Character Traits Development of the Main Character of Great Expectations - Essay Example

Therefore, comprehending Pip’s character traits is equivalent to complementing the novel.

Pip has many characteristics which make him lively and transcend him beyond the general and mundane representation of characters and make him evanescent and ephemeral. As a character, Pip’s three most poignant traits are his immaturity, romantic idealism, and his generosity.

Pip’s immaturity and romanticism are graced and enhanced during several occasions in the novel. Pip’s immense desire to marry Estella for upgrading himself to the upper-class society is an exemplary occasion that proves his immaturity and idealism. Again the moment Pip gains knowledge about the ideas like poverty, ignorance, and immorality, he does not desire to remain poor, immoral, or ignorant anymore. Pip’s tendency to justify things very simply is an outcome of his immaturity and idealistic nature. The moment he becomes a gentleman, he outwardly tries to be snobbish without any particular justification to it and behaves very rudely and passively with Joe and Biddy.

Pip is very generous and this can be perceived by his actions at several places in the novel. Pip helps Magwitch secretly by inculcating Herbert’s technique into business. At the outset of the novel, we found Pip arranging food for Magwitch.

The novel “Great Expectations” is a trajectory of Pip’s character. The character of Pip achieves some education about life and thus develops his soul by the end of the novel. Pip was ignorant about the social order and overlapped it with the moral order at the outset of the novel. But by the end, an enlightened Pip is found, matured into a man, completely discarding his immaturity and excess romantic idealism Pip became generous, learned the true meaning of life, and to sum up in one line he was transformed into an intelligent and well-behaved man who came to know the exact way of life. The novel sets the trajectory where Pip grows up, matures, and accomplishes the bildungsroman.