Great Expectations | The Character of Estella in Great Expectations

In this excerpt, Lucille P. Shores explores the relationship between Pip and Estella, maintaining that although Estella is often regarded as cold and cruel, she acts with honesty and sincere affection towards Pip.

A close inspection of the speeches and gestures which Dickens gives to Estella can easily give credit to the notion that she has a great deal of respect and affection for Pip, but Dickens never actually has Pip put this forth as a revelation, simply because Pip continues to remain ignorant of it. He does not even give the retrospective "if-I-knew-then-what-I-know-now" analysis of this situation that he does in the cases of Joe and Magwitch. We are probably not accustomed to this much subtlety in Dickens; we are used to having him spell out his meanings for us very clearly. But the...

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