Great Expectations

“My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip. I give Pirrip as my father’s family name, on the authority of his tombstone and my sister—Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith. As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them (for their days were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies regarding what they were like were unreasonably derived from their tombstones.”

In these opening lines, Pip establishes that his name is one of his few enduring ties to his origins. Though he has no memory of his mother and father, he carries the consciousness of his name’s legacy. Pip recalls this consciousness later in the book when Pip’s secret benefactor stipulates that he must always bear the name of Pip as a condition of his inheritance. Pip’s formal name is also on a letter that Wemmick later gives him warning “DON’T GO HOME” (818). In short: From the beginning of the book, Pip’s name is tied to the idea of “home,” and his alternate struggles to escape from, and return to, “home.” 

“The shape of the letters on my father’s [tombstone] gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair. From the character and turn of the inscription, ‘also Georgiana Wife of the above,’ I drew a “conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly.” 

This opening scene also introduces Pip’s desire to better himself through learning, and his struggle to learn with the tools he has. Though he traces the letters of his parents’ tombstones with the longing to read and write, he cannot distinguish the letters, let alone the full words. In many ways, this frustration foreshadows the challenges Pip will face as he attempts to become a gentleman, learning a new language of habits, behaviors, and ideas that are difficult for him to access.