GREAT EXPECTATIONS
Similarities and differences between
Pip & Matilda
PHILLIP PIRRIP
NOTES:
Pip seeks a better life believes he is destined for more. Falls in love
with Estella and wishes to be a gentleman for her sake so she will
marry him. Feels isolated though he is constantly surrounded. Hides
emotions and lingers no more than needed. Has trouble trusting,
sticks to a need-to-know basis. See’s Miss Havisham more of his
mother than his sister. Believes in himself, doesn’t change for
someone else’s sake but his own. Believes himself as superior to
others, his family & friends. Follows no ones orders but Estella’s.
MATILDA PEANUT
NOTES:
Matilda’s seeks a better life, and seeks to be reunited with her father.
Strong relationship with Pip, they connect. Fascinated by a man who her
own mother doesn’t like. Relies on people but attempts to be independent.
Keeps track of time with a calendar and pencil, -something to keep her
sane and hopeful. Independent from her mothers strong belief in God.
Obsesses with Charles Dickens, over a writer who speaks of unusual and
independent experiences.
PIP AND MATILDA
Both Matilda and Pip lost their father’s at a similar age, and both are
raised by staunch, strict, hard pressing women. In Matilda’s case it is
her Mother who is submerged in her religious beliefs, which cause her
outlook on the world to be an evil place. While Pip is raised by his
sister who is cold hearted and selfish. Because of this similarity
Matilda relates to Pip at an early stage and this provides a mean for
her to fall in love with Great Expectations.
Matilda and Pip are both transformed by their emigration from their home
surroundings. This is due to their saviours “Mr. Jaggers”, a lawyer in Pip’s
case and a log in Matilda’s. Both are also transformed by their visits to
London. This transformation leads them both to believe that they are a
higher class than the ones they were raised with. This leads them to be
sucked into the one thing they despised as youth, cold hearted and selfish.
Though the world of Pip is alien to Matilda, it often feels more relevant to
her than the traditions and beliefs which her devoutly Christian mother tries
to instil in her. Complex family trees and abstract ideas about God and the
devil hold little interest for Matilda. Instead, she feels kinship with Pip, this
other child who doesn’t know his father and is struggling to find his place in
the world.
Through Pip’s eventful experiences, Matilda gains new perspectives
and frameworks with which to understand and evaluate the
increasingly difficult circumstances of her own life. The power of
Dickens’s story illuminates both the familiar and the changing aspects
of Matilda’s life in a new way. The character of Miss Havisham offers
her new insight into her mother’s feelings, the concept of a
‘gentleman’ informs the way she understands Mr Watts’s actions, and
Pip’s behaviour challenges her notions of identity, loyalty and the
person she wants to become.
MATILDA’S QUOTE:
“As we progressed through the book something happened to me. At
some point I felt myself enter the story. I hadn’t been assigned a part
– nothing like that; I wasn’t identifiable on the page, but I was there. I
was definitely there. I knew that orphaned white kid and that small,
fragile place he squeezed into between his awful sister and lovable Joe
Gargery because the same space came to exist between Mr Watts and
my mum. And I knew I would have to choose between the two. “
DOLORES & HAVISHAM
Both novels feature a mother figure who tries to use a 'daughter' to
get revenge on a man. Miss Havisham due to her groom ditching her
on the day of the wedding. And Dolores because the ‘white men’
took her husband. Both mother figures die by violence. Miss
Havisham dies from the burns she suffered when her wedding dress
caught fire while Matilda's mother is the cause of her village's
destruction by fire.
In both cases, each women brings about tragedy through their own
stubborn behavior. Matilda's mother and Miss Havisham share the same
character. Both novels feature education throughout many chapters and
in both education will alienate the protagonists from family members
they love. Both feature protagonists who must conceal the identity of a
strange man who wants to help them. Both feature an attempt to escape
the authorities by boat in their closing chapters and both attempts end
with the same result.
MATILDA’S OBSESSION
Matilda strongly identifies with pip, both trapped under a mother like
figure, both without a father. Their in their “own world” unable to
escape with little knowledge of the ‘outside world’, looking for a way
to escape. They both get along with people no on else is really that
fond of –Miss Havisham, Mr Watts-.
MISTER PIP
GREAT EXPECTATIONS