221795
MHE9
A3
Character Analysis
The novel Great Expectations is a fast-paced, interesting story of a boy named Pip
striving to become a gentleman. He is forced to make life-altering decisions concerning his
lifestyle, friends, and personality. In this novel, Charles Dickens creates many characters that
have different effects on Pip himself.
Magwitch, his second father, Estella, his childhood love,
Miss Havisham, his supposed benefactor, and Joe, his uncle, all transform Pip into the man he
becomes in the end. The author uses the time period and place into many of the problems that
Pip must overcome. Nineteenth-century England wouldn’t be anything without the vast
discrepancies between the rich and the poor, and Pip learns that lesson quickly. Also, a minor
but important character influences Pip. Wemmick, a clerk he meets in London, becomes a friend
of his. Wemmick is a clerk for Jaggers, the harsh lawyer who is responsible for helping Pip
when he first moves to London. With these many acquaintances and issues all on Pip, his
assumed great expectations soon skew his hopes. As strange as he is, Wemmick shows his selfsufficiency and hard work.
Towards the middle of the novel, Pip comes across a character named Wemmick. They
meet because of Jaggers, a lawyer helping Pip in his effort to become a gentleman. Wemmick is
Jaggers’ clerk and he also helps Pip while he’s in London. When Pip first meets him, Wemmick
comes across as very strange. His looks surprise Pip, as he notices everything about Wemmick.
“Casting my eyes on Mr. Wemmick as we went along, to see what he was like in the light of day,
I found him to be a dry man, rather short in stature, with a square wooden face, whose
expression seemed to have been imperfectly chipped out with a dull-edged chisel.” (159).
Wemmick’s features come across as not being very normal. If his actions and personality
weren’t enough, his physical features certainly are. Another example that proves that Wemmick
is strange takes place when Wemmick shows off his house to Pip while pointing out its many
bizarre features. He later notes that he is two totally different people at work and at home, and
Pip finds this a little odd. “Wemmick’s house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots
garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted with guns. ‘My own
doing,’ said Wemmick. ‘Looks pretty, don’t it?’ I highly commended it. I think it was the
smallest house I ever saw, with the queerest Gothic windows, and a gothic door, almost too small
to get in at.” … “‘I hoist it up – so -and cut off the communication.’ ” (192). Wemmick’s house
reflects his personality in allowing him to be cut off from the rest of society when he wants to be,
and in being architecturally unique. He shows his house off proudly to Pip.
A second trait that this character shows throughout the story is self-sufficiency. Pip has
listened to Wemmick describe his house. Wemmick has taken Pip’s compliments and begins to
explain (in a boastful style) all of the jobs he must handle to keep both him and his Aged-Parent
living well. “‘I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and me own plumber, and my own
gardener, and my own jack of all trades,’ said Wemmick, in acknowledging my complements.”
(193). Wemmick has always been self-reliant while taking care of himself and his Aged-parent.
He explains to Pip that he must work hard for everything in his life. Additional proof that
Wemmick is self-sufficient can be seen when he takes care of Pip after being so used to taking
care of all of the people in his life. When Pip spends the night at Wemmick’s home, Wemmick
ends up cleaning his boots and making an amazing dinner for them both. It seems to Pip that he
never stops working and tries hard to keep up with his responsibilities. “Wemmick was up early
in the morning, and I am afraid I heard him cleaning my boots. After that, he fell to gardening,
and I saw him from my gothic window pretending to employ the Aged, and nodding at him in a
most devoted manner. Our breakfast was as good as the supper…” (195). Pip finally
understands Wemmick and his independence after examining his habit to take care of everyone.
He always provides for himself and anyone with him.
From the time the reader first encounters Wemmick until the end of the novel, he remains
strange. His obsession with portable property and weird obligation of being blocked off from the
world helped to prove his bizarre behaviors. Consequently, he is a flat character. In addition,
Wemmick can be characterized as a static character. His personality appears to always be the
same. In the few references that Wemmick has in the novel, he is viewed as an interestingly
different man. His unique traits make him an easily identified character in Great Expectations.