Great Expectations Guilt and Shame Quotes

Truly it was impossible to dissociate her presence from all those wretched hankerings after money and gentility that had disturbed my boyhood, – from all those ill-regulated aspirations that had first made me ashamed of home and Joe, – from all those visions that had raised her face in the glowing fire, struck it out of the iron on the anvil, extracted it from the darkness of night to look in at the wooden window of the forge, and flit away. In a word, it was impossible for me to separate her, in the past or in the present, from the innermost life of my life.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 29. Pip’s blind unrequited love for Estella is seen here as a destructive force and example of his self-deception. It is a highly idealized love that elevates Estella to goddess-like status, as he sees visions of her everywhere. He knows that she has negatively impacted his life, giving him “wretched hankerings” for money and status, disturbing his childhood and causing him to be ashamed of home and Joe. Yet he spends his a lifetime trying be good enough for her and win her admiration.

But I never thought there was anything low and small in my keeping away from Joe, because I knew she would be contemptuous of him. It was but a day gone, and Joe had brought the tears into my eyes; they had soon dried, God forgive me! soon dried.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 29. Pip didn’t realize how wrong he was in his neglect and abandonment of Joe. Explaining his failure to visit him, he hides behind the excuse that Estella would look down on his working class friend. This shows Pip’s lack of loyalty to Joe and the shame he feels at being seen with him.

How strange it was that I should be encompassed by all this taint of prison and crime; that in my childhood out on our lonely marshes on a winter evening I should have first encountered it; that it should have reappeared on two occasions, starting out like a stain that was faded but not gone; that it should in this new way pervade my fortune and advancement. While my mind was thus engaged, I thought of the beautiful young Estella, proud and refined, coming towards me, and I thought with absolute abhorrence of the contrast between the jail and her.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 32. After Pip visits Newgate Prison with Wemmick while waiting to meet up with Estella, he reveals feelings of inferiority and shame. He speaks of how his life has been tainted by criminals and prisons. He uses the simile to compare his past life to a “stain.” He imagines the sophisticated and beautiful Estella coming towards him, and contrasts her refined beauty with his tainted life. Foreshadowed here is the complex relationship he will have with Estella and his unrequited love as he attempts to climb the social ladder to win her.

As I had grown accustomed to my expectations, I had insensibly begun to notice their effect upon myself and those around me. Their influence on my own character I disguised from my recognition as much as possible, but I knew very well that it was not all good. I lived in a state of chronic uneasiness respecting my behaviour to Joe. My conscience was not by any means comfortable about Biddy.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 34. Pip is living the life of a gentleman he had so long wished for, but is nevertheless racked by feelings of guilt. He conscience nags him over his bad behavior towards Joe and Biddy, whom he has abandoned. Living in London with his friend Herbert he is being tutored by Herbert’s father Matthew in order to fit into upper class social circles. Pip admits that his new life has influenced his character, and not for the good.

With my heart beating like a heavy hammer of disordered action, I rose out of my chair, and stood with my hand upon the back of it, looking wildly at him…All the truth of my position came flashing on me; and its disappointments, dangers, disgraces, consequences of all kinds, rushed in in such a multitude that I was borne down by them and had to struggle for every breath I drew.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 39. This is the moment Pip finally realizes that the person who is helping him and is his benefactor is not Miss Havisham but convict Magwitch. As he comes face to face with the criminal, Pip’s shock at the revelation is emphasized by the simile of his heart “beating like a hammer.” He experiences a sense of shame because his gentleman status is built on less than honorable foundations.

The abhorrence in which I held the man, the dread I had of him, the repugnance with which I shrank from him, could not have been exceeded if he had been some terrible beast.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 39. Pip doesn’t at all appreciate Magwitch for being his secret benefactor and turning him into a gentleman. Instead he is ashamed and revolted by the fact that a criminal is the source of his recently acquired wealth and great expectations. He had thought Miss Havisham was his unknown benefactress who wanted to shape him into a gentleman so that he could marry Estella. It is ironic that Magwitch should show such affection for Pip, while Pip expresses his loathing for Magwitch using dehumanizing bestial imagery in a simile. Pip classes himself above someone like Magwitch, whom he sees as sub-human.

“I was sent for life. It’s death to come back. There’s been overmuch coming back of late years, and I should of a certainty be hanged if took.” Nothing was needed but this; the wretched man, after loading wretched me with his gold and silver chains for years, had risked his life to come to me, and I held it there in my keeping! If I had loved him instead of abhorring him; if I had been attracted to him by the strongest admiration and affection, instead of shrinking from him with the strongest repugnance; it could have been no worse. On the contrary, it would have been better, for his preservation would then have naturally and tenderly addressed my heart.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 39. We witness Pip’s great guilt over Magwitch placing his life in Pip’s hands by returning to England from Australia. As an escaped convict it’s the hangman’s rope for Magwitch if caught, he tells Pip. Pip feels bad because instead of love he showed disgust for a man who risked his life for him and gifted him gold and silver for years.

But, sharpest and deepest pain of all, – it was for the convict, guilty of I knew not what crimes, and liable to be taken out of those rooms where I sat thinking, and hanged at the Old Bailey door, that I had deserted Joe.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 39. Pip feels guilty for mistreating and abandoning his friend Joe for a convict who is liable to hanged for his crimes. He has learned that Magwitch was the source of his fortune that made him into a “gentleman” who then turned his back on Joe and home.

I would not have gone back to Joe now, I would not have gone back to Biddy now, for any consideration; simply, I suppose, because my sense of my own worthless conduct to them was greater than every consideration. No wisdom on earth could have given me the comfort that I should have derived from their simplicity and fidelity; but I could never, never, undo what I had done.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 39. After discovering that convict Magwitch is his benefactor, Pip fully recognizes how badly he has treated Joe and Biddy. Having abandoned his two true friends, he feels that the damage cannot be undone and he cannot return home.

The imaginary student pursued by the misshapen creature he had impiously made, was not more wretched than I, pursued by the creature who had made me, and recoiling from him with a stronger repulsion, the more he admired me and the fonder he was of me.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 40. Pip expresses his thoughts when secret benefactor Magwitch the convict moves in with him and asks Pip to read to him. In an allusion to Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, Pip imagines himself as the monster and Magwitch who created him as Dr. Frankenstein. Pip feels a deep sense of guilt and revulsion over helping Magwitch.

I was so struck by the horror of this idea, which had weighed upon me from the first, and the working out of which would make me regard myself, in some sort, as his murderer, that I could not rest in my chair, but began pacing to and fro. I said to Herbert, meanwhile, that even if Provis were recognized and taken, in spite of himself, I should be wretched as the cause, however innocently.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 41. Pip shows some sense of integrity when he expresses concern that abandoning Magwitch at this point could result in his capture and execution. He has decided to stop accepting Magwitch’s money, but worries that rejection might drive Magwitch to despair and letting himself be arrested. Magwitch’s capture during the visit to Pip in London would make him his metaphorical “murderer,” Pip feels. So he and Herbert discuss a plan to take Magwitch out of the country.

“I want,” she said, “to pursue that subject you mentioned to me when you were last here, and to show you that I am not all stone. But perhaps you can never believe, now, that there is anything human in my heart?”

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 49. When Pip arrives home from London to visit Miss Havisham, he finds a woman showing a significant change in character. No longer does she appear the cruel and manipulative figure consumed by revenge against men. But she wishes to discuss Pip’s previous appeal for her to financially help set up Herbert in his career. The metaphor of “not all stone” is used by Miss Havisham to explain that she is not completely heartless. Her feeling of guilt over past behavior and need for redemption are reflected here.

“Can I only serve you, Pip, by serving your friend? Regarding that as done, is there nothing I can do for you yourself?” “Nothing. I thank you for the question. I thank you even more for the tone of the question. But there is nothing.”

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 49. Miss Havisham attempts to redeem herself by her generous gesture to Pip and his friend Herbert Pocket. Showing how truly sorry she is for past behavior, she anonymously supplies Pip with 900 pounds to help Herbert establish his career. When she asks if there is nothing she can do for Pip himself, he declines.

“My name is on the first leaf. If you can ever write under my name, ‘I forgive her,’ though ever so long after my broken heart is dust pray do it!” “O Miss Havisham,” said I, “I can do it now. There have been sore mistakes; and my life has been a blind and thankless one; and I want forgiveness and direction far too much, to be bitter with you.”

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 49. Miss Havisham is racked with guilt over her cruelty towards Pip. Having seen his heartbreak on learning that Estella is to marry Bentley Drummle, she sees in Pip the shadow of herself and her own marital heartbreak. Here she begs Pip for his forgiveness. She hands him a pad with her name on it and asks him to write “I forgive her,” even if this happens long after her death. Magnanimously Pip forgives her there and then.

She…to my amazement…dropped on her knees at my feet; with her folded hands raised to me in the manner in which, when her poor heart was young and fresh and whole, they must often have been raised to heaven from her mother’s side.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 49. Miss Havisham is profoundly remorseful for her cruelty to Pip as a boy. Here she dramatically drops to her knees sobbing and clinging to his feet, pleading for forgiveness. The religious-type imagery of her kneeling with hands raised towards heaven underlines the depth of her remorse and need for redemption.

I had never seen her shed a tear before, and, in the hope that the relief might do her good, I bent over her without speaking. She was not kneeling now, but was down upon the ground. “O!” she cried, despairingly. “What have I done! What have I done!”

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 49. Miss Havisham feels tremendous guilt for shaping her daughter Estella into a weapon to inflict emotional pain on men. In this pitiful scene, her deep remorse and realization of her role in causing so much emotional pain elicits a certain sympathy from the reader.

And could I look upon her without compassion, seeing her punishment in the ruin she was, in her profound unfitness for this earth on which she was placed, in the vanity of sorrow which had become a master mania, like the vanity of penitence, the vanity of remorse, the vanity of unworthiness, and other monstrous vanities that have been curses in this world?

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 49. Despite the harm she has caused him, Pip looks with sympathy at the profoundly remorseful Miss Havisham. He sees her as having been punished by fate and has only compassion for the woman who has been ruined by the curse of the vanities of the world. Recognizing that she has suffered for her sins, he is able to forgive her.

“Until you spoke to her the other day, and until I saw in you a looking-glass that showed me what I once felt myself, I did not know what I had done. What have I done!… My Dear! Believe this: when she first came to me, I meant to save her from misery like my own. At first I meant no more… But as she grew, and promised to be very beautiful, I gradually did worse, and with my praises, and with my jewels, and with my teachings, and with this figure of myself always before her, a warning to back and point my lessons, I stole her heart away, and put ice in its place.”

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 49. Miss Havisham is filled with feelings of shame and guilt over the way she manipulated Estella to break Pip’s heart. Using the metaphor of a “looking-glass,” she says that she recognized her own heartbreak in Pip’s, when she witnessed how he loved Estella. Miss Havisham expresses regret for the way she brought up her adopted daughter to be cold and unfeeling. At first she just wanted to save her from being taken advantage by predatory men, like she was. But as Estella grew into someone beautiful, Miss Havisham admits that her intentions became cruel. So she took away Estella’s heart and replaced it with ice, she confesses using another metaphor.

The death close before me was terrible, but far more terrible than death was the dread of being misremembered after death. And so quick were my thoughts, that I saw myself despised by unborn generations, – Estella’s children, and their children.

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 53. When Orlick ambushes Pip on the marshes in order to murder him, Pip worries more about how he will be remembered afterwards than he does about dying. Among his concerns are that Estella’s father Magwitch will believe he has deserted him, Herbert will doubt him and Joe and Biddy will never know how sorry he was for the way he treated them.

“And Joe and Biddy both, as you have been to church to-day, and are in charity and love with all mankind, receive my humble thanks for all you have done for me, and all I have so ill repaid!”

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 58. Pip’s shame and regret over his treatment of Joe and Biddy is expressed in this speech. He regrets the ingratitude he has shown in response to their love and kindness. A more humble Pip finally sees the error of his ways when he lived a life built on superficial values and forgot who his true friends were. Pip’s apology for the way he treated them shows an awakening of a sense of integrity on his self-improvement journey.

“Dear Joe, I hope you will have children to love, and that some little fellow will sit in this chimney-corner of a winter night, who may remind you of another little fellow gone out of it for ever. Don’t tell him, Joe, that I was thankless; don’t tell him, Biddy, that I was ungenerous and unjust; only tell him that I honoured you both, because you were both so good and true, and that, as your child, I said it would be natural to him to grow up a much better man than I did.”

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 58. After learning that his two friends Joe and Biddy have just wed, Pip delivers this moving speech filled with repentance and remorse. Wishing them the blessing of children, he hopes one will remind them of Pip as a child growing up in the forge. But he asks them not tell their child of Pip’s selfishness and ingratitude, but that he honored them both for their goodness. His words are all the more poignant because Joe acted as a father figure to Pip, raising him after the death of both of his parents. Pip’s deep affection for Joe and Biddy is seen here, also his remorse and wish for redemption as he admits past failures and neglect of his true friends. This is an important step on his journey of self-improvement.

“The ground belongs to me. It is the only possession I have not relinquished. Everything else has gone from me, little by little, but I have kept this. It was the subject of the only determined resistance I made in all the wretched years.”

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 59. Estella and Pip meet in the ruins of Satis House. She is a changed and humbled character as she speaks about being owner of the dilapidated mansion, her only possession. Now free because Miss Havisham’s power is gone, we see Estella’s guilt over never standing up to Miss Havisham while she was alive.

“But you said to me,” returned Estella, very earnestly, “‘God bless you, God forgive you!’ And if you could say that to me then, you will not hesitate to say that to me now, – now, when suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but – I hope – into a better shape.”

– Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Chapter 59. In the novel’s final scene, Estella recalls what Pip said to her when they parted after announcing her engagement to Bentley Drummle. She tells him how her own suffering has taught her to sympathize with the sufferings of others, like Pip. Using hyperbole and metaphor, she speaks of how life has broken and reshaped her and made her into a better person. After a loveless and failed marriage to the cruel Drummle, she now appreciates the importance of love and what was in Pip’s heart. She sees what a special person Pip is and recalls how even as she broke his heart he forgave her. Among the themes explored in this passage are guilt and shame.
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