It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home. There may be black ingratitude in the thing, and the punishment may be retributive and well deserved; but that it is a miserable thing, I can testify. Home had never been a very pleasant place to me, because of my sister’s temper. But, Joe had sanctified it, and I had believed in it…I had believed in the kitchen as a chaste though not magnificent apartment; I had believed in the forge as the glowing road to manhood and independence. Within a single year all this was changed. Now it was all coarse and common, and I would not have had Miss Havisham and Estella see it on any account.
– Charles Dickens
Great Expectations, Chapter 14. In the chapter’s opening lines, Pip confesses to being ashamed of his humble origins and simple life with Joe and Mrs. Joe. He no longer believes that Joe’s forge is his metaphorical “glowing road to manhood and independence.” Pip has been changed by the time he spent with upper class Miss Havisham and daughter Estella at Satis House, but not for the better. He now believes that being a blacksmith is beneath him, or “coarse and common,” and wants to follow a different career path. He is certainly correct when he admits that he is showing “black ingratitude” to Joe for all the love he has shown Pip. Foreshadowed in this passage is Pip’s future snobbery and social climbing.