The following essay was written for Ms. Janneke Cole Bailey's research seminar at the Isle of Wight College. — George P. Landow
hen Dicken’s contemporary Dostoevsky (1880) said ‘hell is the suffering of being unable to love’ he could have had Estella in mind. She is cruel and composed and yet for Pip, she comes to represent a guiding star, onto whom he constantly casts wishes. On occasion the two seem gravitationally linked, coincidence collides them, and similarities between them arise. Still Estella remains constantly unattainable, constantly in the darkness. Fear, guilt and conscience dominate Pip’s childhood, resulting from a sense of responsibility for his parents’ and siblings’ deaths and the mistreatment he suffers at the hands of his caregivers. They corroborate, and allow his guilt to fester. ‘Trouble? echoed my sister...and then entered on a fearful catalogue of all the illnesses I had been guilty of, and all the injuries I had done myself, and all the times she had wished me in my grave.’ (Ch.4p.23) Internalizing the barbs he is left oversensitised, longing for certainty in the only place he can find it; the unrealistic, in Estella. Pip knows this too, ‘I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.’ (Ch.29p.206) .
Of interest is Dicken’s own description of himself to Forster (1865) as, ‘a child of singular abilities, quick, eager, delicate and soon hurt, bodily or mentally.’ This is surely Pip too, and in the midst of all his ill treatment Dickens acts to protect Pip, by planting him in marshland, womblike. He writes the ‘river as a metaphor for human experience’ (Christensen, 1998) and veils the setting in mists which descend or rise throughout to symbolise Pip's trials and suggest to him the way, and by inference Estella; the one dreaming star that seemingly cannot grant him anything. Dickens pours symbolism in the presentation of Estella as light, linking her to the glittering stars he evokes the heavenly, the godly, and the ‘celestial fortunegiver’ (Bush, 2013), as candlelight on the stairs at Satis House, physically and metaphorically shining the way, he first experiences a life apart from his own. Dickens imbues Estella with all the enigmatic contradiction of starlight, ‘and the stars that were coming out, were blurred in my own sight.’ (Ch.35p.253), the constancy, ‘the truth and beauty of a star’ Shakespeare (1609), and as the ‘unknown things that cannot be made clear or precise.’ Jung (1935). Dickens is careful to utilise both positive and negative connotations, the obvious and the obscure, offering a complex depiction of Estella’s character, and drawing Pip’s intrigue.
At Satis house, Pip learns to see Estella as a jewel, Miss Havisham sets the trend of objectification by commodifying Estella, layering her breast with jewellery in front of Pip, offering them to her for the promise of cruel deeds done to men, ‘Your own, one day, my dear, and you will use it well.’ (Ch.8p.51). Pip immediately mimics her habit of calling Estella ‘creature’ compounding his view of her as ‘otherly’, strange and abnormal, allowing him to harbor an unrealistic and romanticised view of her.
Why is Pip so drawn to such an impervious figure? In Estella he finds the perfect muse to indulge his masochism, ‘Why, he is a common laboring boy!’ (Ch.8p.51), her harsh words project confirm his negative core beliefs: that he is defective and unlovable, that he does not belong, that he is unsafe and powerless. All emanate from a lack of self worth, so complete in Pip because he has so many undermining influential voices sounding about him, almost none that offer support. Joe’s role is strengthened with this understanding, his prominence later is validated. He is perhaps Pip’s only champion, it is no wonder that Pip echoes Joe's passiveness. Pip’s feelings then, are not love, they ‘reveal no desire to confer happiness upon the beloved; [they are] selfabsorbed need.’ (Hardy, 1963). Pip doesn’t want love, he wants certainty.
The death of Pip’s mother is a pivotal factor, maternal loss prompts anxieties, as Dever (2006) puts it, ‘ that undermine efforts to construct an identity.’ Pip struggles to understand who he is. Estella replaces Pip’s mother; which other tie could excite such unwavering devotion? Whilst her behaviour is insulting, she acts as a mother might to reprimand the child, as the correctional force and the dominant partner. She feeds Pip, ‘[She] gave me the bread and meat without looking at me, as insolently as if I were a dog in disgrace.’ (Ch.8p.53). She unknowingly satisfies Pips wishes whilst ejecting uncle Pumblechook from Satis House and she takes every opportunity to acerbically call him ‘boy’ in a twisted inversion of the role. She fills the duty of a mother, in the only way Pip recognises.
Charlotte Mitchell (1996) offers evidence for a Freudian psychoanalysis; Pip’s inability to act is symbolised through the words and actions of others. By beating her, Drummle acts out Pip’s subconscious desire to punish Estella for her rebuttal. Orlick, brutally silences Pip’s reluctant understudy mother Mrs Joe, and 'Both men disappear from the narrative once they have fulfilled their function’ of playing out Pip’s fantasies.
The first meeting between Estella and Pip sets the mold for their relation, it becomes their shared history and defines their perception of each other into adulthood. Neither character has a desire, in reality, to amend it. Estella is aware of the victorian conventions of courtship, that it was commonplace for women to be idealised, and that ‘Special scorn was reserved for daughters who formed attachments...beneath themselves.’ F.M.L. Thompson (1988). From the first meeting to the last page, Pip chooses to ignore the gulf that exists between himself and Estella. Ironically, it is Joe who understands the realities of the position when he says, ‘one man’s blacksmith, and one man’s a whitesmith, and one’s a goldsmith, and one’s a coppersmith. Divisions among such must come, and must be met as they come.’ (Ch27p.199). Comparing societal class to the workplace, Joe proves that there are perceived and immobile boundaries between many, and that they should be acknowledged.
In Dicken’s much discussed ending, we see that Pip’s fantasy is still in existence. But that it is changed. Estella is no longer a girl queen, no longer cruel and unconscienced. Both have resolved some of their maladaptive psychology, laid childhood ghosts to rest. Pip’s view of Estella is less idealised, his love is now a lasting love.
Bibliography
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Created 26 July 2015