Pip's Great Expectations of Love

People expect to fall in love and live happily ever after in their life hoping it will exceed perfection, but a life with purpose is anything but perfect. In the novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Pip aims so high for love unaware that he should not have such high expectations. Pip’s love for people like Estella will never be true for he has set the bar way out of reach. Estella knows that Pip is too good for her so she treats him poorly but Pip feels as if he is not nearly good enough for her. Hurt emotions will run over Pip many times before he gets wounded very deeply in his heart. However this will make him stronger and more knowledgeable making him realize he is too pure for Estella, and transform him from an innocent kid into an experienced adult. His love for Joe is mutual and that helps to make Pip more of a person and not just a kid. “But I loved Joe—perhaps for no better reason in those early days than because the dear fellow let me love him—and as to him my inner self was not so easily composed.” (p. 40) The theme of the entire novel grasps all aspects of love; when love must be fought for, it screams complication, but when it is pure, it falls into place like magic.