Great Expectations #1

First off, I would just like to say that Charles Dickens is the best writer that ever lived. He's just so clever. I never get tired of reading anything he writes. But I like David Copperfield more than Great Expectations...just an opinion. anyway...

The protagonist in the book is Pip. His prime motivation in life is a young girl named Estella. She is beautiful, yet she treats him terribly. After he meets her, he questions his life, wondering if it is good enough for her. Everytime he thinks about this, he comes to the conclusion that it is not. He thinks that being an apprentice to his sister's husband as a black smith isn't good enough. "...yet my young mind was in that disturbed and unthankful state that I thought long after I laid me down, how common estella would consider Joe, a mere blacksmith: how thick his boots, and how coarse his hands" (66). He tries to become more educated to impress Estella. She motivates him like nothing else can. He is ashamed of his house, he doesn't even want Estella to ever see it.
One struggle that Pip has is with his conscious. He occasionally lies to his sister or brother-in-law, and it weighs on him differently depending on who he lies to. If he lies to his sister, he doesn't care, but if he lies to Joe, he feels very badly. He feels badly about lying to Joe, because he respects Joe. "It was not because I was faithful, but because Joe was faithful, that I never ran way...It was not because I had a strong sense of the virtue of the industry, but because Joe..." (100). But what will Pip do when Joe isn't around? Maybe we'll find out....later.