55810 Mr.

Pagtakhan Period 1 Honors Sophomore English October 1, 2013 Great Expectations Rough Draft Raised to believe that friendship and love are destined to bring people happiness, it is something that humanity searches for constantly. The need for personal relationships is an embedded part of human nature, but often, the pursuit for promises of success distorts the view human kind has on its connections with people. This idea is presented in Charles Dickens novel, Great Expectations, which tells the story of how social class and an idealized expectation of relationships with people influence their real life attachments to others. Pip and Estella have been given the opportunity to become rich and successful, but their views on what will happen in their future take a toll on their interactions with others. These two characters are the main representations about how such relationships can be destructive. Due to them being blinded by their expectations in life, they create a false reality for their prospects of personal relationships. Pips pursuit and obsession to strive for personal goals exposes the fickleness of his friendship with Joe and Biddy. One of the first parts where this is shown in the story is when Pip is notified that a benefactor has provided him with money to become a rich man and live in London, and Pip says, Five more days, and then the day before the day! Theyll soon go (Dickens 160). Pips arrogance and lack of consideration for his friends immediately strains the situation, which hurts his closest companions because he delves into his high expectations in his new life. Such

thoughts and actions can easily change the relationship between two or more people and causes the rapport to disintegrate no matter how deep the friendship is, which contributes to the existence of

instability in many of these relationships. As Pip settles in London and dreams about reaching the top of the social class, he is notified that Joe will be visiting, and he describes the news as a considerable disturbance, some mortification, and a keen sense of incongruity (237). The infatuation that Pip has for the life of an upperclassman results in a lack of respect for his best friend Joe; consequently, the strong bond between any two becomes erratic as the negative values that a person has grow out of control. Though the importance of a steady relationship is important, the positive aspects are often sacrificed due to people placing future success over healthy connections with others, and the happiness that comes out of this is often illegitimate. Dickens explains how the desire to achieve a self-centered ambition warps ones view of friendship, whereas the romanticization of true love only proves to be miserable. A fanaticized belief about romance causes one to be unable to distinguish when it becomes destructive. For example, Pips nave nature leads him to center love around wealth and personal materialistic gain, shown when he talks about Miss Havishams past by saying I wonder he didnt marry her and get all the property (174). Because people like Pip often take wealth into consideration before entering a relationship, it creates a falsified version for the true intentions of love. With this ignorant idea, many are incapable of realizing how problematic and damaging this idealized form of true love is, leading to a great disparity between reality and their fantasies which ultimately only leads to unhappiness. Aside from his obsession for wealth, Pip also sacrifices his loving relationships with his friend in order to pursue Estella only because he found her beautiful and simply because [he] found her irresistible (223). Being in lust is often mistaken for being in love; the physical attraction towards someone without acknowledgement of other traits (and in this case, Estellas cold-heartedness) is a direct cause of denial since many are unwilling to admit they are miserable in a relationship simply because they are obsessed with the persons looks. Wanting to love someone only because of aesthetics has been ingrained into peoples minds, and this produces disappointing results by

blinding them from seeing true personality traits and tricking them into believing that a form of love based only on lust can lead to happiness. Another part where unhappiness in a relationship is caused by ones expectations was when Estella tells Pip that her husband, Drummle, became quite renowned as a compound of pride, avance, brutality, and meanness (518). Due to Miss Havishams teachings, Estella does not have a chance to experience what love actually is, which causes her to think that it is based on wealth and not on emotional bonds, and unfortunately, many think like Estella. The problem with her, and with society, is that it is a known fact that love cannot be based solely on materialistic ideals, but they often disregard this because their expectations in life hinder many from thinking rationally and realistically. As a result, people often even deceive themselves into what happiness actually is. True love is only a hallucination if the person regards the difference between realistic and unachievable expectations. These two characters are convinced

that because they have a high standing in social class, everything will come effortlessly to them, but they do not realize that this mindset is damaging as it places them in a fantasy world where they do not realize the destructiveness that overpowers their relationships. It is important to have aspirations and pursue them, but one must recognize the where the line is drawn. Friendship and romantic love are necessities in order for a human to survive, but they are fragile things that cannot have the influence of the ego.