Dickens? ?Great Expectations? And Graham Greenes? ?The Essay, Research Paper
Charles Dickens? ?Great expectations? and Graham
Greenes ?The Fallen Idol? both portray childhood in very interesting and
motivating ways. ???Great Expectations?
is a pre 20th century novel, showing how pips upbringing affects his
childhood.? ?The Fallen Idol? shows many
similarities as well as differences to ?Great Expectations? to childhood based
in the 20th century.? Both texts are set out in very different ways.? ?Great Expectations? is a bildungsroman,
which tracks the life of the main character, in this case, Pip.? A bildungsroman follows all issues and themes
throughout the lie and growth of the main character.? It also shows other characters? lives, but revolves around the
main character.? However, ?The Fallen
Idol? is a short story, which does not focus on anyone?s life, but only shows a
short story, which revolves around a particular theme or issue.? A short story follows at most a week, but
may skip some time periods, on order to get to a particular issue or moral that
the writer wants to achieve.? Pip From ?Great Expectations? and Philip from ?The
Fallen Idol? have many similarities as well as differences throughout both
stories.? Pip, is an orphan, who lives
with his sister, miss Joe Gargery, and her husband, Joe Gargery.? Throughout all of his childhood, he lives
his sister and Joe Gargery.? Pips
parents dies when he was very young.? He
fells he has memories of his parents and his family, as he explains they were
?unreasonably derived from their tombstones? (Chapter 1, Page 5).? Pip describes their death as ?unreasonable?
(Chapter 1, Page 5), stressing that he never had the chance to see them, not
even in a photograph or painting, because he was too young to remember.? Pip lives in a poor household, due to Joe
being a low paid Blacksmith.? He does
not have many privileges, as well as physical objects, because he lives in such
a poor household.? This greatly affects
his lifestyle and childhood.??? Philip on the other hand is very wealthy.? In similarity to Pip, Philips parents are
not in the story.? This is not for the
same reasons as Pip, which is their death, but is because his parents are on
vacation.? Staff of his parents, Bains
and Mrs Bains, are caring for Philip.?
Throughout the short story, Bains and Mrs Bains look after and care for
Philip.? Philip is therefore made to
live with people of lower class than him.?
There are two other characters in the stories, which
bare great similarities.? Joe, from
?Great expectations? and Bains from ?The Fallen Idol? has much in common that
effects the childhood of the boys.? Joe
Gargery, who cares for Pip, seems like a father and brother for pip, and takes
the role of father in Pips life, due to the death of Pips birth father.? Pip and Joe have a close relationship, to
which Pip also loves and sees Joe as more of a brother. ?I always treated him as a large species of child and no
more than my equal? This shows that Pip sees him as more of a large child
than an adult.? The ?equal? in the quote
shows that he sees Joe as an equal to him, meaning that he treats Joe as a
brother.? This also shows Joe is much
respected by Pip.? Philip and Bains also have a close relationship.? Philip feels freer when he is with
Bains.? Philip loves Bains.? They both have a close relationship because
they trust and love each other.? Bains
cares for, and looks after Philip.?
Because Philip deeply respects Bains, he feels angry and disappointed at
himself for letting out the secret of Bains? affair.? There is some love that Bains has for Philip, but there is
obviously more love for Bains that Philip has, than love that Bains has for
Philip.? Comparing both stories, I think
that Joe has more love for Pip, than Bains has for Philip; mainly due to the
family relationship i.e. Bains is merely a worker, whilst Joe is family
related. Despite the loving relationship that the men have for
the boys, there is a great difference that the women have for the boys.? In both stories, the women dominate Philip
and Pip.? Pips sister, Mrs Joe Gargery,
is very aggressive to Pip.? She is not
gentle with dealing with him. She does not like him much because she does not
see why she had to take care of him and ?bring him up by hand?, because she
sees him as ?ungrateful?.? Unlike Joe,
she is not a mother figure, nor does not act like one.? She repeatedly makes him feel guilty. ?Who
bought you up by hand?? ?Why I
do it I should like to know?Because she makes him feel guilty for raising him,
she makes it seem as an effort, and that she is doing a great favour for
him.? I see that she loves him, but she
does not show it much.? It shows that
she loves him, because she tries very hard so that he can have the best i.e.
she arranges him to meet with Ms Havisham, a potential benefactor, so that he
will be able to have money.? Throughout
his childhood, many females treat him bad.?
Estella also treats him bad.? She
makes fun out of him, and treats him as if he is worthless because he is of a
lower class that she is.? The female character, Mrs Bains, also intimidates
Philip.? Like Mrs Gargery, Mrs Bains
treats Philip aggressively and treats him rough.? ?She
was so like the witches in his dreams?The relationship between Philip and Mrs Bains, is
neither loving nor caring ? Philip obviously hates her shown by him bravely
saying to her ?I hate you?.? There is
one reason thinkable why Mrs Bains dislikes Philip.? This reason is that Philip does not listen to Mrs Bains, and is
disrespectful.? If she tells him to do
something, he will ignore her, and do what Bains tells him to do.? Mrs Bains has power, which she uses to
control Philip as well as Bains.? There is a very definitive similarity in both
stories, which involves Magwitch, the escape convict, and Bains.? Bains tells Philip to keep a secret about
his affair, as does Magwitch tells Pip to help keep a secret that he is an
escape convict.? Philip knows he is an
escape convict, because Magwitch has shackles around his feet.? Magwitch also threatens Philip and makes
Philip bring him food and a file, to break open the shackles.? This secrecy and fear of keeping the secret
greatly affects the childhood of both Philip and Pip. The childhood throughout both stories are perceived
in positive, as well as in negative ways.?
Philip questions life, and is confused with the influences.? Philip has a traumatic time in the story,
due to his Idol – Bains ?falling? because Pip loses respect, because Mrs Bains
is murdered by Bains.? Pip also has a
depressing and traumatic childhood, due to the women treating him badly.? Both children do have a little happiness,
due to the loving men, Joe being the father figure, and Bains being a carer.