A man named Mr. Jaggers comes to inform Pip that an unknown person has decided to make him into a gentleman. Pip is excited, because he wants nothing more that to become more than a commoner. Just like Richard goes off to the big city in Black Boy, Pip leaves his little village to go to London. He says goodbye to Joe and Biddy, everything he has ever known. But of course before he says goodbye he tells Biddy to help Joe with his manners. "Hear me out-but if I were to remove Joe into a higher sphere, as I shall hope to remove him when I fully come into my property, they would hardly do him justice" (139). He doesn't just want to become an "important" person, he wants to bring his family with him. Estella is always in the back of his mind as motivation, but it's more than that now. After being acquainted with a more genteel lifestyle, it is what Pip want.
The greatest conflict at this point in the book is Pip becoming comfortable with his new lifestyle. He has been away from home for less than a week, yet he feels like it has been months. He is enjoying his new lifestyle yet, "...in the dead of night...feel hollow in my heart" (172). Everything has changed so much since he has left his little village. He has changed from a poor laboring boy apprenticed as a blacksmith, to an independent, educated young man. His daily activities are very different, as are the people that he is meeting. He finds it hard to believe how much things changed in so little time. "That I could have been at our old church in my church-going clothes, on the very last Sunday that ever was, seemed a combination of impossibilities, geographical and social..." (171). As I read more, I'll be discovering whether Pip is really cut out for this life of a gentleman.
(through p. 197)
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