CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE
DICKENS' GIFT OF GARB: CLOTHING AND THEME IN GREAT EXPECTATIONS
A thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in
English Honors
by Linda Louise Break
August, 1983 The Thesis of Linda Louise Break is approved:
Arthur Lane, Chairman Honors Corrnni ttee
California State University, Northridge
ii ABSTRACT
DICKENS' GIFT OF GARB:
CLOTHING AND THEME IN GREAT EXPECTATIONS
by
Linda Louise Break
Bachelor of Arts in English Honors
This paper examines the thematic use of clothing in
Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. Emphasis is placed on the subtle and various ways Dickens used his characters' choice of, and attitudes toward clothing to support and con vey the themes of the novel. Through Dickens' art, seeming ly insignificant articles, such as an apron, a handkerchief, or a watch chain, are used to reveal a character's motiva tion and to contribute to the deeper meaning of the work.
The major theme discussed is the conflict between appearance and reality. This theme is supported by means of the cloth ing/disguise motif. Various characters' clothing is examin ed in relation to its thematic significance.
iii 1
Any mention of Charles Dickens' work is certain to evoke thoughts of Victorian profusion, elaboration, and in tricacy. Dickens is well-known for the host of characters and the vast amount of detail that he incorporates into his novels. But Dickens is no ordinary writer of novels. His extraordinary genius can be seen not only in his enormous creativity, but in the care he lavishes on every character and detail in his writings. In Great Expectations, Dickens disciplined a multitude of elements, bringing them into balance and making them thematic. Clothing is one of these elements and is especially expressive. Even such apparently insignificant articles as an apron, a walking stick, or a watch chain can serve thematic ends. Pip's observation of clothing and his perception of the world is thematically important in Great Expectations. He observes the world with a combination of acuity and blindness. Here is Pip on Joe's holiday clothes and his own:
In his working clothes, Joe was a well-knit character
istic looking blacksmith; in his holiday clothes,
he was more like a scarecrow in good circumstances,
than anything else. Nothing that he wore then, fitted
him or seemed to belong to him. . . . On the present
festive occasion he emerged from his room ... the
picture of misery in a full suit of Sunday peniten
tials. As to me, I think my sister must have had
some general idea that I was a young offender whom an 2
Accoucheur Policeman and ... delivered over to her
to be dealt with according to the outraged majesty
of the law .... Even when I was taken to have a
new set of clothes, the tailor had orders to make
them like a kind of Reformatory, and on no account
to let me have the free use of my limbs. 1
Here we see an early evidence of Pip's sense of guilt, and his incipient awareness that clothing may not always accu- rately reflect one's character.
Pip's perception of things is often based on outward appearance. Dickens, on the other hand, is interested in the reality beneath, and in the disparity between appearance and reality--a universal perplexity. To find one's identity and place in the world, one must discover the truth about things and persons, and separate false values from true.
This is the business of life. Great Expectations is the story of a poor orphan boy's search through a threatening and deceptive world for the truth about things and about himself. As the novel opens, the seven-year old Pip says:
I never saw my father or my mother, ... my first
fancies regarding what they were like, were unreason-
ably derived from their tombstones .... My first most vivid and broad impression of the identity of
1 Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (New York: Washington Square Press, 1973), p. 20. Hereafter, all references to Great Expectations are from this edition cited within the text by chapter and page. 3
things, seems to have been gained on a ... raw
afternoon towards evening. (1:1)
It was a cold, fearful, lonely world that met Pip's dawning consciousness. This is not surprising. Pip is an orphan, a child especially vulnerable to the buffetings of theworl~ and his perception of his world as a bleak, inhospitable place--a "dark flat wilderness"--is not, given his circum stances, unjustified (1:2). Yet, Pip admits that his fancies are sometimes unreasonable. A child needs someone to help him recognize the truth and to separate reality from illusion, but on every hand, Pip is surrounded by people who have adopted false and unnatural identities.
These disguises are conveyed not only by speeches and actions, but by clothing. Some people are dissatisfied with their natural identities, others use clothing to deceive or manipulate others. Mrs. Joe, not content with her feminine role, wears a prickly, sex-denying apron.
Miss Havisham wears her decayed bridal finery. Her appear ance is part of her plan to revenge herself for the wrong that has been done to her. Mr. Jaggers wears his clothing as devices to manipulate others. Mr. Wopsle, who is un satisfied with his life as an ordinary parish clerk and seeks excitement, takes up a new life as an actor, and wears costumes to verify his fantasies. And Pip, unhappily
"common," longs to improve his station in life. He wears the clothing of a gentleman long before he learns what it 4
means to be a gentleman.
In the early pages of the novel we meet Pip's elder sister Georgiana Maria, Mrs. Joe Gargery. She is the first of several characters in this work whose clothing is a self assumed disguise. Mrs. Joe is a violent woman who dominates and terrorizes the two members of her family--her husband
Joe, and her twenty-years-younger brother, Pip, whom she has
"brought up by hand" after the death of their parents.
Mrs. Joe, a large, bony, ruddy-skinned woman, "almost always wore a coarse apron, fastened over her figure behind with two loops, and having a square impregnable bib in front, that was stuck full of pins and needles" (2:6). Her apron is as full of significance as it is of pins and needles.
Dickens' use of the word "impregnable" is marvelously apt.
Mrs. Joe, a cold, shrewish, castrating woman, is a mother only by default and not by nature. She has taken steps to prevent any close personal approach. She has masked and barricaded her sexuality. Her breasts are defended by the bib of her coarse apron thrust full of sharp, touch-me not pins and needles, and her nether parts are shielded by the heavy skirt of the apron. Mrs. Joe effectively denies her femininity and asserts her self-proclaimed martyrdom.
Because of the death of their mother, Mrs. Joe has had to become a surrogate mother to Pip and considers herself a martyr because of it. So convinced is she of her own martyr dom that she has taken her apron as a badge of her suffer ing. The apron's course cloth is reminiscent of the habit 5
of one of the penitential orders. Yet Mrs. Joe is far
from penitential. "She made it a powerful merit in herself,
and a strong reproach against Joe, that she wore his apron
so much," and as Pip says," ... I really see no reason
why she should have worn it at all" (2:6). Mrs. Joe
apparently considered herself a domestic St. Sebastian,
bristling pins and needles. And if Joe and Pip did not
constantly acknowledge that fact, Mrs. Joe pressed home her
point with their daily bread: "she jammed the loaf hard and
fast against her bib where it sometimes got a pin into it,
and sometimes a needle, which we afterwards got into our mouths'' (2:8). In this contrary way, Mrs. Joe masquerades
as the suffering martyr, while Pip and Joe are the true
sufferers.
Pip certainly knew that the treatment he received at
the hands of Mrs. Joe was not kind, but he was confused by
the constant admonition to "be forever grateful to all
friends, but especially to them which brought you up by hand!" (7:49). When Pip was summoned to Satis House by
.Miss Havisham, he recalled that Mrs. Joe "pounced on me like
an eagle on a lamb." She kneaded, thumped, harrowed, rasp ed, and trussed him up in "clean linen of the stiffest character, like . sackcloth ... and delivered [him]
over to Mr. Pumblechook who formally received [him] as if he were the Sheriff" (7:49). Given experiences like this, it is not surprising that Pip was in some confusion about his culpability or lack of it, and what role he should 6
rightfully play.
Miss Havisham's name alerts one to the fact that she
is not what she seems to be. 2 The "sham" or "have a sham"
1n her name indicates that she is an "impostor of a woman"
as Estella calls her (33:257). Miss Havisham's masquerade
1s complex and ambiguous. On the morning of her impending
wedding, while dressing in her bridal finery, she received
the news that her bridegroom-to-be had absconded. Miss
Havisham's expectations were destroyed. From that time she
preserved everything just as it was at the awful moment when she learned that she had been deserted. She memorial-
ized the hour of her humiliation by stopping all the clocks
and covering all the windows. She chose to dwell in the
candlelit and decaying world of mortification. In this
atmosphere, she could nurse the wrong that had been done her
and work her revenge on the male sex. Pip is thrust into
this unnatural world. When he first meets Miss Havisham, he observes:
She was dressed in rich materials--satins and lace,
and silks--all of white. Her shoes were white.
And she had a long white veil dependent from her
hair . and bridal flowers in her hair but her
hair was white. (8:54)
2 Harry Stone, Dickens and the Invisible World (London: MacMillan Press Ltd., 1979), p. 310. 7
Although Pip plainly sees that she is dressed in bridal array, he sees something else as well:
Everything within my view which ought to be white,
had been white long ago, and had lost its luster,
and was faded and yellow. I saw that the bride
within the bridal dress had withered like the dress
and like the flowers. (8:54)
Pip sees a travesty of life and joy. Miss Havisham is a 3 bride but she has married death. Pip notices that she is "corpse-like" and that the "withered bridal dress on the collapsed form . looked like grave clothes . the long veil ... like a shroud" (8: 57). Pip is an imaginative and impressionable boy, and his judgment is dramatically affected by this fantastic apparition in her fantastic garb. He is overwhelmed and confused by the shocking strangeness of Miss Havisham's appearance. Long ago, Miss Havisham too was betrayed by appearance. She was taken in by her deceiver Compeyson because he appeared to be a gentleman. She wanted to believe in Compeyson even though she was warned against him. Compeyson dressed and acted the part of a gentleman and Miss Havisham responded to what he appeared to be rather than to what he was. Pip, in turn, bases his judgment on Miss Havsham's
3 Stone, p. 313. 8
appearance, and he too falls into error. Pip wants to
believe that Miss Havisham is his fairy-tale saviour so he
chooses to see her as a fairy godmother in spite of the
obvious signs that she is, instead, a fearful witch. 4
Of all Miss Havisham's fabulous clothing and accoutrements, Pip's attention centers on her crutch headed walking stick. Pip sees the walking stick as her magic wand- -the proof of her fairy-tale powers. Pip was asked to assist Miss Havisham in walking about the room.
"Miss Havisham laid a hand upon my shoulder. In her other hand she had a crutch-headed stick on which she leaned, and she looked like the Witch of the place'' (11:80).
Although Pip says that she looks like a witch, he does not take his own words seriously. Pip is so enthralled by
Miss Havisham and his own conviction that she is a fairy godmother that when the news comes that he has "great expectations," he assumes that she is his benefactor.
When he appears before Miss Havisham in his grand new clothes to show her the transformation that she by her largesse has presumably wrought, her reaction confirms his belief that she is, indeed, his benefactor:
"This is a gay figure, Pip," said she, making her
crutch stick play around me as if she, the fairy
godmother who had changed me, were bestowing the
4 Stone, p. 314. 9
finishing gift. (19:152)
Pip sees and yet does not see the truth about Miss
Havisham. He certainly perceives that though she is attired as a bride, her decayed finery is representative of death rather than fulfillment. Yet Pip's vision is distorted by this weird apparition in her bizarre costume who waves her potent wand over shadowy Satis house--"the strangest lady" he had ever seen (8:54). Here is a boy who wants romance, excitement and drama in his life. He longs to believe, as so many of us do, that he is special and has been singled out for some fairy tale fate in which all of his wishes will come true. His belief is so intense that he bends every event and every conversation to fit his dream. Too often for Pip, believing is seeing.
It is clear from the narration that Satis House, Miss
Havisham, and Estella mean loss, pain, and decay, but Pip chooses to believe otherwise. He fails to realize that
Miss Havisham is not a fairy godmother but a witch, that
Estella is not a fairy princess but a siren leading him to destruction, and that he has not been chosen by Miss
Havisham either for Estella or for "great expectations."
Pip's first task as a young man with expectations is to go to the local tailor, Mr. Trabb, to be fitted for a new set of clothes to wear when he goes to London. In this scene, Dickens shows the rapid development of Pip's false values. Pip has already begun to puff with pride and, forgetting his recent "commonness," to look with 10
condescension on his fellows. Yet he is uncertain and ambivalent. One moment he is proud and the next he suffers misgivings: he knows that he is playing a part, dressing up, pretending to be a gentleman when only two days before he was a blacksmith's apprentice.
While ordering his new suit, Pip tries to remain properly aloof and dignified, but he notices that Mr.
Trabb takes "the liberty of touching [him] on the outside of each elbow" (19:145). Pip also notices that Trabb's boy, the young servant in the shop, shows less than proper respect when, apparently oblivious of Pip, he sweeps over his feet. Pip perceives that the boy enjoys the opportunity to express "equality with any blacksmith alive or dead" (19:145). Pip, deluded by his expectations, feels that he should be deferred to, an idea confirmed and reinforced by Mr. Trabb's obeisance. Pip comments that it was his "first decided experience of the stupendous power of money ... " (19: 147).
When Pip's new clothes are finished, he takes them to
Mr. Pumblechook's to try them on because he knows that his old friends "would make such a business of it--such a coarse and common business that he couldn't bear [himJself"
(18:139). ~ertainly his friends would be amazed by the sudden transformation of their heretofore ordinary comrade into an instant gentleman. And Pip would not want such a reminder that he, a young gentleman of property, was only a few days before as course and common as they. That is best 11
forgotten. Mr. Pumblechook, fully aware of the significance
of this investiture, provides his own room, "decorated with
clean towels expressly for the event," for Pip to dress in
(19:151). Unfortunately, his new clothes were not all that Pip had hoped:·
My clothes were rather a disappointment, of course.
Probably every new and eagerly expected garment ever
put on since clothes came in, fell a trifle short of
the wearer's expectation. But after I had had my new
suit on, some half an hour, and had gone through an
immensity of posturing . in the futile endeavor
to see my legs, it seemed to fit me better.
(19:151)
In spite of the new clothes, Pip recognizes that something
is amiss. His new suit and new life do not quite fit.
They both need some posturing--some pretending--to make
them seem right. Pip, at this point, is aware of his precarious position between two worlds:
I went out in my new array, fearfully ashamed of
having to pass the shopman, and suspicious after all
that I was at personal disadvantage, something like
Joe's in his Sunday suit. (19:151)
Because of his embarrassment, Pip makes his way to Miss
Havisham's by a circuitous route hoping not to meet anyone who might gawk at him. When he arrives at Satis House, he 12
rings "at the bell constrainedly, on account of the stiff
long fingers of [his] gloves'' (19:151). Miss Sarah Pocket,
who answered his ring, "positively reeled back" and turned
several colors in amazement at his changed appearance
(19:151). He is annoyed by the utter surprise that greets
him, yet he is not, himself, adjusted to his new clothes.
Here Dickens shows how Pip, who had objected to the stiff,
restrictive, unnatural clothing his sister used to put on
him, is now willing to wear another suit of clothes which
restricts his freedom of movement. Pip, while enjoying his superior position and power, has a strong sense of
guilt. As he leaves the village, he breaks into tears.
Afterwards, he says, "I was better ... more sorry, more
aware of my own ingratitude" (19:154). When he is on the
coach at last, on his way to London he says:
I deliberated with an aching heart whether I would
not get down when we changed horses and walk back,
and have another evening at home, and a better
parting. We changed and I had not made up my mind.
(19:154)
Pip's ambivalence and hesitation continue until it is too
late to go back. As the distance grows, he represses the promptings of his conscience and concentrates instead on his expectations. He allows himself to be carried away by his ambition to be a gentleman. He feels that a whole new 13
world is spread before him like a banquet, and he can think of little else.
Upon his arrival 1n London, Pip is shown to his lodging in Barnard's Inn. Still aware that he does not quite fit the role he is playing, he finds that his fellow lodger, Herbert Pocket, "carried off his rather old clothes much better than I carried off my new suit" (22:170).
Herbert's easy assurance in his old clothes is a warning to Pip: being a gentleman is more than mere outward appear ance; it is an attitude of mind and heart. Long ago,
Herbert's father told him Miss Havisham's sad story.
Mr. Pocket said that the man who deceived Miss Havisham was " . a showy man . but not to be mistaken for a gentleman." It was Matthew Pocket's principle "that no man who was not a true gentleman at heart, ever was, . a true gentleman in manner" and that " . . no varnish can hide the grain of the wood; . the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will express itself" (22:173).
In light of Dickens' theme, perhaps it would be correct to say that Pip is in London in order to be taught the true nature of a gentleman. Eventually, Pip will realize that a true gentleman must be generous, patient, kind, forgiving, just, and most of all--genuine. A true gentleman need not be concerned with exteriors because he is a gentleman at heart. Although Pip still feels somewhat like an impostor in his new clothes, he has not yet lost faith in the efficacy of splendid clothing. Pip decides 14
to attempt a transformation of his own.
Prodded by his desire to be a gentleman, he sets about improving his chambers and his style of life. He
"got on so fast" that he "had even started a boy in boots- top boots'' (27:209). Apparently thinking of Frankenstein,
Pip says, "I had made this monster (out of the refuse of my washerwoman's family) and had clothed him with a blue coat, canary waistcoat, white cravat, creamy breeches, and the boots already mentioned'' (27:209). Pip had to provide duties and food for his servant and he passed his days
"in bondage and slavery" to his creature whom he named appropriately, the "Avenger" (27:209). The boy is a parody of Pip himself~ he has been taken from a very humble back ground and elaborately dressed. He too is a "hand-made" man in unfamiliar and unnatural surroundings. The boy is a severe trial to Pip, not least perhaps, because the "Aveng er" reminds him uncomfortably of himself.
Thoughts of hypocrisy and doubts about his honesty are never far from Pip's mind. Months after leaving Joe and the marshes, he still feels an emptiness. Pip's new realities are far short of his expectations and have not yet been able to fill the gap left by "the poor old kitchen at home," humble though it was (22:17). Pip con fesses that " . . . in the dead of the night the footsteps of some incapable impostor of a porter mooning about Barnard's Inn under pretense of watching it, fell hollow on my heart" (22:177). Pip sees impostors everywhere 15
because he is an impostor.
Though in certain moods Pip is lonely and regretful about his old friends at home, he is self-deluded. He is determined to be a grand gentleman. He is aware of the ambivalence in his attitude but is unable or unwilling to act upon his better imptilses. Pip deals with the embar rassment of his humble origin by pretending that it does not exist, so it is not surprising that when he receives news that Joe will visit him in the city, he awaits him
"with considerable disturbance, some mortification, and a keen sense of incongruity'' (27:209). A great deal of Pip's embarrassment focuses on Joe's clothing.
Joe has come to London wearing his Sunday best, his gentlemanly clothes--yet they are out of place on him.
When Joe arrives "v.rith his good honest face all glowing and shining," Pip is at once distracted by Joe's hat which the blacksmith protectively handles "like a bird's-nest with eggs in it" (27:210). Joe's hat continues to cause trouble. It almost assumes a life of its own, repeatedly falling off the mantlepiece. Not only Joe's hat, but his shirt-collar and his coat-collar are " perplexing to reflect upon--insoluble mysteries both" (27:213). Though
Pip focuses on Joe's preposterous cravat and collars, he senses the blacksmith's nobility. Pip is responding to
Joe's gentlemanliness--a quality independent of the clothing he wears. If Pip understood that what he sees in
Joe is obscured rather than enhanced by Joe's "gentlemanly" 16
clothes, he would realize that his own fine clothes will not make him a gentleman.
Joe, though provincial, 1s not ignorant. He is aware of the figure he makes in Pip's chambers. He accentuates
Pip's false values and violated loyalties. In Joe,
Dickens shows us a good man who, though humble, has innate dignity and a secure sense of who he is. Ironically,
Dickens shows us that Joe, not Pip, is the true gentleman.
Joe is so secure that he is able to accept responsibility for what is not his fault. He knows who he is; he can wear his humble clothes with dignity and pride:
It ain't that I'm proud, but that I want to be right,
as you shall never see me no more in these clothes.
I'm wrong in these clothes. I'm wrong out of the
forge, the kitchen, or off the meshes. You won't
find half so much fault in me if you think of me in
my forge dress, with my hammer in my hand, or even
my p1pe. (27:215)
In a moment of realization, Pip says, ''I had not been mistaken in my fancy that there was a simple dignity in him" (27:215). It is Joe's honesty that most impresses
Pip because Pip has profound fears about his own honesty.
But in spite of his momentary vision of Joe's true nobility, Pip is not yet ready to see things as they really are. In retrospect, Pip says, "all other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with 17
such pretenses did I cheat myself" (28:216). Pip has many things in himself and his past that he does not want to have discovered, so he hides behind a barrier of fine clothes and believes that it will be sufficient to protect him.
When Pip travels from London to his home town, he finds that two convicts are being transported to the hulks on the coach. He notices that one of the men has been given a suit of clothes too small for him. Although "his attire disguised him absurdly," Pip recognizes him at once as the messenger who had long ago brought a return gift from "his" convict (28:217). Since the day that Pip stole food and a file to help the convict, he has been consumed by guilt and shame. Grown older and dressed as a gentleman complete with fine watch chain, Pip is in no danger of being recognized. Still, he is seized with dread that he will be discovered and connected in some way to the "most disagreeable and degraded spectacle" presented by these men" (28:217). Pip's disdain 1s, of course, ironic because it is a despised convict that has made him a gentleman.
His watch chain is an important part of Pip's attire; it demonstrates his status as a gentleman. The convict's status too can be distinguished by their chains.
Even though others do not know his link with the
"criminal element," it is monumentally important in Pip's mind. It is not that he once stole food and a file to help a desperate convict that condemns and degrades Pip, 18
but that he values his position as a gentleman more than he values people. It is true that from time to time Pip determines to treat Joe better, but his distaste for the commonness that Joe represents to him--illiteracy, course hands, and thick boots--overcomes his resolve. Dickens shows us that there is more of a connection between Pip and the convicts than Pip realizes. There is a chain of events that unfolds from which he cannot escape. He wishes to break his links with the past but all events conspire to show him (though he does not see this till the end of the book) that what he is has been forged by the past.
Mr. Jaggers, Pip's guardian, and a well-known lawyer, is a gentleman whose watch chain, though very rich and heavy, is in no danger of being stolen. Jaggers always wears his massive watch chain and his valuable gold repeater watch. He uses his chain and watch as bait, secretly wishing that some foolish thief will attempt to steal them. Both his large silk handkerchiefs and his boots are tools that he uses to elicit the responses that he desires from others. Jaggers' pocket-handkerchief is of "rich silk and of imposing proportions" (29:231). He uses it as an actor uses props, or a con artist shells.
He manipulates his handkerchief and so distracts and fascinateshis witness that the witness responds as
Jaggers determines that he should. Jaggers uses his
"great bright creaking boots" in much the same way. Often 19
when poised waiting for an answer, he "caused the boots to
creak, as if they laughed in a dry suspicious way"
(24:190).
Jaggers' usual effect, even on those who are
innocent, is to make them feel "so dejected and guilty"
that they imagine they "must have committed a felony and
forgotten the details of it" (36:281). Jaggers, as an
attorney, is in the business of finding out secrets--his
enemies' and his clients'. To that end he has directed
every part of his life, his clothing as well as his manner.
His clothing is useful to him only insofar as it helps
him in his work. Jaggers' own personality is no longer
detectable behind the persona that he has created for
business reasons. It is his purpose to intimidate and
unsettle. An unremittingly sober individual, Jaggers never
laughs but leaves that pleasure to his boots; the most
human of expressions is now only a function of his foot
gear.
Like Jaggers, Wemmick has a highly developed sense of
the division between professional and private life. Both men pretend to each other as well as to others that they have no feelings. Though it is Jaggers' business to see
through disguises, he has always been deceived by
Wemmick's wooden face and letter-box mouth. While in
London, Wemmick is dry, impassive, and interested only in
"portable property." Portable property for Wemmick means
something tangible--jewelry, money, a fowl for the dinner 20
table, or a pair of pigeons--something that represents security, status and permanency. Ironically, that property usually consists of the leaving and legacies of the dead--a reminder of mortality rather than permanency.
The most remarkable aspect of Wemmick's attire is his curious jewelry. Though mourning jewelry was commonly worn at that time, Wemmick wears an excessive amount: rings on his fingers, rings and seals on his watch chain, and a broach. Pip thinks Wemmick must have "sustained a good many bereavements," but in fact, Wemmick's jewelry represents his philosophy that one should "[g] et hold of portable property" (24:192). In his position as clerk to
Mr. Jaggers, Wemmick is in the perfect place to get whatever "portable property" is left behind by clients who are executed. Their legacies and memories live on in
Wemmick's jewelry. Wemmick's interest in "portable property" would seem to make him a very cold man indeed.
But there 1s another side to Mr. Wemmick.
Wemmick is another of the impostors who fill the pages of Great Expectations. To Jaggers and those who only know him in London, Wemmick appears to be without softer feelings, but when he is at Walworth, his little suburban castle, he is another man. When Jaggers discovers that Wemmick has a pleasant domestic life in Walworth, he is amazed.
"Pip," said Mr. Jaggers, laying his hand upon
my arm, and smiling openly, "This man must be the most 21
cunning impostor in all London."
"Not a bit of it," returned Wemmick, growing
bolder. "I think you're another." (51:395)
At last, Jaggers, the consummate actor, realizes that they
are each acting their chosen parts for their own ends. In
these men there is a clear disparity between appearance
and reality. Wemmick and Jaggers understand that there lS
an irreconcilable breach between the ethical precepts preached by society and what is expected and acceptable practice. Wemmick has chosen to live a life which retains private, homely virtue though strictly separating it from public business practice. Jaggers, on the other hand,
severely subordinates his personal ideas ofVirtue, giving precedence to the success and efficiency of his professional
life. Both men feel that their professional lives are best
served by the facades which they erect, but they are well aware that they are acting.
Another character, Mr. Wopsle, has been living behind his facade so long that he has come to believe in his own pretense. Mr. Wopsle is comical but it is not his inten tion to be amusing, and he never realizes that he is often ludicrous. Dickens uses Wopsle's adventures in London to parody the rise and fall of Pip's expectations. Wopsle, too, began in humble circumstances: as the parish clerk in Pip's local church. But Wopsle was never humble. He
"had a deep voice which he was uncommonly proud of," and 22
he loved to hold forth in theatrical declamations (4:21). In Mr. Wopsle we meet another self-styled actor. Wopsle never understands how he appears to others, and no one ever believes he is as formidable as he tries to appear. Mr. Wopsle accompanied Joe and Pip 1n their Christmas adventure on the marsh--the search for the escaped convicts. Years later, Wopsle reminds Pip:
"And you remember that there was a chase after two convicts, and that we joined in it, ... and that I took the lead and you kept up with me as well as you could?"
Pip replies, " 'I remember it very well.' Better than he thought--except the last clause" (47:378). Actually, Wopsle had been exhausted by the adventure:
He persisted in sitting down in the damp to such an insane extent that when his coat was taken off to be dried at the kitchen fire, the circum stantial evidence on his trousers would have hanged him if it had been a capital offense. (6: 39)
That night, Mr. Wopsle was not taken seriously by anyone partly because as he stood before the fire warming himself his "smoking hard behind" was a sight that "was not calculated to inspire confidence" (6:39). Poor Mr. Wopsle, betrayed by his own breeches. Even as a seven-year old, Pip was not deceived by Wopsle's pretensions. 23
Years later, when Mr. Wopsle comes to London to revive the Drama, Pip gives an account of Wopsle's new career. Mr. Wopsle, now calling himself Mr. Waldengarver, makes his great debut as Hamlet. Wopsle 1s one of the few who does not realize that his great triumph as the melancholy Dane is actually a fiasco. Pip describes
"Waldengarver's" costume:
I don't know what he had looked like except a
funeral; with the addition of a large Danish sun or
star hanging round his neck with a blue ribbon, that
had given him the appearance of being insured 1n
some extraordinary Fire Office. (31:246)
Wopsle's melancholy Hamlet with a large star about his neck reminds one, uncomfortably, of Pip who has his star--Estella--like a millstone about his own neck. After
Wopsle's performance, Pip goes home and to bed thinking miserably of Estella. Finally he falls asleep and dreams that his expectations are cancelled and that he has to play Hamlet to Miss Havisham's ghost.
After the high point of his debut, Wopsle's career unfortunately declined. Later, Wopsle portrayed such parts as a faithful Black servant to a girl of noble birth, a monkey, and a comical Tartar wearing "an out rageous hat all over bells" (47:376). Whether Pip ever consciously associates himself with Wopsle's ridiculous pretensions and posturings is not clear, but Dickens could 24 hardly make the parody of Pip's behavior more devastating.
Perhaps Pip, in later years, looking back on his own
foolishness, might have felt that he, rather than Wopsle,
should have been in the hat with bells, or in the monkey- suit. It is clear that the many examples of pretense and disguise that Pip has observed have begun to sharpen his distaste for such false display.
Through the elaborate and incongruously amusing staging of Mrs. Joe's funeral by Trabb and Co., Dickens gives us yet another perspective from which to view the disparity between appearance and reality. In this demon stration, clothing is again used. As Pip approaches the forge for the funeral he thinks of his sister and the past. Pip's memory of those harsh times is undergoing the softening process which often occurs when one looks back over a life spent with a person who will never return. As he comes within sight of the forge, his reverie suddenly evaporates at the sight of "[t]wo dismally absured persons, each ostentatiously exhibiting a crutch done up in a black bandage . . posted at the front door"
(34:268). These "sable warder[s]," though swathed 1n black to appear solemn and supposedly provide some sense of comfort for the grief-stricken, are immediately recognized by Pip, in spite of their trappings, as a former drunken postboy who was discharged from the inn for turning a bridal couple into a sawpit, and a carpenter who once consumed two geese for a wager. Pip sees the ridiculous 25
reality behind the elaborate costumes. But he also sees that the neighborhood women and children are favorably impressed by the grave seriousness of the warders' dress and by the pathetic sight of the crutches.
Dickens' emphasis is on the incongruity between the outward show of grief and the inward reality. Pip found that Mr. Trabb had taken over the best parlour and was
"holding a kind of black Bazaar." Joe, as "chief Mourner," was "entangled in a little black cloak tied in a large bow under his chin" and positioned at one end of the room by
Trabb, the director and costumer of this macabre extra vaganza. Dickens introduces a hint of primitive rites when he has Pip mention that Trabb, with "a quantity of black p1ns . had just finished putting somebody's hat into black long-clothes, like an African baby" (35:268). One would expect Mr. Pumblechook, an old friend of Mrs. Joe's, to be subdued. But Pumblechook is Pumblechook. Garbed
"in a black cloak and several yards of hatband," he was making himself ridiculous by stuffing himself with the funeral foods and "breathing sherry and crumbs" over Pip
(23:269). At last, when the mourners have been "tied up into ridiculous bundles," the funeral procession is ready to begin. With a cry of "Pocket handkerchiefs out all!" they set off:
. . . the six bearers . . . stifled and blinded 26
under a horrible black velvet housing with a white
border, the whole looked like a blind monster with
twelve human legs shuffling and blundering
along under the guidance of two keepers- -the post
boy and his comrade. (35:269)
And so they marched to the churchyard, the blind leading the blind, with all the dignity of a circus parade.
Implicit in the description is Dickens' criticism of the silly and cumbersome regalia that people feel bound to wear at funerals. All the "mummery" benefited the genuinely bereaved very little and the corpse not at all.
"The neighborhood, however, highly approved of these arrangements" (35:269). Such processions brightened up their drab lives. Society, it seems, is more concerned with the appearance of grief than with its reality.
Dickens is making it clear that ostentatious funeral trappings--black bandaged crutches, black cloaks, streaming black hat bands--interfere with the true experience of grief. Pip's description of the funeral shows us that he is beginning to understand such truths.
When Magwitch reveals himself as Pip's benefactor, the final transformation of Pip's perception of identities and values is set in motion. As long as Pip is able to play his own chosen role--the part he has imagined for himself as the prince groomed for Princess Estella by his fairy godmother, there is no necessity for him to face 27
himself and to deal with his true nature and the result of his deeds. For so many years Pip has flattered himself that he is a true gentleman and that he has escaped the taint of commonness. He has deceived himself that his elevation to the status of gentleman somehow justifies his condescension toward others and his neglect of Joe.
Magwitch's revelation shatters Pip's romantic dreams. In a matter of minutes the entire sugar and gingerbread structure Pip has built for himself collapses. Pip has struggled with guilt and shame in his attempt to forget his early connection with the convict. After years of trying to rise above all that is course, rough, and common,
Pip finds himself nearly where he began:
The ~ruth of my position came flashing on me; and its
disappointments, dangers, disgraces, consequences of
all kinds, rushed in in such a multitude that I was
borne down by them and had to struggle for every
breath I drew. (39:307)
Although Pip thought he saw all of the awful truth in this one moment, he was not yet prepared to deal with the truth--he did not yet see himself clearly. It would take more time, more exposure to the reality of Magwitch for
Pip to reconcile himself to the change in his expectations.
Pip says that the truth came rushing in on him; yet Dickens shows that Pip had to learn more before he could save him self. 28
Magwitch suggests that in order to be safe from detection he might be disguised. But his sense of identity is so strong that he has little idea of how to disguise himself. "He ... had in his mind sketched a dress for himself that would have made him something between a dean and a dentist" (40:320). Pip had a better idea, yet he found that "There was something in him that made it hopeless to attempt to disguise him" (40:322).
There was a message in all this for Pip:
The more ... and the better I dressed him, the more
he looked like the slouching fugitive on the marshes
. . . I believed too that he dragged one of his legs
as if there were still a weight of iron on it and
from head to foot there was Convict in the very
grain of the man. (40:323)
Magwitch's grain is very clear and all the varnish Pip tries to put on him only makes it stand out the more; " . so awful was the manner in which everything in him that was most desirable to repress, started through that thin layer of pretense and seemed to come blazing out at the crown on his head" (40:323). Pip can see that the disguise is not working--that the power of Magwitch's identity shines through the disguise like a bright light through window glass. Yet Pip's understanding is clouded because he still has more faith in appearance than in reality. Soon Pip will have to think about his own grain 29
and the varnish he has been trying to put on himself. Pip says, "Words cannot tell what a sense I had ... of the dreadful mystery he was to me" (40:323). The realization of the enormity of his self-delusion stuns Pip and makes him slow to accept the truth, or even to plan what he must do next. Gradually, Pip accepts Magwitch as his benefactor and realizes his responsibility toward him because Magwitch has risked his life to come to Pip. This and his realiza tion of his ingratitude and bad treatment of Joe help to effect a complete transformation in Pip's character and attitude. Pip finally comprehends that he has been a great er impostor than anyone because he has successfully deceiv ed himself.
Pip displays a characteristic combination of blindness and discernment. Dicken's profound insight into human nature is evident in his rendering of the conflicting impulses in Pip's character. Pip's character is struggling to be born. His latent nobility must fight against his selfish and mistaken ideas of gentility. Initially, no bility loses. Ultimately, however, Pip will learn that the noble gentleman he wishes to be is born of the spirit and has nothing to do with the coarseness of one's hands or bqots. Dickens disciplined a vast number of elements to create Great Expectations, often called his most aestheti cally perfect novel. Clothing and small items of personal attire which might be neglected or overlooked by a less 30
careful or skillful writer are used to support, emphasize,
and reinforce the themes of the novel. Again and again,
Dickens stresses the importance of being genuine by show
ing the unfulfilled lives that result from an incongruity
between a character's pretensions and his true nature.
Like Shakespeare, Dickens had a profound knowledge of
the human psyche. In this novel, Dickens' emphasis is on
the importance of preserving the integrity of the person
ality. When a person denies his true identity and
indulges in a masquerade--hiding behind some kind of mask-
the identity of that person is compromised. The ultimate
personal fulfillment is in recognizing and living one's
proper role. Dickens knew this, and his knowledge is
demonstrated in Great Expectations.
We see that Mrs. Joe denies her femininity and
persecutes her husband and brother while pretending to be
a martyr. Certainly the role she chooses to play brings
her no reward of love or respect. Miss Havisham's whole
life is wasted in preserving her disappointment in love.
She exists for revenge, and she ultimately realizes that her life has been ill-spent. Mr. Wopsle has expectations
of reviving the drama but he ends by frittering away his
days wearing silly costumes and playing odds and ends of
ignominious roles. Joe is in no need of a costume; he is
complete just as he 1s. He is the perfect example of a gentleman. He is generous, patient, kind, forgiving, just
and genuine. Mr. Jaggers has submerged his true person- 31
ality and his finer feelings to be successful as a lawyer.
He must never allow anyone to detect a personal affection or opinion that might be used against him. Jaggers must have control at all times. The facade he has erected protects him from enemies, but denies him friends as well.
Wemmick is not willing to renounce private life and affec tions. Yet he insists that they must be kept strictly separate from his business life. Because the schism between Wemmick's two lives is so severe, he will never be an entirely whole person, but will be always "as if there were twin Wemmicks'' (48:373).
Pip, of course, is the central example. His search for self-knowledge is--or should be--a universal quest.
We see his mistakes; we learn from his experiences. We too confuse appearance and reality. Dickens shows us that the best life is one that harmoniously blends what we are with what we seem to be. In showing us the humiliation and pain that result from Pip's self-delusion, Dickens demonstrates that above all, one must face--and live--the truth of one's self. Being honest about what one is is better and more fulfilling than any masquerade.