Character Archetypes and Analysis
The characters analyzed here are: Joe, Mrs. Joe, Mrs. Havisham, Herbert Pocket, Magwitch, Stella.
Joe.
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Mentor/Father Figure
He is always there for Pip, and he is always showing him compassion, even when Pip is not good to him.
He helps Pip to see what is good in him when estella shoots him down for being common.
“[Joe] was a mild-natured, sweet-tempered, easy-going, foolish, dear fellow -- a sort of Hercules in strength and also in weakness”(Dickens 19)
Herbert Pocket-
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Sidekick/ Loyal Friend
He first meets Pip when they fight in Mrs. Havisham’s garden. He then befriends him in London when Pip goes there
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He is the perfect sidekick, as he lacks all the qualities Pip has, and has the ones he lacks, making him Pip’s FOIL.
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“ Gradually there arose before me the hat, head, neckcloth, waistcoat, trousers, boots, of a member of society of about [Pip’s] standing”(Dickens 634)
Mrs. Havisham-
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Trickster
She never actually tries to hurt or harm Pip, but her actions are deceptive and they take him off of his main path.
When Pip thinks that she is the benefactor, it pushes him from his path because he thinks is to be her wanting him to Marry Estella.
“[Pip has] heard of Miss Havisham up town, --- everybody for miles round had hear of Miss Havisham up town, --- as an immensely rich and grim lady who lived in a large and dismal house barricaded against robbers, and who lead a life of seclusion” (Dickens 162)
Estella-
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Femme Fatale
Mrs. Havisham has raised her to be a man hating heart breaker, and she feels that that is the only way to live her life.
She also thinks men are kniving beasts, and treats them as such.
“[N]either visible nor responsive, and feeling it a dreadful liberty so to roar out her name, was almost as bad as playing to order. But she answered at last, and her light came along the dark passage like a star”(Dickens 188)
Mrs. Joe-
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Terrible Mother
She is abusive, both verbally and physically to both Joe and Pip
She always talks about how Pip will amount to nothing and how she didn’t want him, and still doesn’t. And she always points out his flaws.
“My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older than I, and had established a great reputation with herself and the neighbors because she had brought me up ‘by hand”(Dickens 18)
Magwitch-
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Wise Old Man
He is always showing Pip that there are people in the world that do good and bad. And he later becomes Pip’s benefactor.
He is constantly “watching over” him and he later gives him a a large fortune that helps him to become a gentleman and become the more enlightened man that he is at the end of the book, despite the fact that he then has no money.
“Mind!’ said my convict, wiping blood from his face with his ragged sleeves, and shaking torn hair from his fingers: “ I took him! I give him up to you! Mind that!”(Dickens 112)