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Great Expectations: "The Ghost of a Man's Own Father"

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 LAWRENCE JAY DESSNER

GreatExpectations:
"the ghost of a man's own father"

T HIS ESSAY attempts to provide a useful criticism has prodalced a wealth of useful ma-
account of Dickens' Great Expectations. It terial. We have been shown. for example. that the
makes use of some principles of Freudian noveclis "an extra chapter to ITheBook' o 'Snohs'"
theory and of reports of contemporary psycho- an indictment of the social "condition of' En-
analytic medical practice. Psychoanalytically ori- gland." an allegory of the loss of Eden, and a
ented criticism of literature is, often, still an moral fable. "the story of a young man's develop-
enthusiast's cause. Pompous jargon, theorems ment fi'om the moment of his fiirstself-awareness.
masquerading as axioms, repel us. Who has not to that of his mature acceptance of the human
recoiled from a ludicrously farfetched Freudian condition."2 That such interpretations have gen-
explication of a familiar text or from a speculative erated argument and denial need not impair their
psychological biography which reduces an au- partial usefulness. but none of the valuable lines
thor's life to a sordid case history'?Forceful, even of approach we have is likel!I to prepare the
convincing psychoanalytic explications feel dif- student, or the instructor, lori a passage like this
ferent from other forms of criticism: they do not one:
seem to spring from the conscious experience of
The sun was strikingin at the great windows of the
the reader-critic. They are not "proved upon our
court, through the glitteringdrops of rain upon the
pulses," nor do they correspond to the "Heart's glass, and it made a broad shaft of light betweenthe
affections." And even the more circumspect two-and-thirtyand the Judge, linking both together,
Freudians of literature are troubled by-and and perhapsremindingsomeamongthe audience,how
trouble us with-the deterministic assumptions both were passing on, with absolute equality,to the
of their theory. Proponents of human freedom greaterJudgmentthat knowethall thingsand cannot
and dignity live uncomfortably with procedures [Link] a moment,a distinctspeckof facein this
that imply conclusions such as this from Freud way of light,the prisoner[Magwitch]said. "My Lord,
himself: "The moment a man questions the I have receivedmy sentenceof Death from the Al-
meaning and value of life he is sick, since objec- mighty,but I bow to yours,"and sat down again.3
tively neither has any existence."' Few of us envy
the role of patient, fewer that of guinea pig. Au- If Pip's struggles have brought him moral and
topsy without scientific or legal justification is emotional maturity. if Dickens himself writes
abhorrent. It may help, however, not to overstate fiom the vantage of such achieved maturity. this
the parallel between the psychoanalyst and the passage (and it is not the novel's sole example) is
literary critic. The physician does not hope or an anomaly. It is not simply that Magwitch and
expect to enjoy his patient's narrative. Nor does his diction have leaped out of character. The nar-
he listen in order to be morally enriched by shar- rator. with his barrage of rhetorical maneuvers
ing the patient's emotional life. He seeks knowl- and the contrivances of the visual scene, and by
edge. not experience oi pleasure. The work itself. his tacit endorsement of Magwitch's instant
the patient's recitation, is no mor-ethan a neces- transcendence of his own character. displays an
sary evil to him. an apparatus to be used and dis- emotional sensitivity out of proportion to the
carded. Nor is the patient welcomed for his own facts he is presenting to us.
sake; the patient is somleone to be changed. We may recall. and will be dealing with. other
Great Expectations does not seem an especially cases of emotional response that seem outside the
recalcitrant text, one with severe problems of range of expected behavior -Pip's earlier aver-
interpretation which might force us to take the sion to Magwitch. for instance. And there is no
risks of the psychoanalytic approach. Traditional inidication that Dickens creates these anomalies
436
 Lawrence Jay Dessner 437
within a critical or ironic distancing framework.4 Pip's presentation of the scene. years after the
We may shrink from the scene's sentimentality, event, gives us a gruff but playful and teasing
but there is nothing in the text to imply that Magwitch. winking at Pip, inviting him and us to
Dickens does so. Indeed, we may recall a scene, see how comically he is overdoing his threat.7 If
in the second chapter of Hard Timnes,in which Pip, at that time. saw the "threat" the way he
Sissy Jupe is similarly spotlighted by a ray of presents it in his narrative, the boy's thefts from
sunshine through windows, and suspect that Pip, the Gargery kitchen and forge were iiot committed
here particularly, is speaking with Dickens' voice. under duress. and he then is guilty. a party to a
If the meaning of Great Expectations is moral. or conspiracy. Surely this reading, is not the one
social, or political, if Pip's saga is, in these ways, enforced by the text. Magwitch is in no position
Everyman's saga, is it not crucial that his per- to indulge his sense of humor. Nor does Pip
sonality be within those parameters that strike us, exhibit anything but fear. On the other hand. as
without hesitation, as "normal," that Pip be one Pip grows into adulthood, as he re-creates the
whose private life does not unduly distort his scene for us, he should recall and correct his first
vision of general moral and social experience? Is impressions of Magwitch and that early sense of
it not crucial that Dickens, our guide to the gen- guilt. Yet this is not an adequate summation of
eralized meanings of Pip's life. appear himself the ways the boy and the plot develop. Pip's sense
free of personal and private interest in the spe- of his own guilt does not leave him as he learns
cifics of the particular, illustrative case'? Histori- that he is not legally or morally guilty. His guilt
cal, biographical, economic, cultural, even politi- feelings survive their cause, a logical absurdity
cal explanations of this problem are available, that suggests that the cause of Pip's sense of guilt
but to rely on any of them is to reduce one's has been wrongly identified. On the assumption
claims for the masterwork or to disregard our that Magwitch's threat is what psychoanalysts
theories of literary value. And even then, are we would call a "screen memory," a false lead, I will
convinced that any public, general idea can be examine the question of Pip's guilt, with what
the prime cause of such emotional intensities'? help depth psychology can provide, in the hope of
There are other critical and pedagogical diffi- discovering the core of the novel's appeal. what
culties with the novel and its critical heritage. It sort of novel it is, what it is "about."
seems a realistic work, but its plot depends on Complexities lurk in this endeavor. Whose
contrivance and coincidence. Its moral and "screen memory" is misleading the reader as to
political basis, to the extent that its intent is seen the cause of Pip's feelings of guilt'? Pip surely is
as moral or political, will not enforce consensus responsible, but does Dickens provide us with
or always stand scrutiny.5 Problems of this sort materials in the text with which we can fairly be
have long since suggested psychological criticism, expected to see through the screen? Or does he
investigations of Pip's motivation. It has been conspire with Pip to disguise something'? And
said that Pip indulges in feelings of guilt out of why is the disguise a relatively poor one? It
proportion 'to their proximate cause and that prompts, rather than precludes, a closer look.
Dickens uncritically, it seems unwittingly, en- In the path of the psychoanalytically oriented
dorses this anomaly.6 When young Pip steals for study of Great [Link] is Edmund Wilson's
Magwitch. for instance. the bov acts under the pioneering psychological essay, "Dickens: The
threat of death and is therefore innocent. The Two Scrooges."' Wilson is very much an amateur
theft should not initiate years of guilt and the psychoanalyst. He muddles medical terminology,
abiding fear of criminal taint. The incident, how- speaking here of "trauma," of "obviously neu-
ever. is more complex in its embodiment: rotic symptoms" (p. 7). there of "the burning-
out of his [Dickens'] nerves" (p. 60). He insists
"You young dog," said the man, licking his lips,
on biography: "It is necessary to see him as a man
"whatfat cheeksyou ha' got."
I believe they were fat, though I was at that time in order to appreciate him as an artist" (p. 9),
undersized,for my years,and not strong. and indulges in unscientific. even irresponsible,
"Darn Me if I couldn't eat 'em," said the man, psychobiographical speculations. While Freud
with a threateningshake of his head, "and if I han't pointed investigators of behavior to its precon-
half a mind to't!" (p. 2; Ch. i) scious roots in the first few years of life. Wilson
438 Great Expectations: "the ghost of a man's own father"
points to the twelve-year-old Dickens' relegation ters in their dance of approach and withdrawal,
to the blacking warehouse, calls it "trauma" love and hate, convergence and divergence, mer-
(p. 7), and asks us to see "the work of Dickens's ger and division."''
whole career" as "an attempt to digest these early The novel is Dickens' dream; its revelations of
shocks" (p. 8). It is bad psychoanalysis and not feeling spring from him. Indeed, our analysis of
so much bad literary criticism as not literary Pip parallels a psychoanalyst's interpretation of
criticism at all. It silently defies Freudian ideas of a real dream Dickens had and described to
the formation of personality in infancy, and it John Forster. Dr. Klingerman's summation of his
loses the novels in its search for their author. analysis stresses this basic motif: "The loss of
Orthodox Freudians would say that whatever siblings in early childhood frequently exerts a
traumatic events shaped Dickens' feelings had profound impact in terms of unresolved guilt and
occurred long before the shocks of the blacking mourning and the development of restitutive
warehouse. Few Freudians would say that per- tendencies."'2 But the narrative, the dream, may
sonality is fixed forever in infancy. that significant also be seen as Pip's. We are asked to see him as
change and growth do not occur in later life. Most shaper and teller of his own storv. His dream is
would agree that the unconscious is exactly that, contained within that of Dickens'. It is a (Iream
un-conscious. It exists, most malleably, before within a dream, although the abstract statement
consciousness. Before Dickens was aware. of the structure may not suggest that blending and
through his command of language, of his own metamorphosis of scenes and persons, of dream
existence, the shape and tendencies of his per- and dreamer, that common memories of real
sonality had largely been developed. dreams remind us of. Perhaps the youth's lines
Psychoanalysis is, of course, not possible with- in Arnold's "The Strayed Reveller" may help
out the living patient who bears the tale of his clarify an aspect of this complex relationship be-
preconscious emotional life embedded in his tween dreamer and dream, artist and his creation:
psyche. But psychoanalytic concepts are of use to "... -such a price / The Gods exact for song: /
literary criticism with the aid of the bridge pro- To become what we sing." 3
vided by Freud and ably treated at length by The instance before us. to return to our thesis
Taylor Stoehr and Norman N. Holland: "in- that Great Expectations is about feelings of dep-
vented dreams can be interpreted in the same way rivation, is that of a child who, prior to reaching
as real ones."9 We may treat Great Expectations the stage of verbalized self-consciousness, lost
as if it were a dream and expect it to be, like parents and siblings. It is as common a pattern as
dreams, coherent in terms of the special logic of any in clinical practice. The infant, like Auden's
the unconscious. Such an analysis, guided by the adult with a "normal heart," "Craves what it
formulations and case histories of psychoanalytic cannot have,/ Not universal love/ But to be
practice," generates the following thesis: Great loved alone." He competes for love with uncanny
Expectations is about a child's feelings of depriva- determination, for he believes that his very exis-
tion and about his attempts to live at peace with tence depends upon it. Competitors for love he
his special emotional history. We are here as- wishes out of the way, his equivalent for death.
suming that Pip, a character, not a person, is The death or disappearance of parent or sibling in
nevertheless created so that Freudian principles early childhood fills the infant with fear and guilt.
apply to his motivation. But Pip is not an auto- He believes that his wishes are magical, that they
nomous being; his relationship to Dickens is caused death, and that others know this. The re-
close and complex, and, where narrative distance maining family members will not love him, a
is indeterminate, ambiguous. The shifting and murderer, so he seeks absolution. He wants pun-
complex relationship between author and charac- ishment now as much as he wants love.
ter, dreamer and dream, a commonplace of psy- The loss of both parents and all male siblings,
choanalytic practice, has also been described, in Pip's case, intensifies the deprivation: there is no
literary terms, in J. Hillis Miller's discussion of source of love, no agent from whom to receive
the "intersubjectivity" of Victorian fiction: "A punishment. An objection might be raised at
novel is a temporal rhythm made up of the move- this point: Pip's parents and brothers were dead
ment of the minds of the narrator and his charac- before Pip's own birth or, at least, before his
 Lawrence Jay Dessner 439
earliest feelings and fantasies. This logical diffi- lated to this syndrome is behavior that is overtly a
culty would not faze a psychoanalyst. He sees a reaching toward love, covertly a mode of self-
pattern of emotional behavior focused. as we shall preserving self-abasement. A good deal of Pip's
see. on the motif of unresolved guilt. and a his- behavior, particularly with Estella. exhibits this
tory. provided by his patient, that identifies a pattern rather obviously. A child with Pip's psy-
traumatic genesis which is denied by the facts. chological history. and with. perhaps. a theoreti-
The pattern of behavior is still there. Its genesis is. cal predisposition to neurosis, will tend to carry
as yet. unknown, but the search for it will be his unfulfilled emotional needs into his adult life.
facilitated by identification of the pattern and by The intensity with which he pursues psychic
the useful fact that the history the patient has gratifications is tempered only by the necessity to
offered is a rather subtle piece of subterfuge. The observe the conventions of adult society. To the
analyst knows he is on the right track. He knows degree that Pip's love of Estella. and the feelings
how common it is for people, whose parents are and behavior it produces. conform to social con-
living, to imagine themselves, in their dreams and ventions. the psychic transaction that it incor-
daydreams, to be or to have been. young orphans. porates is successfully masked or assimilated. To
The ubiquity of such fantasies is suggested by the degree that Dickens' novel conforms to con-
many games children play. by thematic analyses ventions of characterization in fiction. he is suc-
of myths and folklore, and by the number of cessful. To the degree that Pip and Dickens "fail,"
novels and romances that incorporate the motif. fail to achieve convincing congruity between pri-
A recent student of Charlotte Bronte's novels, all vate and public acts, this essay is necessary.
four of which have an orphan as protagonist, Our analysis of [Link] show
was moved to make the pattern universal: that Pip's search for love and punishment is
"Every reader is an orphan whose family is not directed primarily toward a father figure who will
truly his family and who wishes to punish it. love him with constancy and intensity, but who
along with other authority figures, for saying no also will redeem the boy's burden of guilt by
to him and curbing his desires.""4 punishing him. Yet the father is the prime com-
Of course. the psychoanalyst. when he learns petitor for the love of the life-sustaining mother
that his "patient" is a character in a work of fic- and is. therefore, wished out of the way. When he
tion, would simply assume that the story is a disappears. the child strives to find him. If he can
vehicle for expression of feelings of its creator, be found. the murder is repealed, or did not even
that Pip's history is an emotional correlative of happen. Pip's mother is gone too. Who wished
the unknown psychic history of his creator. This her away'?The father. The child hates him, strives
assumption, questionable or distasteful as it may to punish him. These motives are obviously,
strike some. is often made by literary critics and even in this simplified sketch, self-contradictory.
may be defended or explained by such precepts But. as Leonard F. Manheim formulates the
as these put forth by J. Hillis Miller: "The writing Freudian dogma, "there is no such thing as logical
of a novel is also a gesture, and this is its primary incompatibility in the Unconscious."'5 The end
reality. It brings into visibility what its author is. of Pip's search will be the discovery of a father
A man is what he does, and this is as true for the who will love and punish him, and whom the boy
writing of a novel as for any other action" (The can love and punish. The intensity of these
PFor'n7of' Victorian F'iction, p. 1). What is crucial strivings pushes them to their logical, if gro-
for literary criticism is what the author does, his tesquely amoral and seemingly self-defeating
work's pattern of feeling: diagnosis of its genesis, limits: the logical extension, the ideal case. of love
why he does it, unless the work encourages our is self-sacrifice. suicide: the logical extension of
search for it, is not our goal. punishment is murder. Through metaphor and by
The possible ramifications of feelings of guilt analogy, Pip achieves both.
and deprivation are wondrously complex, but We are rather obviously directed toward this
among the more common reactions is that pattern psychic portrait by the novel's first few pages. It is
in which deprivation comes to be felt as justified: as if Dickens were the busy psychoanalyst's ideal
the loss of love is accepted as a balance to the patient. He lays out, in the first session, a barely
guilt, as deserved, even desired, punishment. Re- disguised self-diagnosis.'" The novel begins, not
440 Great Expectations: "the ghost of a man's own father"
with Pip's birth or with his genealogy, but with dence which is, theoretically, the entire text. Such
his birth into consciousness and literacy. Its first testing would require an impossibly long article.
episode is the earliest available to the narrator's The alternative is to take samplings which could
memory. Its first words are a reference to "my have been taken at random with a theoretically
father." Its first complex of feelings include the perfect case--and a perfect analyst. One may
pathos of the orphan who "never saw my father begin with Pip and his toying with a central ques-
or mother." and that pathos is complemented by tion of child-rearing. He loves the joke about
the setting among tombstones "on a memorable being brought up "by hand." It ironically implies
raw afternoon towards evening." It is accentu- that especially loving care had been expended on
ated by the five "lozenges" which mark Pip's five his behalf; it implies, without irony. that a good
dead brothers. and by the archness of tone. bor- deal of physical punishment went with it. But
dering on self-pity, the mock innocence of the beneath the joke-are all Pip's jokes defensive
narrator's language, itself mocked by ironic wit: masks'?--is the pain of infantile deprivation. To
bring up "by hand" also means: "to feed by
To fivelittlestonelozenges,eachabouta foot anda half bottle or spoon rather than at the breast.""7 Oh
long, which were arrangedin a neat row beside their that "square impregnable bib in front, . . . stuck
grave, and were sacred to the memory of five little full of pins and needles" which covers the only
brothersof mine who gave up tryingto get a living
maternal breasts Pip has known. And then how
exceedingly early in that universal struggle-I am
indebtedfor a belief I religiouslyentertainedthat they sadly touching is the mock innocence, the comic
hadall beenbornon theirbackwiththeirhandsin their and pathetic archness of Pip's bewildered com-
trousers-pockets, and had nevertakenthemout in this plaint on his sister's bib: "Though I really see no
state of existence.(p. 1; Ch. i) reason why she should have worn it at all; or
why. if she did wear it at all, she should not have
The wit mitigates the paragraph's sentimentality taken it off every day of her life" (p. 6; Ch. ii).
and saves Pip from the full measure of pain his Or one can go to the peripheral domestic
memories prompt. (It also introduces a dominant comedy of the Pocket family. The rearing of the
metaphor of the novel's public, political, level of seven (p. 176; Ch. xxii) little Pockets, an echo of
meaning: survival of personality is figured as the seven little Pirrips, is chaotic enough to
economic survival.) But Pip's world is harsh and prompt their father's outcry: "Are infants to be
torbidding, and the child, as he sees the earliest nutcrackered into their tombs. and is nobody to
landscape he can remember. as he re-creates his save them ?" (p. 183; Ch. xxiii). The youngest child
earliest intimations of his own distinct identity, is heard "wailing dolefully" and then "by de-
discovers himself to be "beginning to cry" (p. 1; grees ... was hushed and stopped, as if it were a
Ch. i). young ventriloquist with something in its mouth"
The mode of presentation of Pip's story changes (p. 176; Ch. xxii). Does not this comic descrip-
here on the verge of his tears. The child, alone tion elucidate Pip's fear of his own extinction'?
with his private thoughts, in a realistically ren- Like the youngest surviving Pirrip. baby Pocket
dered world, is immediately enmeshed in a so- gets not milk from his mother but needles. a
ciety of other people. including mythic or fairy- needle-case being supplied as a pacifier: "And
tale people, and a world worked by the conven- more needles were missing than it could be re-
tions of melodrama and romance. The depriva- garded as quite wholesome for a patient of such
tions of the orphan and sole surviving son to tender years either to apply externally or to take
which the first page points and which is. in this as a tonic" (p. 257; Ch. xxxiii).
reading. the core of the novel, propel no further This branch of the Pocket family is but one of
confessional self-diagnosis. What follows is a the novel's subsidiary families through whom
drastically edited confession. almost a translation Pip's psychic history is recalled and obliquely ex-
into modes of discourse which disguise and yet pressed. The pattern of childhood deprivation
hint at the novel's private impetus. and familial conflict is widely apparent although
From this point on. our procedure is simply to sometimes indirectly presented. Joe Gargery's
test our psychological reading of the private father "went off in a purple leptic fit." but not be-
impetus of Great [Link] against the evi- fore terrorizing his wife and child so thoroughly
 Lawrence Jay Dessner 441
that they, "several times," ran away from him of a broadly accepted Freudian principle: "It is
(p. 42; Ch. vii). Miss Havisham "was a spoilt impossible for one to dream of anything hitt one's
child. Her mother died when she was a baby" self."18 Perhaps Hopkins' line, and the poem from
(p. 169; Ch. xxii). Her own half-brother plotted which it comes. has a useful pertinence here:
against her, and was crazed with remorse for it as . . . What I do is me. . . 119
he died (p. 331; Ch. xlii). Biddy "was an orphan We know little of Wopsle's past. but he does
like myself; like me, too, had been brought up by say grace in a style "something like a religious
hand" (p. 40; Ch. vii). Magwitch: "I've no more cross of the Ghost in Hamlet with Richard the
notion where I was born. than you have-if so Third" (p. 22; Ch. iv). His interest in these violent
much" (p. 328; Ch. xlii). Estella, of course, was tragedies of family life is presented as grandly
abandoned by her parents, but her laughter at the comic, but his performance as Hamlet depresses
machinations of the grasping Pocket relations Pip, who thereupon "dreamed that my expecta-
strikes Pip as being "too much for the occasion." tions were all cancelled, and that I had to give my
Yes, she explains, her bitterness masks remem- hand in marriage to Herbert's Clara, or play Ham-
bered pain: "For you were not brought up in that let to Miss Havisham's Ghost, before twenty
strange house from a mere baby.-I was. You thousand people, without knowing twenty words
had not your little wits sharpened by the intrigu- of it," a nightmare of terror and panic as Pip iden-
ing against you, suppressed and defenceless, un- tifies himself with Shakespeare's troubled Prince
der the mask of sympathy and pity and what not, (p. 244; Ch. xxxi). Wemmick's idyllic relationship
that is soft and soothing" (p. 253; Ch. xxxiii). (It with his "Aged Parent" is the other side ot the
is ironic that she is so sure Pip's childhood was coin, a father-son relationship from which all
different from her own, for as she describes her traces of competitiveness have been repressed.20
childhood it reminds us of Pip's.) Clara Barley's Dolge Orlick, Pip's nemesis and alter ego.21
surviving parent, her father, is a ferocious and "slouches" in and out of the forge "like Cain" the
utterly self-centered bully and drunkard. She fratricide (p. 105; Ch. xv). Trabb's boy. despite
tends him with resignation and love. It is under- his antic satire of Pip's pretensions, is an epitome
stood that her marriage cannot take place as long of the disenfranchised child. He lacks a logical
as her father lives: her engagement cannot even target for his revenge; he lacks even the dignity of
be mentioned to him (p. 355; Ch. xlvi). She sub- a name.
mits without any trace of antagonism. Herbert No doubt these and most other soundings of
Pocket is pleased "to love a girl who has no rela- the text can be assimilated to other sorts of in-
tions" (p. 355; Ch. xlvi), his own being a burden terpretation. but none comprehend nearly so
to him, and he wonders whether "the children of much of the text, or do so with as much consis-
not exactly suitable marriages [like himself and tency. Nor do they account for the power of
his "poor sister Charlotte who was next me and Great Expectations, the hold the book has had on
died before she was fourteen"] are always most its broad readership. That derives from the per-
particularly anxious to be married" (p. 237; Ch. sonal obsession at its center. And this obsession,
xxx). disguised by public themes and by the excitements
Like the dome of many-colored glass, Pip's of the suspense plot. is remarkably obvious and
emotional plight colors all within his range. As in pervasive. It is a question not of depth analysis
any work of art, or any dream, the theme is perva- but of a particular sort of alertness to the surface
sive, reduplicated in many contexts, unifying. of the text. Pip, who gives no more than a sketch
That the Oedipal motifs in Great ELpectations. of his early childhood, assumes, from time to
had a deeply personal resonance t'or himself time, that we know much more about it than we
Dickens would have denied. He said, although do. How often and how frankly does he allude to a
with a suggestive ambiguity. that he could never feeling of "dread ... the revival for a few minutes
dream of his characters since "it would be like a of the terror of childhood" (p. 217; Ch. xxviii).
man dreaming of himself, which is clearly an im- It is hardly daring to suggest that the genesis ot
possibility. Things exterior to one's self must al- art is personal and private, emotional rather than
ways be the basis of dreams." Manheim. after rational. In fact, all writing is, in some sense,
quoting Dickens here. counters with a restatement automatic writing. My pen moves only in the
442 Great Expectations: "the ghost of a man's own father"
interstices between periods of thought. I think, explicable feeling" associated with the "poor
ergo I am-but in that instant the pen stops. I labyrinth" of his secret life (pp. 259, 219; Chs.
write-and where is that self-conscious "I" of xxxiii, xxix). "What I wanted, who can say'?How
which I am so fond'? Some works of art baffle at- can I say, when I never knew'?"(p. 101; Ch. xiv).
tempts to locate their personal impetus; the dream "I consumed the whole time in thinking how
carries the emotive charge while obscuring its strange it was that I should be encompassed by all
private basis. Many other works, some call them this taint of prison and crime" (p. 249; Ch. xxxii).
"confessional," seem to deal exclusively and "I thought how miserable I was, but hardly knew
courageously with their personal impetus, al- why, or how long I had been so, or on what day of
though one may. remembering the saw that no the week I made the reflection, or even who I was
one can psychoanalyze himself, doubt their sin- that made it" (p. 311; Ch. xl). "Yet Estella was so
cerity or their claim to sophistication. What is re- inseparable from all my restlessness and disquiet
markable is the way Dickens covers his private of mind, that I really fell into confusion as to the
traces while letting many of the cats out of the limits of my own part in its production" (p. 258;
bag. It is as if the critical problems with the novel, Ch. xxxiv). From time to time this sort of probing
its failures as it were, were deliberate, the infant's into the forbidden center of Pip's psyche is ex-
cry piercing the artist's manly reserve. It is as if pressed by a pun: "I may here remark that I sup-
Dickens wants us to see through the disguise, as if pose myself to be better acquainted than any liv-
he wants, himself, to deal directly with private ing authority, with the ridgy effect of a wedding-
and taboo subjects but will not quite acknowledge ring, passing unsympathetically over the human
this desire. He winks at us: "Yes, yes, Pip is Me"- countenance" (p. 48; Ch. vii). Or even by a sexual
but only winks. If we wink back, as if to join the double entendre: "Conscience is a dreadful thing
conspiracy, he looks away. He wants to get caught when it accuses man or boy; but when, in the case
but he lacks that extra measure of courage that of a boy, that secret burden co-operates with an-
would enable him to turn himself in. Jay Leyda, other secret burden down the leg of his trousers,
writing of Melville's stories, has described a it is (as I can testify) a great punishment" (p. 10;
similar drama: "We are compelled to regard Ch. ii). Sometimes a character other than Pip has
these stories as an artist's resolution of that con- the innocent-sounding but reverberating line. As
stant contradiction--between the desperate need does Camilla Pocket: "I am determined not to
to communicate and the fear of revealing too make a display of my feelings, but it's very hard to
much."22 be told one wants to feast on one's relations" (p.
Pip not only feels guilty, he tells us that he feels 82; Ch. xi). Or as does Joe Gargery: "Which I
guilty. Often he tells us that he cannot understand meantersay, if the ghost of a man's own father
why his feelings of guilt occur or why they are so cannot be allowed to claim his attention, what
strong. Often he tries to discover why, or an- can, Sir'?"(pp. 208-09; Ch. xxvii). I do not be-
nounces that the discovery is either impossible or lieve such quotations can justly be said to be out
inconsequential. It is as if Pip's telling of his story of context. The entire novel, all its characters and
and Dickens' writing of the novel are acts that in- incidents, springs from one center; each part is an
corporate psychological probing, discovery, and appropriate context for any other part.23
obfuscation. One thinks of Philip Roth's Port- It is in the plot, however, that the Oedipal
nov's Complaint and his even more obviously drama, so often alluded to by various characters,
relevant Ml Lif/ as a Man. Roth's protagonists may be glimpsed. Pip needs to find a parent figure
recount their histories, the one to his psycho- whom he can love, and fear, and kill, and who will
analyst, the other to readers of fiction and auto- in turn terrorize, and succumb to, and lovingly
biography, the recounting being clearly seen by pardon him. Magwitch is the perfection of that
both author and reader as forms of self-defense, figure. The plot traces Pip's experience of dis-
discovery, and therapy. Roth's distance from his covering this. But the psyche takes what nourish-
protagonists and his awareness of their psycho- ment it can, makes do, along the way. It does not
logical maneuverings are clear and constant. put off immediate though partial satisfactions in
Dickens' awareness is ambiguous and wavering. anticipation of larger rewards. Psychic transac-
Pip himself is fascinated by the recurring "in- tions are entered into with all comers. Mrs. Joe,
 Lawrence Jay Dessner 443

to be sure, has much the test of the bargain with I knew nothing until I knew that we were on the
Pip. She claims and disclaims, at her own plea- floor.... Assistance was sent for, and I heid her
sure, the rewards due Pip's parents: "If it warn't until it came, as if I unreasonably fancied (I think
for me you'd have been to the churchyard long I did) that if I let her go, the fire would break out
ago, and stayed there..... It's bad enough to be a again and consume her" (pp. 380-81; Ch. xlix).
blacksmith's wife (and him a Gargery) without Pumblechook is a parody of the surrogate
being your mother" (p. 7; Ch. ii). Sibling and father, linked, by the motif of handshaking, with
maternal antagonisms merge in the threat of Magwitch. His various claims to be Pip's bene-
murder/abandonment. Dickens steps in to re- factor and his actual negligence of the boy come
dress the balance by having Orlick mortally at- to us, through Pip's reportage, as farce, their pain
tack her. And the forgiveness she both gives and distanced into triumphant comedy, and this des-
asks at her death is ambiguous enough to include pite, rather than because of, Pumblechook's long
Pip: "And so she presently said 'Joe'
" again, and and close relationship with him. He is "Joe's
once 'Pardon,' and once 'Pip' (p. 269; Ch. uncle, but Mrs. Joe appropriated him" (p. 21;
xxxv). Ch. iv). He is by this metaphor, and metaphor is
Miss Hlavisham permits herself, while assum- as good as fact for the psyche, a blood relative.
ing the role of Pip's benefactor, to torment him. His cruelty is not forgotten. Orlick, an agent of
Because of her wealth, her age, and her pitiful Pip's repressed aggression, punishes and humili-
condition, and because of her approximation to a ates him: "They took his till, and they took his
parental figure, Pip's aggressiveness toward her cash-box, and they drinked his wine, and they
can only be admitted through his hallucinated partook of his wittles, and they slapped his face,
visions of her death by hanging (pp. 58-59, 380; and they pulled his nose, and they tied him up to
Chs. viii, xlix). The intensity of his emotional re- his bedpust, and they giv' him a dozen, and they
action to her can also be seen in his ludicrous nar- stuffed his mouth full of flowering annuals" (p.
ration to his family circle of his first encounter 442; Ch. lvii). That is Joe's narrative. Its cadence
with her: "She was sitting ... in a black velvet has the pulse of ritual utterance, an exultant folk
coach.... And Miss Estella... handed her in exorcism.
cake and wine at the coach-window, on a gold Jaggers is an interesting variation on the
plate.... Four dogs... fought for veal-cutlets theme. He has personal force and authority and
out of a silver basket" (pp. 62-63; Ch. ix). Pip the identification with the law that Manheim has
tries, without success, to explain why he so gro- written about as symbolic of Oedipal relation-
tesquely and seemingly gratuitously embellished ships.24 He is, in legal fact, a surrogate for both
his tale: "'f a dread of not being understood be Magwitch and Miss Havisham and the immedi-
hidden in the breasts of other young people to ate provider of the mysterious largesse. But he is
anything like the extent to which it used to be unwilling to engage in any psychological trans-
hidden in mine--which I consider probable, as I actions with Pip. His interest is professional.
have no particular reason to suspect myself of without affect. He washes his hands of personal
having been a monstrosity-it is the key to many involvement. And since he will not play the games
reservations" (p. 61; Ch. ix). And after Miss most people play, Pip's relationship with him is a
Havisham is known not to be Pip's patron-parent, dead end. He will neither love Pip nor hate him
Pip saves her from death by fire, saves her, but in (either one would do), and so Pip is rarely en-
this language: "We were on the ground strug- gaged by him more intimately than as an object of
gling like desperate enemies, and . . . the closer I curiosity. At an early interview with Jaggers, Pip
covered her. the more wildly she shrieked and "felt at a disadvantage, which reminded me of
tried to free herself" (p. 380; Ch. xlxi). The vio- that old time when I had been put upon a tomb-
lence and sexual ambiguity of this strikes Pip, as stone" (p. 272; Ch. xxxvi). Pip is probing, trying
well as us, as excessive and he tries to discover its to assimilate Jaggers into his psychic life. He is
genesis. He refers it to unconscious, irrational, made "intensely melancholy" by the encounter,
and, to his relief, inaccessible motives: "That this he says, but Jaggers' potential to provoke feelings
occurred I knew through the result, but not of guilt is insubstantial, and Pip steps aside and
through anything I felt, or thought, or knew I did. transfers him to Herbert Pocket. Pip sees Herbert,
444 Great Expectations: "the ghost of a man's ownfather"
as he sees everyone, as a version of his own emo- confidence: "I never knew Joe to remember any-
tional position, and he derives some slight gratifi- thing from one Sunday to another, or to acquire,
cation when Herbert "thought he must have under my tuition, any piece of information what-
committed a felony and forgotten the details of it, ever. Yet he would smoke his pipe at the Battery
he felt so dejected and guilty" (p. 278; Ch. xxxvi). with a far more sagacious air than anywhere else
Pip's search for the special kind of father figure -even with a learned air-as if he considered
his psyche requires extends into many other himself to be advancing immensely" (p. 102; Ch.
nooks and crannies of the novel, but the most xv). "He pulled up his shirt-collar so very high be-
decisive encounters are those with Joe Gargery hind, that it made the hair on the crown of his
and with Magwitch. Gargery. as the husband of head stand up like a tuft of feathers. ... Joe took
Pip's acting imother, is the most obvious Iather his hat off and stood weighing it by the brim in
figure, and he is in some respects what Pip craves. both his hands: as if he had some urgent reason in
Submissiveness, humility, loving-kindness, Joe is his mind for being particular to half a quarter of
their perfection. "I always treated him as a larger an ounce" (p. 93; Ch. xiii). Joe does not take
species of child" (p. 7; Ch. ii), says Pip. He is the offense at such ridicule. No provocation or pun-
least threatening, least competitive, most self- ishment hurts him. Pip's only recourse, the only
sacrificing of men: and despite the brawn of his use he can make of the man who will not blame
blacksmith's arm, the least masculine.25 There is him, is to blame himself, on Joe's behalf, for
not the least hint, until the novel's close, of his imagined treachery and disloyalty to Joe. This
having a sexual nature. He is more like Pip's child permits Pip to castigate himself and to profit by
than Pip's father, a reversal of roles similar to that encounters with the oblivious Joe.
of Wemmick and Aged Parent, a not uncommon The sentimentality of the procedure's enact-
motif in Dickens.26 But Pip needs more than this. ment signals Pip's strained frustration: "Heaven
He needs a father whom he can hurt and who will knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for
hurt him, before whom he can feel guilt and suffer they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth,
punishment. Joe Gargery is incapable of anger, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had
but Pip can only learn this by attempting to pro- cried, than before-more sorry, more aware of
voke his anger. Failing that, he punishes him for my own ingratitude, more gentle. If I had cried
his "refusal" to play the stern father part to Pip's before, I should have had Joe with me then" (p.
satisfaction. Both stances taken toward Gargery 151; Ch. xix). The charge Pip brings against him-
can exist at the same time, in the same act, without self here we all know to be patent nonsense, al-
respect to the logic of cause and effect that reason though Dickens does not let Pip, or himself, see
requires. "Past, present and future are threaded," clearly through the tears. "But, sharpest and
says Freud, "on the string of the wish that runs deepest pain of all-it was for the convict, guilty
through them all."27 The psyche never gives up, of I knew not what crimes, and liable to be taken
never admits that any defeat is final, never is dis- out of those rooms where I sat thinking, and
loyal, as it were, to the demands that propel it. hanged at the Old Bailey door, that I had deserted
The text shows us Pip probing Joe's character, Joe.... In every rage of wind and rush of rain, I
seeking not knowledge but reaction, reaction heard pursuers" (pp. 307-08; Ch. xxxix). Do we
specifically in the form of retributive anger, the not hear a note, in this, of what a recent survey of
exhibition of pain and vindictive, guilt-provoking, Psychoanalytic Theoryand Therapyof Masochism
guilt-satisfying, response. Joe's pardon is not calls The Joy of Su/ffring?28 It serves, as does
enough, for Joe will not be hurt; his love for Pip Pip's hopeless pursuit of Estella, to lacerate a
is not offered in spite of the pain Pip causes him, psyche which in its "innermost life of my life"
nor even with awareness of any cruelty on Pip's (p. 223; Ch. xxix) desires to be scourged. Pip's
part. His acceptance does not have the force of "condition of unreason" (p. 245; Ch. xxxii), to
forgiveness. Pip's assault on Joe takes the forms use another of his descriptions of his emotional
of condescension and direct attack, both masked plight, has demanded it. He makes what capital
by a sentimentalized affection. As Pip paints him, he can of Joe, but Joe is found wanting and Pip
Joe's stupidity is only matched by his grotesque takes it out on him. His intended proposal to
appearance and his unexampled lack of social Biddy is his revenge on Joe for being Joe. Only
 La'wreniCe Ja i' Dessner 445

after Magwitch's death are Joe and Biddy al- under obligations to her, I was a more legitimate
lowed their fair measure of respect. Only after object of suspicion than any one else" (p. 113;
Pip's devils have been assuaged by, most impor- Ch. xvi). Pip immediately reconsiders, taking a
tantly, the catastrophe of the Magwitch relation- "view of the case, which was more reasonable."
ship can Biddy and Joe be given, be seen as having, But years later, hearing footsteps on his stairs-
adult sexuality. they are Magwitch's-Pip reverts to the earlier,
The assertion that Pip harbors patricidal ten- unreasonable idea: "What nervous folly made me
dencies. that in some ways he accomplishes acts start, and awfully connect it with the footsteps of
of patricide on Mrs. Joe, Miss Havisham, and my dead sister, matters not" (p. 299; Ch. xxxix).
Magwitch, may still seem a shockingly askew "Matters not"! Of course it matters, and Pip
judgment. Pip is gentle, sober, nonviolent, not senses that it does. What he implies by the phrase
that sort of fellow at all. The theory that Oedipal is something like this: "Reader, you and I both
aggressions color all personalities may evaporate know a good deal more than we admit about
before the novel's display of Pip's growing into these psychological strategies of mine. They are,
various forms of loving-kindness toward those in fact, so obvious and so distasteful, and I can do
whose lives cross his. On the other hand, the text nothing about them. I'm sorry to have been tact-
presents a number of untimely and violent deaths. less again and to have made explicit reterence to
and is not the amalgam of Pip and Dickens, who them. Please excuse me and forget it ever hap-
makes it all up, responsible for all of it? Freud pened." Pip's nonchalance here is itself strategic,
said the patient is responsible for his own dreams defensive. Herbert warns Pip that Magwitch
-surely the analyst isn't! In the world of fiction might turn himself in to the police if he feels Pip
the narrator-author is the first cause of all events. has forsaken him. Pip has not thought of aban-
Pip often suspects himself of being a murderer, or doning Magwitch at all, but Herbert's specula-
meditates, in various degrees of seriousness, on tion opens the old wound: "1 was so struck by the
the possibility. Mr. Wopsle involves Pip in a horror of this idea, which had weighed upon me
reading, in Pumblechook's parlor, of "the affect- from the first, and the working out of which
ing tragedy of George Barnwell." The hero of would make me regard myself, in some sort, as his
Lillo's very popular play, parodied by Thackeray murderer, that I could not rest in my chair, but
in Punch in 1847, robs his master and murders his began pacing to and fro" (p. 325; Ch. xli).
uncle. Pip plays the murderer: "At once ferocious Pip's relationship to Magwitch is the fulcrum
and maudlin, I was made to murder my uncle of the novel's movement. It begins with Mag-
with no extenuating circumstances whatever" (p. witch's comic ferocity: "Keep still, you little
110). Pumblechook glares at him "saying 'Take devil, or I'll cut your throat!" (p. 2: Ch. i). Pip
warning, boy, take warning!' as if it were a well- misreads his man's immediate motive, but re-
known fact that I contemplated murdering a near sponds with sensitivity to him: "As I saw him go,
relation, provided I could only induce one to have picking his way among the nettles, and among the
the weakness to become my benefactor" (p. 110; brambles that bound the green mounds [The in-
Ch. xv). How recklessly does Pip express the in- tensity with which this is felt forces the prose into
expressible, a murderer tempting fate, inviting verse], he looked in my young eyes as if he were
capture, by returning to the scene of his crime. It eluding the hands of the dead people, stretching
is, in this case, not the first such return. Earlier, up cautiously out of their graves. to get a twist
when Pumblechook, expecting brandy, choked upon his ankle and pull him in" (p. 4; Ch. i). The
on the tar-water, young Pip was terrified: "I living man, through imagery, is linked with the
didn't know how I had done it, but I had no doubt dead Pirrips. Pip keeps from Joe any knowledge
I had murdered him somehow" (p. 25; Ch. iv). of his pilfering for Magwitch. His reasons for do-
The Barnwell play is followed directly by news ing so are obviously strained: "I mistrusted that
of the assault on Mrs. Joe. Pip takes it this way: if I did, he would think me worse than I was" (p.
"With my head full of George Barnwell, I was at 37; Ch. vi). Pip knows this rationale is falsely
first disposed to believe that I must have had some based, he calls it "morbid." But the convict is re-
hand in the attack upon my sister, or at all events captured and the subject drops. Pip transfers his
that as her near relation, popularly known to be suffering over "the smart without a name" (p. 57;
446 Great Expectations: "the ghost of a man's ownfather"
Ch. viii) to the immediately available person, "unrefreshed," and "waking.. never lost that
Estella. That movement reaches its emotional fear" (p. 326; Ch. xli). In the sense that the narra-
climax when she tells Pip of her engagement to tor invents the novel, he is the murderer. But he
Drummle. Pip's response is to restate his love for also invents Compeyson. the actual murdererand
her, and, more oddly, his praise and thanksgiving his secret surrogate. This link between Pip and
for her goodness to him: "In this separation I as- Compeyson is hidden in the plot's complexities,
sociate you only with the good.... Oh, God and yet, like so many hidden connections in
bless you, God forgive you!" In an "ecstasy of Great Expectations, it is indirectly revealed.
unhappiness," Pip abases himself before Estella, Wopsle, seeing the two of them in his audience
praises her, accepts for himself a lifetime of pain- "had a ridiculous fancy that he must be with you,
fully unrequited love, and forgives her for it all. Mr. Pip, till I saw that you were quite unconscious
"The rhapsody welled up within me, like blood of him, sitting behind you there like a ghost" (p.
from an inward wound, and gushed out" (p. 345; 364; Ch. xlvii). Wopsle, whose foolishness dis-
Ch. xliv). Conventions of Victorian romantic love guises his insight here, "had from the first vaguely
serve to disguise the intensity of Pip's reactions associated him with me, and known him as some-
here just as the canons of respectability provide a how belonging to me in the old village time" (p.
"cover" for Pip's morbid fear of criminal taint. 366; Ch. xlvii). "Somehow" and "vaguely," pass-
We have already noticed some of Pip's early, words of sentimental diffuseness, are as explicit
intensely felt reactions to Magwitch. As the hint as Pip is able to be.
is given that the returned convict is, as he soon By the time Magwitch is mortally injured and
says, Pip's "second father," Pip's heart beats apprehended, Pip's "repugnance to him had all
"like a heavy hammer of disordered action." He melted away." He sees him as "only ... a man
"had to struggle for every breath." He "seemed who had meant to be my benefactor. and who had
to be suffocating.... The abhorrence in which I felt affectionately, gratefully, and generously,
held the man, the dread I had of him, the repug- towards me with great constancy through a series
nance with which 1 shrank from him, could not of years" (p. a23: Ch. liv). With Magwitch's
have been exceeded if he had been some terrible death doubly assured, Pip can turn to him with
beast.... I recoiled from his touch as if he had love and for love. Pip's guilt is not utterly "melted
been a snake ... while my blood ran cold within away," but it is assuaged in part by his earlier re-
me" (pp. 303-05; Ch. xxxix). To ascribe such in- fusal to consider taking possession of the wealth
tensity to Pip's sense of class distinctions is to Magwitch had amassed for him. Jaggers "was
take the complaint for the diagnosis. querulous and angry with me for having 'let it slip
Pip meditates on his case, and on his symptoms, through my fingers,'" although he admits the
admitting his inability to verbalize his feelings, yet difficulty of Pip's claim. Pip resolves not to try.
fascinated by them: "Words cannot tell what a Had he tried earlier, the chances would have been
sense I had, at the same time, of the dreadful better. Oddly enough, his case would have been
mystery that he was to me" (p. 319; Ch. xl). "The best made had he been related to Magwitch by a
imaginary student pursued by the misshapen "recognizable tie"-as an adopted son, for in-
creature he had impiously made, was not more stance, or even as Estella's husband, and so, son-
wretched than J, pursued by the creature who had in-law (pp. 425--26; Ch. lv). Magwitch, in return-
made me, and recoiling from him with a stronger ing to England, had, in effect, sacrificed himself
repulsion, the more he admired me and the fonder for Pip. Pip sacrifices economic security. Mag-
he was of me" (p. 320; Ch. xl). How accurate is witch's money, honestly earned, should be at least
this description of the minuet of the heart's af- as acceptable as Miss Havisham's inherited
fections! And how courageous not to repress the brewery fortune, but neither Pip nor Dickens is
hint, in the allusion to Mary Shelley's Franken- as interested in the evils of snobbery as the surface
stein, that the monster is a creation of the suffering of the novel has prompted some of its critics to be.
psyche, a creation that punishes its creator. By refusing to consider laying hold of Mag-
Pip is haunted by the idea of being "in some witch's wealth before it is too late, Pip frustrates
sort... [Magwitch's] murderer" (p. 352; Ch. his benefactor's love and life work. Since he keeps
xli). His dreams are of this, he says. He wakes, this fact from Magwitch, the argument that Pip
 Lawlrence Jay Dessner 447
deliberately frustrates his patron is solipsistic, ity of imploring Joe to strike him! As David
but that is the way of the ego. Pip's realization Goldknopf says: "If the novel can be said to have
that he is "in debt" with "scarcely any money" a generic moral it is: the heart has its reasons, and
brings on acute anxiety: "Then there came one those reasons will fight reason, experience, and
night which appeared of great duration, and fact, to man's dying breath" (The Lilf of the Notel,
which teemed with anxiety and horror; and when p. 5).
in the morning I tried to sit up in my bed and The working out of Pip's psychological distress
think of it, I found I could not do so" (p. 437; Ch. involves a good deal more than those few episodes
lvii). Pip recovers from his sudden and severe ill- discussed here. The exorcism of his feelings of
ness and goes off, chastened but cheerful, to ac- guilt requires symbolic, purifying deaths by fire
cept his punishment: eleven years of exile, celi- and by water, and, through Orlick's attempt on
bacy, and only moderately rewarding toil for his life, the threat of obliteration in the limekiln.
Clarriker and Co. With the novel's end comes the resolution of Pip's
The exchange of loving sacrifice is unequal; the search for parental surrogates. He receives for-
bargain, at last, in Pip's favor. He has found his giveness and utterly superfluous promises never
stern, dread-provoking father, and, with Dickens' to blame him again from Joe and Biddy (p. 455;
help, engineered a socially acceptable patricide, Ch. lviii), and then, after the passage of years, Pip
his victim's forgiveness, and the opportunity to is reborn as their child. It is told as a dream, a
say over his deathbed: "It was dreadful to think hallucination: "I touched [the latch] so softly that
that I could not be sorry at heart for his being I was not heard, and I looked in unseen. There,
badly hurt, since it was unquestionably best that smoking his pipe in the old place by the kitchen
he should die" (p. 423; Ch. liv). Parallel to this ac- firelight, as hale and as strong as ever. though a
ceptance of patricide is Herbert's situation. He little grey, sat Joe; and there. fenced into the
cannot marry Clara Barley until her father's corner with Joe's leg, and sitting on my own little
death. Pip felt "that Herbert's way was clearing stool looking at the fire, was-I again!" (p. 457;
fast, and that old Bill Barley had but to stick to Ch. lix). Pip exists again, as a young boy. with
his pepper and rum, and his daughter would soon loving and living parents, without the psycholog-
be happily provided for" (p. 395; Ch. lii). Old ical complications of his first incarnation. The
Barley is, eight pages before Magwitch's death, two Pips--one could as well refer to them in the
fading. "Not to say an unfeeling thing," says singular--return to the graves of their original
Pip, "he cannot do better than go" (p. 427; Ch. parents and the comic play of the novel's first page
Iv). is reprised. Pip finds peace, but scars remain. He
Magwitch dies blessing Pip: "You've never de- will not marry, he says; the last chapter, either
serted me, dear boy" (p. 435; Ch. Ivi). This, of version, is window dressing. He will be sober and
course, ignores Pip's initial repulsion, but it re- sad, and loyal, another emasculated Joe. He will
verberates with echoes of Pip's supposed deser- meditate on his life and then explain it to us and
tion of Joe, with Wemmick's treatment of his to himself, as well as he can. Grelt Expectations
aged parent, with, indeed, a large part of the is that explanation.
novel's content. At Magwitch's end, Pip tells him The explanation tells us how it has felt, how it
that Estella, the daughter he deserted, lives. Mag- feels "now" to remember it and tell it. It does not,
witch kisses Pip's hand and dies. Pip prays over explicitly, tell us why things happened as they did,
the body in the equivocal words of the Pharisee although it often is on the verge of discovering a
(Luke xviii.10-13). The equivocation, about more adequate rationale than its surface projects.
which critics have argued,29 marks an epoch in The secret of Pip's "innermost life of my life"
this equivocal relationship. (p. 223; Ch. xxix) is embedded in the fiction. After
Magwitch dies, but there is a sequel in which all the novel's secrets have been solved, as Ches-
Pip's muted, residual guilt finds expression. With terton said about Dickens' works in general, wc
Magwitch gone, he turns to Joe Gargery: "Oh have the sense "that even the author was unaware
Joe, you break my heart! Look angry at me, Joe. of what was really going on, and when [the plot's
Strike me, Joe. Tell me of my ingratitude. Don't secrets are unraveled,] we simply do not believe."
be so good to me!" (p. 439; Ch. lvii). The absurd- It is as if those characters "were keeping some-
448 Great Expectations: "the ghost of a man's own father"
thing back from the author as well as from the When the novel's surface makes us uneasy with
reader."30 Beneath the Oedipal secret that we its apparent intent, forces us to learn more about
have all felt as we have felt the novel's power, the work than its creator gives evidence of know-
there are other secrets for which language and ing, we may hesitate to award the praise reserved
comprehension are not yet. At Miss Havisham's for those works of supreme esthetic perfection.
death she begs forgiveness, and then: "She said Whatever loss this decision entails, it does bring
innumerable times in a low solemn voice. 'What forward to our attention a compelling biograph-
have I done!' And then, 'When she first came, I ical drama. [Link] us specta-
meant to save her from misery like mine.' And tors to the contlict waged, during its writing, in
then, 'Take the pencil and write under my name, the wounded psyche of Dickens. It is an epic,
"I forgive her"!' She never changed the order of marvelously courageous, struggle. Dickens fails
these three sentences, but she sometimes left out a to repress, transmute, comprehend, control,
word in one or other of them; never putting in an- transcend the private impulses which are the
other word, but always leaving a blank and going work's occasion. His great expectation, one
on to the next word" (pp. 381--82; Ch. xlix). Per- might say the great expectation of art generally,
haps some Dickensian will accept the challenge is precisely this translation of private matter into
Pip puts to us here and find the arrangement of public discourse, the triumphant escape from
those words that will reveal more about what Pip personality, from Yeats's "foul rag-and-bone
calls "the sharpest crying of all" (p. 224; Ch. xxix). shop of the heart." No doubt, Vivian, in "The
Despite such recalcitrant material, I believe Decay of Lying," is right: "The only real people
this psychoanalytic reading provides a unified are the people who never existed.... To art's
explanation of this novel's central meaning and subject-matter we should be more-or-less indif-
of the incongruities between the novel and re- ferent." But few would give up Dickens for Wilde.
ceived critical accounts of it. We might do well to Nor need it surprise or distress us that we see and
call Great Expectations a "personal novel" rather can verbalize complexities in Great Expectations
than a realistic one. Pip's excessive guilt and those when Dickens, who made us see, seems innocent
excesses and anomalies it generates point to of our psychological sophistication. Dickens was,
Dickens' personal feelings incompletely assimi- as few have been, alert to and loyal to his own
lated into the novel's realistic texture, the child's feelings. We stand on Freud's shoulders. Freud
heart and the child's special and amoral modes of stood on Dickens'.31
logic intruding into the controlled distances of
art. Contrivances of plot, inconsistencies of moral Unilversityof Toledo
and political thought, and discrepancies of char- Toledo, Ohio
acterization are functional when we read the
novel aright.

Notes
' ( Rilht and
Quoted by Harry K. Girvetz. Beyond i( Wronli. A this edition and are noted by chapter and page number within
Sttud in Moral Theorr (New York: Free Press, 1973). p. 54. the text.
from Letters of'Si,lutnd Freul, ed. Ernst L. Freud (New York: '
Robert B. Partlow, Jr., "The Moving 1: A Study of the
Basic. 1969). p. 436. Point of View in Great Expectations," CollhegeEnglish. 23
Gi. K. Chesterton, ('riticisms ttnd o.
AIIpprlechitions f ('arles (Nov. 1961). 122 26. 131. discusses this difficult question.
Dickens (New York: Dutton, 1911), p. 197: John H. Hagan, 5 See
e.g.. Humphry House, Ilhe [Link] 2nd ed.
Jr.. "The Poor Labyrinth: The Theme of Social Injustice in (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1942).
Dickens's Great [Link].," Nineteenth-CenturvlFiction, 9 6 An important treatment of this subject is Julian Moyna-
(Dec. 1954). 169--78; Monroe Engel, The Maturtityof Dickens han. "The Hero's Guilt: The Case of Great [Link]."
(Cambridge. Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1959), pp. 156-68; EssaYsin Criticism, 10 (1960), 60-79. Barbara Hardy disagrees
G. Robert Stange, "Expectations Well Lost: Dickens' Fable with vigor ("Formal Analysis and Common Sense." Essas:s
for His Time." College English. 16 (Oct. 1954). 9. in Criticism. 11, 1961. 112--15)but Moynahan, writing in the
3 Great
Expectation.s,ed. Frederick Page, The New Oxford same issue, will not be moved ("Dickens Criticism." pp. 239
Illustrated Dickens (London: Oxford Univ. Press. 1953). p. 41). See also Robert Barnard, "Images and Theme in Great
434: Ch. Ivi. All subsequent reterences to this work are fiom "
Expectations.. Dickens Stulies Annual. 1 (1970). 238-51
 LawlrenceJay Dessner 449
("The all-pervasive theme of Great Expectations is not money, F. Manheim. "The Personal History of David Copperfield: A
but guilt," p. 238), and Harry Stone, "Fire, Hand, and Gate: Study in Psychoanalytic Criticism1," Almricanl1 ulo1,1 9
Dickens' Great Expectations," Kenyon Review, 24 (1962), (1952), 21 43, esp. 41-43.
662-91. 7 R. D. McMaster, ed., Great Expectations (New York:
7 I follow David Goldknopf, The Life of the Novel (Chicago: Odyssey, 1965), p. 6, n. See also Charles Parish. "A Boy
Univ. of Chicago Press, 1972), pp. 146-47, who quotes this Brought Up 'By Hand,' " Nineteenth-Century Fiction, 17
passage and refers to the "wink" in it. (1962), 286--88, and Robert J. Finkel, "Another Boy Brought
8 Ne\w Republic, March 1940, pp. 297-300, 339-42. I quote Up 'By Hand,'" Nineteenth-CenturyEFiction, 20 (1966),
from the enlarged version in The Woundand The Bolt.: Seven 389-90.
Studies in Literature (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1965), 18 Manheim. "Personal History of David Copperfield," p.
pp. 3-85, and indicate future page references in my text. 42.
Wilson's influence in this regard has been widespread. It '1 "As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw Ilamlc. I l
limits the often insightful Freudian reading of Albert Hutter's Poems of Gerard Manlei' Hopkins, ed. W. H. Gardner and
"Crime and Fantasy in Great Expectations," in Psychoanalysis N. H. Mackenzie, 4th ed. (London: Oxford Univ. Press,
and Literary Process, ed. Frederick Crews (Cambridge, Mass.: 1970), p. 90.
Winthrop, 1970), pp. 26-65. 20 See my "Great Expectations: The Tragic Comedy of John
9 Holland, "Romeo's Dream and the Paradox of Literary Wemmick," Ariel. A Reviewlof International Enqlish Litera-
Realism," Literature and( Psycholoq,. 13 (1963), 97-104. ture, 6 (April 1975), 65-80.
quotes and discusses this statemlentof Freud's. In his essential 21 See Moynahan, "The Hero's Guilt," and Karl P. Wen-
work on the subject, The Dynamics of Literary Response (New tersdorf, "Mirror Images in Great [Link]," Nineteenith-
York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1968), Holland touches on the Century Fiction, 21 (1966), 203-24.
linkage between sentimentality in popular fiction and "oedipal 22 Jay Leyda, ed., The Complete Stories of Herm7anMelville
fantasy" from which "most of the greatest literature... (New York: Random, 1949), p. xxviii.
builds" (pp. xiii-xiv, 47); Stoehr, Dickens. The Dreamer's 23 I follow J. Hillis Miller, Charles Dickens:. The World of.
Stance (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1965); Stoehr's critical His Novels (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1958),
method and his remarks on Great Expectations are most use- esp. pp. ix-xi.
ful although his conclusions about the novel's "true subject" 24 "The Law as 'Father,'" A,merican /inuito, 12 (1955),
(p. 99) are at variance with mine. 17 23.
"
'0 Sylvia Anthony's The Discovery of Death in Childhood 25 See Manheim, "The Law as 'Father,' p. 21, on Bleak
(New York: Basic, 1972) is a useful summary. Most volumes House: "There never was a kindlier, more long-suffering,
of The Psychoanailtic Study of the Child (New York: Interna- gentler father than John Jarndyce.... What better atonement
tional Univs. Press) and of the Journal of Child Psycholoqy could one make to a once-despised father? [i.e., Dickens'
andCPsychiatry contain relevant material. father]."
l The Form of Victorian Fiction. Thackeray, Dickens, 26 Bella Wilfer, Jenny Wren, Amy Dorrit, and their fathers,
Trollope, George Eliot, Meredith, and Hardy (Notre Dame: to name a few.
Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1968), p. 6. 27 Quoted by Roberts, p. 392, from "The Relation of the
12 Charles Klingerman, "The Dream of Charles Dickens," Poet to Day-Dreaming," Sigmmund Freud, Charaicterand Cul-
Journal of the American Psychoanalysis Association, 18 (1970), ture, ed. Philip Rieff (New York: Collier, 1963), p. 38.
784. 28 Shirley Panken, The Joy of Sufferin.' The Psycho-
3 The Poetical Works of'Matthei- Arnold, ed. C. B. Tinker analytic Theoryand Therapyof Masochism (New York: Aron-
and H. F. Lowry (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1950), p. 193. son, 1973). Panken speaks of "Moral Masochism" (p. 41)
14 Charles Burkhart, Charlotte Bronti.: A Psychosexual and says that "Masochistic individuals remain unaware of the
Study of Her Novels (London: Gollancz, 1973), p. 73. extent to which they fear and exaggerate moral failure" (p.
5 "Thanatos: The Death Instinct in Dickens' Later 43).
Novels," Psychoanalysis anc Psychoanalytic Review, 47 29 The debate is summarized by K. J. Fielding, "The Criti-
(Winter 1960--61),28. cal Autonomy of Great Expectations," Review of' EnIlish
16 Dickens was interested in the relationship between his Studies, 2 (1961), 83-85.
dreams and his fiction, as Warrington Winters has shown 30 Graham Greene, "The Young Dickens," The Lost Child-
("Dickens and the Psychology of Dreams," PMLA, 63, 1948, hood randOther Essays (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1951),
984-1006); Dickens was not the only Victorian who believed p. 54, paraphrases and then quotes from G. K. Chesterton,
that "there is a mental existence within us, a secret flow, an ab- Charles Dickens, a Critical Study (New York: Dodd, Mead,
sent mind which haunts us like a ghost or a dream and is an 1906), pp. 170-71, Ch. vii.
essential part of our lives." So wrote Eneas Sweetland Dallas. 31 I
acknowledge with gratitude the helpful counsel of my
7he Gay1 Sc'ince (London: Chapman & Hall. 1866). ..199 colleagues, Louis B. Fraiberg and Wallace D. Martin, at the
(quoted by Helene E. Roberts, "The Dream World of Dante Univ. of Toledo, and the incisive criticism and suggestions of
Gabriel Rossetti," Victorian Studies, 17, 1974, 380). On the George H. Ford, James R. Kincaid, and William D. Schaefer.
limits of Dickens' awareness of depth psychology, see Leonard