hard for Charles Dickens in his boyhood. All the factory activities really tortured him although his work was simple, just tying the bottles up neatly and sticking labels on them. It is the same as Pip. Actually his work was also simple, just playing with
Estella, or doing anything which Mrs. Havisham told him, but he was mentally tortured by any miserable thing which Mrs. Havisham and Estella did to him. Pip also felt shame when Estella told about his coarse hands and his thick boots.
“He calls the knaves, Jacks, this boy!” said Estella with disdain, before our first game was out. “And what coarse hands he has. And what a thick boots!” (Dickens, 1953: 62).
I took the opportunity of being alone in the courtyard to look at my coarse hands and my common boots. My opinion of those accessories was not favourable. They had never troubled me before, but they troubled me now, as vulgar appendages (Dickens, 1953: 63).
As an addition, in The Great Expectations, Pip always walked from his house to the location he worked at and came back at evening. Dickens also did the same thing, he always started his day by walking daily from Camden Town to the Strand and back at night (Hennessy, 1970: 27).
Besides the difficult working time, there is ‘another thing’which influences
Dickens in creating the main character, Pip. The ‘another thing’is the condition of his imprisoned parents. As a common child in his age, actually Dickens wanted to have a special care and love from his parents as others children had but, the condition did not let him to have it because his father and his mother were in prison. This problem gave an impact to Dickens psychological condition. He became introverted, has no many 51
friends and had a shameful feeling toward his imprisoned family as stated in this quotation
….Bob Fagin insisted on escorting the boy home to his father. The situation was a poignant as a short of tragic farce. Fagin in his wooden- headed chivalry would have died in order to take Dickens to his family; Dickens in his bitter gentility would have died rather than let Fagin know that his family were in the Marshalsea (Chesterton, 1956: 34).
From the quotation, Dickens prevented Bob Fagin to meet his father. He did this because he felt ashamed of the condition he was living in. He considered this condition as a “top secret” and let nobody knew about what exactly had happened with his family. His parents (both his father and his mother) were in the prison and he lived alone in a lodging-house. It influenced him to create main character’s ‘shameful feeling’ toward himself and his belongings which were also represented in his novel.
When Pip has retired himself from working at Mrs. Havisham’s house, he feels ashamed of his own house. He is afraid if Estella or Mrs. Havisham see him working at Joe Forge and see his little house.
Home had never been a very pleasant place to me, because of my sister’s temper. But Joe had sanctified it, and I had believed in it. I had believed in the best parlour as a most elegant saloon; I had believed in the front door, as a mysterious portal of the Temple of State whose solemn opening was attended with a sacrifice of roast fowl; I had believed in the kitchen as a chaste though not magnificent apartment; I had believed in the forge as the glowing road to manhood and independence. Within a single year, all this was changed. Now, it was all coarse and common, and it would not have had Miss Havisham and Estella see it on any account (Dickens, 1953: 100).
What I dreaded was, that in some unlucky hour I, being at my grimiest and commonest, should lift up my eyes and see Estella looking in at one of the wooden windows of the forge. I was haunted by the fear that she would, sooner or latter, find me out with a black face and hands, doing the 52
coarsest part of my work, and would exult over me and despise me (Dickens, 1953: 101-102).
The above quotations show that Pip feels ashamed of his real condition as a child from working-class family. He doe not want Estella or Mrs. Havisham come to see him working in Joe’s forge. This is the same as Dickens’s feeling. He also kept his real condition as a child laborer by not telling his real condition by anybody except his only best friend, Foster.
Then he invited Foster, as his best friend, to a particular interview, and, with every appearance of difficulty and distress, told him the whole story for the first and the last time. He never spoke of the whole experience except once or twice, and he never spoke of it otherwise than a man might speak of hell (Chesterton, 1956: 31-32).
The above quotation shows that Charles Dickens tries to keep his experience very carefully. He does not want anybody know his status as a child laborer. He considers that status as a weakness and painful part of his life.
That part of his distress which concerned himself and his social standing was among the other parts of it the least noble; but perhaps it was the most painful. For pride is not only, as the modern world fails to understand, a sin to be condemned; it is also (as it understands even less) a weakness to be very much commiserated (Chesterton, 1956: 34).
In Charles Dickens’ case, his past experience as a child laborer and the fall of his family really gave a deep trace in his childhood experience. Then, when he became a novelist, he wrote his tragic past experience which was traced in his mind unconsciously. It can be seen in his works, why he often uses orphanage, poverty, child laborer, abandonment, and all his disappointments during the working time in 53
his novels. He also creatively created a character which really reflected his personal past experience in his The Great Expectations.
The next similarity between Pip’s life and Charles Dickens’ is about the way they are learning something. In The Great Expectations, Pip is described as a village child who is poor. He cannot have a good education as the rich people have. He can only learn anything and practice by himself, for example he learns how to read by reading his parents’tombstones. Everyday he goes to the churchyard to spend his days there, to practice his reading skill by reading the tombstones. He also becomes
Joe’s apprentice, he plays and asks something he does not know to Joe. Not only to
Joe, Pip gains the knowledge, but also to Biddy, one of his best friend in village.
Fortunately, Biddy is a teacher in Mr. Wopsle’s great aunt’s school, so Pip is freely gaining any knowledge from her.
It is similar to Charles Dickens, after his father was imprisoned because of having a big debt, his dream to have a good education was gone, and his family fell into a deep hole called poverty. It was impossible for him to continue his study in a commercial school. He was withdrawn and had to work at Warren’s Blacking
Factory. In this factory he gained anything he could and from anybody he knew.
When his working time was over, he came back by walking and exploring the whole town on the way home (Chesterton, 1956: 41-42).
The more example of Charles Dickens was always learning from somebody around him, when he gained the knowledge about how to be an actor and act on the stage by spending all his spare evening at the theatre. He observed all the things 54
happened inside the theatre in detail, from the way how to walk, how to enter the room, etc. Those he gained in the theatre were memorized in his mind.
…spent all his spare evenings at the theatre, ‘always studying the bills first, always seeing the best plays’, and following Charles Mathews in all his impersonations. Prescribing for himself ‘a kind of Hamiltonian system’ for learning parts he memorized a good number, took lessons from the actor Robert Keeley, and practiced at home before a mirror how to enter a room, how to sit down on a chair, how to bow (Hennessy, 1970: 38).
In his off-time, he also learnt to be a clerk and a reporter from his father, John
Dickens and his uncle, John Henry Barrow. It enabled him to make an application to
Ellis and Blackmore in order to join his cousin, Thomas Charlton, as a reporter in the
Consistory Court of Doctors’ Commons (1970: 34).
The next similarity between Pip and Charles Dickens is about their
‘unfulfilled-love’. In The Great Expectation, Pip is really deep in love with Estella.
He loves her, although he knows that she is far from his reach. She is unreachable for
Pip because of a social class background. Estella is in high-class, while Pip is in working-class. Moreover, Estella is ‘programmed’ by Mrs. Havisham to break every man’s heart through her beauty. Mrs. Havisham also sends her to get a better education in Paris.
It is similar to Charles Dickens. Charles Dickens also fell in love with a beauty girl from a prosperous family Maria Beadnell. She was a daughter of George
Beadnell, a bank manager in the city. When Charles Dickens went to the Beadnells’ house in Lombard Street, he was also treated almost as a servant and no one of the family respected him. 55
This was probably the first family circle to which Dickens had been introduced and he enjoyed it, even taking a fancy to Mrs. Beadnell, who treated him almost as a servant and addressed him as ‘Mr. Dickin’ (Hennessy, 1970: 39).
No one in the family could regard him as a possible suitor, he was just a penniless reporter who could laugh and sing; but negligible and innocuous as he appeared to the prosperous Beadnells, he fell head and ears in love with their daughter (1970: 39).
The two quotations above show that the Beadnells also did the same thing with what
Mrs. Havisham and Estella did to Pip. Here, Charles Dickens was treated almost as a servant and nobody in the family disregarded him, because he was a poor reporter.
Here, Maria Beadnells also played with ‘Charles’ devotion’as stated in Pope-
Hennessy’s book,
Maria played with his devotion and extracted all the fun there was to be got out of the situation, little knowing that one day she and her pet, ‘Daphne’, immortalized as ‘Dora’ and ‘Jip’, would wring the heart of thousands (1970: 40).
The quotation above shows that Maria Beadnell has the same character as Estella who breaks many man’shearts. Like Mrs. Havisham then, the Beadnell parents also sent
Maria to Paris to ‘a finishing establishment’after the marriage of her sister Anne
Beadnell (1970: 40).
Before Maria’s departure to Paris, Charles Dickens worked very hard every single day in order to have the Beadnells’ heart,
Dickens slaved to raise himself from the rut of the family circumstance. He worked harder than ever in Doctor’s Commons, he read harder than ever in British Museum, and was lifted by his passion for Maria out of black memories of suffering and humiliation (1970: 40). 56
This great effort as seen in the quotation is also represented in Dickens’The Great
Expectations. This event is similar to Pip when he wants to have a better education, he works very hard to earn some money to pay the tuition fee. It is just to fulfill his dream to be a gentleman to get Estella’s heart.
I was disconcerted, for I had broken away without quite seeing where I was going. It was not to be shuffled off now, however, and I answered, “The beautiful young lady at Miss Havisham’s and she’s more beautiful than anybody ever was, and I admire her dreadfully, and I want to be a gentleman on her account.” Having made this lunatic confession, I began to throw my torn-up grass into the river, as if I had some thoughts of following it (Dickens, 1953: 119).
By looking at the two quotations from Pope-Hennessy’s book and Dickens’ novel above, we can see that there is a similarity between Pip and Dickens in struggling to get their first love. Both Dickens and Pip are from a working-class family. Dickens has Blacking Factory as his background, while Blacksmith as Pip’s family background.
The next similarity between Pip and Dickens is about a big debt. This big debt has a big chunk in their life, because it changes their life from having “a good-life” into “a miserable-life”.In The Great Expectations, the big debt comes when Pip has been a young man in well prosperity and leads a nice life. Then, he becomes a wasteful person who will spend money freely for anything without any consideration whether the thing he has bought is necessary or not. This debt also makes him almost be imprisoned if he cannot pay it in a certain length of time. His life is saved from being imprisoned after Joe pays a little part of his debt. He must work hard than ever to pay the rest, and sells some of his belongings. 57
The same as Dickens, the big debt came when he was a child. The debt made his great father was imprisoned at Marshalsea Prison. This debt also made all of his family’s prosperity wasgone. In order to pay the debt, his mother opened a girl’s school, but it only made the debt grew bigger and brought her into the same prison.
The young Dickens must lead a tragic life, life separated from his parents, and must work at a Blacking Factory to pay the debt. His life became better when his uncle,
William Dickens paid ₤40 to take his family out from prison. After his family’s freedom, he was still working at the same factory to pay the rest of the debt
(Hennessy, 1970: 29).
We can see that both Pip and Dickens have the same problem in having the responsibility to pay the debt. Charles Dickens works hard to take his family out from prison, while Pip to save his life from being imprisoned. Both Dickens and Pip also have a “helper” who reduces their responsibility in paying the debt, Pip has Joe
Gargery, while Charles Dickens has his uncle, William Dickens.
The last, it was not only about working in the factory and loneliness which are triggered by the bad economical condition after the fall of his family or many things which have been stated previously but also, there is one more thing which also represented in the novel, which is his disappointment about an injustice condition which seemed on his sister’s side.While he was working at blacking factory to help the family out from prison, his elder sister, Fanny Dickens led a better life by still continuing her education at the Royal Academy of Music. This injustice condition gave him more unendurable pain than the pain he got from the factory. 58
His most unendurable moment did not come in any bullying in the factory or any famine in the streets. It came when he went to see his sister Fanny take a prize at the Royal Academy of Music. “I could not bear to think myself—beyond the reach of all such honorable emulation and success. The tears ran down my face. I felt as if my heart were rent. I prayed when I went to bed that night to be lifted out of the humiliation and neglect in which I was. I never had suffered so much before. There was no envy in this” (Chesterton, 1956: 34).
The above condition also gives Charles Dickens deep trace of bad childhood experience in his mind. Here, Charles Dickens also had to be strong to bear this kind of injustice condition. Actually, he also wanted to continue his study rather than to continue his job in factory for a certain length of time. He must be strong to bear his dream to be a scholar until he is promoted by his father to get more education after his father’s freedom from the prison.
This injustice toward his sister is also reflected in The Great Expectations. In that novel, Charles Dickens gave a distinguish description about Pip’s sister if compared with other female characters in the novel. In the novel, Pip describes his sister as a bad tempered woman who has a big hand and often uses it to hit his husband and Pip, she is rough in the she speaks, and she is not a beautiful woman.
She was not a good looking woman, my sister; and I had a general impression that she must have made Joe Gargery marry her by hand (Dickens, 1953: 19).
My sister, Mrs. Joe, with black hair and eyes, had such a prevailing redness of skin that I sometimes used to wonder whether it was possible she washes herself with a nutmeg-grater instead of soap (Dickens, 1953: 19).
Those are the descriptions which Pip uses to describe his sister, she is not good looking woman, and her skin is red as if she uses a nutmeg-grater to wash it 59
rather than using soap. In addition, Pip’s sister also has a bad temper, she often hits
Pip and her husband, and easily in rampage, and from his sister all of his disappointed feelings come from. Those descriptions are totally different if we compare them with the description of Estella, Biddy, or even Clara, Herbert’s wife. They are described as beautiful women, good looking, and educated. Besides those Pip’s sister’s characterizations, Dickens also did not give her any name but Mrs. Gargery. This different description toward Pip’s sister is a kind of Dickens’ self expression of his disappointed feeling toward his “lucky” sister. She is still able to enjoy a beautiful day by learning music at Royal Academy of Music, while he must live with all disappointment working in a Blacking Factory from morning until night. CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION
In this chapter, the writer of this thesis wants to give a conclusion of the study.We know that this thesis is analyzing a novel which is considered as the representation of its author’s past experience.In this novel, Charles Dickens involves his past experience to build the story in the novel, so the writer uses Charles Dickens’ biography in order to have more information about Charles Dickens’s life. Before making the analysis, firstly, the writer formulates two problem formulations as a guide line to the analysis. The first problem is asking about how Charles Dickens characterizes Pip as the main character in the novel. Second problem is asking about how Pip’s characteristics represent Charles Dickens’ life. The writer uses biographical approach as the approach of this study. This approach is used to relate
Charles Dickens’ life experience which is built by his tragic experience is really reflected in his work. By knowing what kind of experience which the author has in the past time, then we are able to know what the novel as the author’s work is talking about.
In order to answer the first problem, the writer tries to analyze the characteristics of the main character in the novel, Pip. The main character is characterized as a boy who is seven years old. He is an orphan and he lives with his bad tempered sister and Joe Gargery his sister’shusband who is a blacksmith. Pip is afraid of his sister because she often hits him and her husband. Pip is often being
60 61
blamed for any miserable things which happen in the house, and being humiliated even by his relatives. The next, Pip is characterized as a boy who does not have any friend except Joe, his sister’s husband. Pip is honest, he is afraid of telling lie to anyone. He also has a strong desire to reach his dream to be a gentleman. In fact, he does not only have strong desire, but he also has strong heart in facing some humiliations when he works at Mrs. Havisham’s house. The next, he is described as a polite boy, a good boy however, he does not feel comfortable with his life and all his belongings. He is also described as a humble person, a common villager who has not ever seen a big town such as London before, he is easy to make a friend, splendid and wasteful, a curious person, a forgiver, good in keeping a secret, and a faithful person.
The second problem is asking about the author’s life experiences reflect in the main character, Pip. In order to know how similar the reflection is, the writer tries to find as many as he can to find some similarities between the author’s life and the main character’s life. As the result, the writer finds some similarities between them such as, the main character is an orphan. This orphanage is the representation of the author’s loneliness because he lives separately with his mother and father, because they were imprisoned and the author must work to get them out from prison. Pip, the main character and the author, Charles Dickens, they had been a child laborer in their boyhood. They also have the similar way in learning something which is by practicing their self all the skills they have. The next similarity is about their love.
Both of them have an ‘un-fulfilled love’ and being rejected because having the same background, which is from a poor family. Moreover, the girls they love, Estella and 62
Maria Beadnell, both of them go to the same country to have their education, Paris.
Pip and Charles Dickens, both of them work so hard in order to be at the same social level with their beloved’s family. The next is about the debt.Both Pip and Dickens are having a great debt which gives a big impact in their life. The last is about Pip’s sister, she is the representation of Dickens’ disappointment toward his sister, Fanny
Dickens. Fanny Dickens led a better life, while Charles Dickens was working in the factory, Fanny was still able to continue her education at the Royal Academy of
Music.This injustice condition gave more unendurable pain to Charles Dickens.
Then, he created Pip’s sister as a rude, and bad tempered person who often slapped
Pip and even Joe Gargery, her husband. Besides characterizing Pip’s sister as a rude person, Dickens also characterized her as not beautiful woman if compared with the other female characters inside the novel. He also did not give her any name, but only
Mrs. Gargery. So, the rudeness and all kind bad things of Pip’s sister are the representation of this disappointment feeling.
From the analysis, the writer concludes that past experience can be an inspiration in writing a literary work such as a novel. It is proven in The Great
Expectations by Charles Dickens. He used his own life experiences to build the plot in that novel, so the story and the main character in the novel are the representation of his past experiences. From the novel itself, the writer learns that we can be whatever we want to be as long as we have desire and strong will to reach it, no matter what how difficult it is. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,
1981.
Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publisher, 1985.
Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995.
Chesterton, G.K. Charles Dickens. London: Methuen and Co Ltd, 1956.
Dickens, Charles. The Great Expectations. London: Collins Clear-Type Press, 1953.
Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Oxford.: Blackwell Ltd, 1995.
Foster, E.M. Aspect of the Novel. London: Edward Arnold Ltd,1974
Graham, S. Encyclopedia of General Knowledge. London: The English Universities Press Ltd, 1958.
Guerin, Wilfred L. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc, 1999.
Hennessy, Una. Pope. Charles Dickens. London: Penguin Books, 1970.
Holman, C. Hugh and William Harmon. A Handbook to Literature. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1986.
Hornby, A.S. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Huang, Wayne.
Jabes, Edmon.
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Murphy, M.J. Understanding Unseen: An Introduction to English Poetry and Novel for Overseas Students. London: George Allen and Urwin Ltd, 1972.
Perkings, George. The Theory of American Novel. London: Holt, Rienhart and Winston, 1970.
Rohrberger, Marry and Samuel H. Woods, Jr. Reading and Writing about Literature. New York: Random House Inc, 1971.
Stanton, Robert. Introduction to Fiction. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston Inc, 1965.
Wellek, Rene and Austin Warren. Theory of Literature. New York: Harcourt, Brace & world Inc, 1949.
Woods, Samuel. H. Reading Literature: The Critical Approach. Nee York: random House Inc, 1971.
The Summary:
“The Great Expectations”
Pip was an orphan. He lived with his rough sister and his brother in law Joe.
One day, Pip was sitting by his parents’ graves, suddenly he heard a man’svoice came closer. The man was a convict and Pip was very scared of him. The man said that he would kill Pip if he did not give him some meals and a file to break his handcuffs. He was very hungry. In order to save his life, Pip stole Joe’s file from his forge and all meals in his house for the man. The next early morning, Pip was sneaking out of his house, went to the graveyard and gave the meals and the file to the man. At the same day, while Pip and his families were celebrating a Christmas dinner, a sergeant and his soldier came. They were searching for the two convicts who had escaped from the jail. Then, Pip, Joe, Mr. Wopsle and Uncle Pumblechook helped the sergeant to find them. After a long process of searching, finally they found the two convicts were fighting in the mud. One of the convict was the man in the graveyard who had scared Pip.
View days latter, when Mrs. Joe (Pip’s sister) back from the town with Uncle
Pumblechook, she asked Pip to work at Mrs. Havisham. Mrs. Havisham was a rich woman and she had a little girl who needed a boy to play with her. The next day, Pip and Uncle Pumblechook went to town to see Mrs. Havisham. When they were there,
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Uncle Pumblechook was not allowed to go in so, only Pip escorted by a young proud lady went in to see Mrs. Havisham. After they met, Mrs. Havisham introduced a young girl whom Pip must play with. Her name was Estella. She was a proud girl.
She always said something bad and underestimated Pip, because he came from a working class. Moreover, this underestimations and other insulting words from
Estella and Mrs. Havisham caused Pip to have a desire to be a scholar and a gentleman so, nobody would underestimate him again. Pip went to Mrs. Havisham’s every six days, and then finally he found that he had fallen in love with Estella.
One evening, Mrs. Joe was attacked by a man and she was never well again so, Biddy came to look after Mrs. Joe. Biddy was a kind girl and she became Pip’s good friend after Joe. Pip told anything to her including his desire to be a gentleman.
Biddy taught anything she knew to him. His desire to be a gentleman became bigger after Estella said that his hands were rough, and then he imagined how about Joe’s hands as a blacksmith who did hard work everyday, how coarse his hands were. One day, Joe and Pip were having some drinks at the local pup and there they met with a lawyer called Mr. Jaggers. Mr. Jaggers was asked by someone who became Pip’s benefactor to invite Pip to go to London to get a better education there. Not only to have a better education, but also Mr. Jaggers said that Pip would have an allowance
(money) given every three months. Pip was very thanked full to the person who gave him this good fortune. He thought that the person was Mrs. Havisham. Before his departure, Pip went to Satis house, Mrs. Havisham’s houseto say goodbye to her because he must go to London to get an education in order to be a gentleman. 67
In London, Pip stayed in Barnard’s Inn. He had a room mate also named
Herbert Pocket, the person who he had fought with when he worked at Mrs.
Havisham’shouse.Herbert Pocket was the son of Mathew Pocket, the owner of the
Inn. At dinner time, Herbert Pocket told a story about Mrs. Havisham and her failed
Marriage because her man had left the country on the wedding day. Then she adopted a girl to break as many hearts as possible. Pip and Herbert Pocket became a good friend then. After being in London, Pip became wasteful with his money. He and
Herbert often went to parties together, they shopped together and because of that, Pip spent so much money on it. Then his debt became bigger day by day and made Pip almost be imprisoned if he could not pay it in certain length of time. One evening, Pip received a letter from his house. The letter said that his sister had died, so he must go home for the funeral. After he was home, he felt sorry that he rarely went home. He thought also about the funeral ceremony, Joe and Biddy must work so hard to get money for the funeral. Then, he compared with his life in London which was full of glamorous and parties. Pip only stayed a night in his house. He must go back to
London in the next morning.
At the midnight, when Pip was already to bed, he got a guest came to his flat.
The guest was an old man who claimed him self as Pip’s benefactor. The old man’s name was Profis Magwitch and he was the convict he helped at the grave yard many years ago. Pip was very shock knowing his benefactor was not Mrs. Havisham.
Provis was very tired and old, he slept in Pip’s flat. He asked Pip not to tell to anybody because he would be in dangerous if there was someone knew that he was in 68
London. Provis went to London just because wanted to see Pip and wanted to escape from Mr. Compeyson who was another convict he fought with years ago. In the next morning, Pip’s friend, Mr. Wemmick said that last night Mr. Compeyson was watching at his flat. Then Pip must get Provis out of the country as soon as possible.
Then, Pip, Herbert and Mr. Wemmick arranged a plan to get Provis out from London.
They did Herbert’s plan to get out from London by rowing a boat then sneaking to the mail steam boat which picked up the passenger every week but, he did not make it.
Pip was failed to help Provis out of the country. Provis was caught by the police and died in the hospital because he drowned and got injured when he wanted to escape from the police. Before Provis died, Pip had told him that he had found his daughter,
Estella. When Pip went to his flat, he found Joe was sitting in his flat. Joe said hat he had married with Biddy and they already had a baby.
Some years latter, Pip came home to see Biddy and Joe. He saw a young boy who was resembled to him when he was at his age. The boy was Joe and Biddy’s son.
They called the boy with the same name “Pip”. After they had a dinner, Pip went to
Mrs. Havisham’s house. It became ruined because of the accident many years ago and it took also Mrs. Havisham’s life. There, Pip met Estella. She said that she wanted to say goodbye to the house because the land was sold.