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David Story Ms. Gardner Honors English 0 Period 10 March 2014 Illuminating the Illusions of Pip's Great Expectations Throughout ancient and modern literature the reoccurring theme of using light and dark to depict the struggles of good and evil are highly present. In Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, light and dark are represented differently than any novel before its time: the traits of light and dark are intermixed, both displaying the qualities of good and evil which are ever present in the lives, conquests, and shortcomings of the novels characters. The novel, narrated through first-person by a boy named Pip, depicts a story of Pip's rise to grandeur and high expectations, constantly accompanied by many bright and grim characters, and the subsequent consequence of falling short of those expectations. Pip develops in character throughout the book in terms of social status, and essentially becomes a martyr to his own expectations of dignity. Pip's expectations are molded by the forces of dark and light as they create his expectations, as they metaphorically blind him from his past morals, and how ultimately his expectations are compromised. From an early age, Pip's expectations were being formed and changed by the constant oppression and tyranny of his home life, but it is ultimately formed from meeting his unrequited love, Estella. Pip mesmerized by Estella begins to view her as his guiding light in his efforts to find acceptance and love: " She took it up, .... and only the candle lighted us." (Dickens 58).

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This scene figuratively depicts how Estella metaphorically leads the now dependent Pip through the dark to whatever venture she chooses. Once Pip has fallen under Estella's blinding light, he then does all that is possible in order to appease her and become less of a "common labouringboy." (67). While Estella's light appears to Pip as leading him to become a more civilized gentleman, it ultimately leads him away from his family and moral standards. This creates a barrier between Pips conscience and his aspirations of becoming a gentleman which ultimately leads to those very expectations being dissolved. As Pip progresses into adulthood and his expectations begin to take shape, he becomes blind to Joe and his past. While Pip's former innocence begins to take a dark turn when he feels embarrassment from Joe not being as civilized as him, Joe displays his usual aurora of kindness and understanding, " With his good honest face all glowing and shining," (231). This displays Pip's blindness as a result of his expectations due to the fact that he has trouble sympathizing with Joe, a kind hearted honest man, because he isn't civilized. However, Pip is eager to become more civilized only in order to become more striking to Estella. The light contrasts how Pip has become bitter, indifferent, and self-absorbed to the other people he used to consider 'equals'. Pip's dehumanizing towards Joe inevitably blinds him from seeing how his future expectations would come crashing down on top of him. While Pip's life takes a turn when Magwitch is introduced, his expectations begin to falter as he begins to realize his unjust ways and when he loses his funding from Magwitch. Pip's entire life of expectations collapse as he inevitable falls to debt, raised out only by Joe and then giving a job by Herbert. However in the finally pages of the book, while Pip was engulfed in gloom and darkness, he was reunited with Estella. This reunion symbolizes how one can recover from one's own stumbling blocks as Pip recovered from the failure of his expectations and found

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"the broad expanse of tranquil light" (516). The light is also paralleled by Estella, who once showed false hope and happiness while retaining her light appearance, in contrast to the setting of "the silvery mist...touched with the first rays of the moonlight," (514) which displays the beauty of the misty moonlight, much like Pip's expectations, silhouetted by the dark expanse of night. Pip breaks through the struggle that caused him to lose sight of his past by embracing the one thing that formerly fueled his great expectations: love. Dickens usage of light and dark textures and imagery vividly depicts the struggle and the transition as Pip journeys through his life and his many and varying expectations. Not only does it help visualize the novel the many emotional aspects that are presented by light and dark but it also touches upon the other aspects of the novel such as the symbols of power and social class. The passages fill the reader with shear apprehension and exhilaration as to the questions that surround the Pip and his many associates that leaves an ever lasting impression upon the reader. The ever changing path to status in Pip's life creates a lasting character that is well received and assists the reader in understanding the complexity and though process behind a character subjected to situations such as Pips. Dickens successfully engages others to question the everyday concept of light and dark that ultimately leads to a further understanding about the intricacies of the psyche and of the meaning of good and bad itself.