Major Character

        Philip Pirrip, better known to himself and to the world as Pip, is easily the most important person in the story Great Expectations. Pip is both the central character, whose actions make up the main plot in the book, and the narrator. As the main character Pips two most important traits are immature, romantic idealism and his innately good conscience. On the one hand, Pip has a deep desire to improve himself and acquire any possible advancement, whether it’s educational, moral, or social. His dream to marry Estella and join the upper classes stems from the same idealistic desire as his dream to learn to read and his fear of being punished for bad behavior. Then there is Pip as a narrator who judges his own past actions harshly, rarely giving himself credit for good deeds but angrily criticizing himself for bad ones. On the other hand, Pip is a very generous and sympathetic young man, a fact that can be witnessed in his numerous acts of kindness throughout the book and his essential love for all those who love him. As Pip progresses in the novel you can see the process of learning to place his typical sense of kindness and shame above his immature idealism.