Great Expectations: The Farther and the Gentleman - Essay Example

By contrasting Pip’s sojourn in his provincial hometown with his stay in London, Dickens comments on the effect of social setting on this father-son relationship. Pip’s father-son relationship with Joe Gargery evolves as the setting of the narrative moves from his hometown to London, and is particularly affected by the prevailing social concept of the ‘gentleman.’ Pip’s relationship with Joe Gargery, his sister’s husband, is that of father and son. To the orphaned Pip, “brought up by hand” (II. ) by his termagant sister, this relationship is the only source of affection in his childhood.

Gargery, to the best of his ability, stands between Pip and ‘Tickler’ the cane when Mrs. Gargery is in one of her notorious ‘rampages.’ Joe is the father Pip never knew: “he always aided and comforted me when he could, in some way of his own” (IV. ). . God bless the poor little child,' I said to your sister, 'there's room for him at the forge!”” (VII. ). Gargery is very much the father figure in the gentle, understated words of wisdom he gives Pip: “Lies is lies.--- That ain't the way to get out of being common, old chap” (IX. ). As Pip becomes aware of Joe’s deliberate submission to Mrs.

Gargery’s tyranny and his unwavering loyalty to his wife, his admiration for the blacksmith grows. He experiences “a new sensation of feeling conscious that I was looking up to Joe in my heart” (VII. ). Like a true father, Gargery puts Pip’s interest before his own desires. Even if he would rather have Pip as his apprentice and future partner at the smithy, he does not stand in the way of Pip’s visits to Satis House or his move to London. “Lord forbid that I should want anything for not standing in Pip's way,” he declares (XVIII. ). Joe’s love is as unconditional and accepting as any parents.

Although Pip does not address Joe as ‘father,’ and they define their relationship in terms of being “ever the best of friends” (VII. ), Joe is Pips’s father in every way, except by birth. This father-son relationship is the foundation on which Pip’s boyhood in the marsh country rests. Unobtrusive, undemanding and constant, Gargery’s paternal love is “like a blessing from Joe - not obtruded on me or paraded before me, but pervading the air we shared together” (XVIII. ). Dickens goes on to demonstrates how this personal relationship is altered by social background, as the setting of the story moves from Pip’s hometown to London.

Pip’s visit to Satis House, followed by his move to London, introduces him to the social world of