Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Great Expectations II
In Great Expectations, Dickens carefully selects names for characters that reveal personality about a character. The names he selects are therefore unique, and have a definite symbolic meaning. Miss Havisham's ward, Estella, is a great example as her name is meant to reveal her personality to the reader. Pip first meets Estella in Chapter 8, where she acts in a cruel manor, as she insults Pip because of his lower social class. She makes him feel out of reach, as if she is too good for him, despite Pip's affection for her. He later admits to Ms. Havisham, "'What do you think of her?'... 'I think she is very pretty.' 'Anything else?' 'I think she is very insulting'" (61). In Latin, the word Estella means star. Similarly, a star, is pretty in the eyes of Pip, but indeed, it too is out of reach. To Pip, a star is merely a pretty object and nothing else, it provides no friendship, nothing more than beauty to Pip. As Pip mentions to Ms. Havisham that Estella is "insulting", and he wouldn't like to stay and play with her, despite how pretty she is. In the text, Dickens hints the reader of Estella's connection to a star, by suggesting that Pip saw her as a star when she was first introduced to Pip, "Feeling it a dreadful liberty so to roar out her name, was almost as bad as playing to order. but, she answered at last, an her light came along the long dark passage like a star," (59). Before maps, and compasses, stars were used to help People travel. Depending on the traveler's position to a certain star, he or she would know if they are walking in the right direction. To get to different places, the traveler would walk to towards different stars. After meeting Estella, Pip suddenly wants to become a gentleman, become educated and he falls in love. Estella, the star, guides Pip in different directions, as Pip follows in hope of Estella's love. His sole reason for his desire to be an educated young man, is to receive Estella's love.
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Pip is doing everything in his power to be loved by Estella, and it is his ultimate goal in life. Estella is able to realize that Pip is willing to do a lot of things to receive her love. When Pip meets Estella, she discovers that she is of higher social class than Pip, so she is very snobbish and disdainful of him. Estella asked Miss Havisham, "With this boy! Why, he is a common labouring-boy!" then Havisham replied stating, "Well? You can break his heart"(Dickens. 60). Pip is begging to be with Estella, so she decides to use her upper-class powers to try and force Pip to do things for her. Estella finds pleasure in messing around with Pip, because she knows that Pip is in love with her, and doing nasty things to Pip will make her feel more powerful.
ReplyDeleteAs well as the connection between Estella and stars, another connection to stars can be applied. Pip thinks of Estella the same way people think of their favorite celebrities in today's world. He thinks that she is very pretty, and he wants to base some of his life decisions off of Estella's values. He knows that he has a very unlikely chance of marrying Estella, but he still wants to do everything that he can, because he looks up to Estella, just like we look up to stars.
Although it is clear that Estella acts as a star the meaning of her name can be interpreted in a quite different way. Estella clearly shows a brutal and inhumane presense toward Pip and causes him at times a considerable amount of grief. Estella may be a star to Ms. Havisham but her name suggests instead that of a cold hearted and detrimental being. In latin, the word "stela" means tombstone(Ecce Romani II-A). A tombstone bring negative connotations like grief and misfortune. Estella did infact bring grief and sadness to Pips life. Shortley after Pip has been made fun of because of his use of reffering to Jacks as Knaves he explains, "I was so humiliated, hurt, spurned, offended, angry, sorry"(62). It is obvious that all these emotions can be associated with a tombstone which can in turn being associated with death. Estella has caused these horible negative emotions in Pip and shows it with not only her actions but her name.
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