love.” He has grown up and lived through some difficult times, coming to terms with what he truly is, which is different than what he wanted to be. This maturity was achieved once he learned who his true benefactor was, as well as come to terms with the fact that he was not destined to be Estella’s husband by the intention of Miss Havisham. He has realized that he has given himself up to being manipulated by someone who is more worldly-wise, and thus become worldly-wise himself.

Yet it is Estella who has changed the most. Through her abusive marriage and the relief of widowhood, she has overcome her training to break men’s hearts. She has learned to see Pip as a human being, rather than a tool to be manipulated. With the dual endings provided by Dickens (the original being one that gives a hint that their relationship might resume at a different level), we can see how both of grown up and grown beyond what they had once been.

When Pip is escorted by Uncle Pumblechook to Manor House, also called ironically, Satis House, Estella is short with Pumblechook and condescending to Pip.  Sarcastically, she tells Pip who looks around him that he could drink without hurt all the strong beer that is brewed there now, for everything is in decay.  Then, although she is almost the same age as Pip, she calls him "boy."  When Pip tries to be polite, telling her she may precede him as he readies himself after ascending the stairs, to enter a room, she says, "Don't be ridiculous, boy.  I'm not going in."

Pip enters and encounters Miss Havisham for the first time.  When she tells him to call Estella, he is uncomfortable in calling out her name, but does so.  Estella responds and Pip narrates that she came along "like a star."  When Miss Havisham tells her she can play with Pip, Estella haughtily responds, "With this boy?  Why, he's a common labouring boy!"  However, Miss Havisham has her sit down to play cards with Pip.  While doing so, Estella ridicules him:  She remarks that he calls knaves "jacks," and he has coarse hands and thick boots.  Then, as Estella wins the card game, she throws down the cards as though she despises them.

As she escorts Pip out, she provides him with a meal, but Pip is disconsolate at the scornful way that she has treated him.  He finds himself crying and Estella mocks him for it.  Then, when Estella returns later with the keys to let him out, she asks him mockingly why he does not cry then?  When he tells her he does not want to, Estella again laughs contemptuously,

"You do.  You've been crying till you're half blind, and you are near crying now."

Estella laughs with contempt again, pushes him out the gate, and locks it.

In chapter 33 of Great Expectations, Estella's comments all reveal a detached and ironic personality, which finds great satisfaction in the frustration of those she despises. She is amused at the hatred the Pocket family feels for Pip, and she bursts out laughing when she reflects on how little they can do to harm him.

Estella's tone is composed, showing that she has her emotions under control, but her delight at the failures of Miss Havisham's greedy relations shows the malice and resentment she feels towards them. As she explains to Pip:

“It is not easy for even you,” said Estella, “to know what satisfaction it gives me to see those people thwarted, or what an enjoyable sense of the ridiculous I have when they are made ridiculous. For you were not brought up in that strange house from a mere baby. I was. You had not your little wits sharpened by their intriguing against you, suppressed and defenceless, under the mask of sympathy and pity and what not that is soft and soothing.

Estella's behavior does convince Pip that she cares for him, but he takes very little convincing, since this is what he wants to believe, even though he admits to himself that she does not make him happy. When she calls him by name for the first time, he reads a profound meaning into this simple gesture and believes that she means him to “treasure it up.” However, Pip's emotions are conflicted, and alongside his willingness to believe that Estella cares for him is the notion that she has been influenced by Miss Havisham to change her attitude.

The relationship between Pip and Estella in Great Expectations can reasonably be described as complicated. The two meet as children, and as they grow up, adult feelings inevitably enter the picture, making things a good deal messier.

At first, the snobbish Estella doesn't want anything to do with Pip, the "common, labouring boy" as she cruelly calls him. She's set on a trajectory that will see her enter society as a respectable lady. The last thing she wants, then, is to be lumbered with someone much further down the social ladder than herself.

As for young Pip, he's absolutely infatuated by Estella. He may not care much for her caustic insults, but he's positively entranced by her beauty. Even so, he realizes that there's no chance of being with her, given his lowly social origins. This makes him all the more determined to become a gentleman.

Even when Pip becomes a gentleman, however, Estella remains largely cold and unapproachable. She frankly admits to Pip that she has no heart, which is why she marries the rich but brutish Bentley Drummle. In the event, her marriage doesn't work out, and with the revelation of her birth parents' criminal past, her days of being a respectable society lady are over.

As Pip is no longer a young gentleman, he is now pretty much on the same level as Estella. Although this greatly facilitates the establishment of a relationship between the two, by the end of the story, it's by no means clear that it will last.

One cannot answer this question without first thinking about Miss Havisham. She was jilted as a young woman and never recovered from the loss; because of her disappointment in love, she has groomed Estella, her adoptive daughter, to break hearts as a kind of revenge on the entire male race. Dickens demonstrates this idea in Chapter 29:

"Hear me, Pip! I adopted her, to be loved. I bred her and educated her, to be loved. I developed her into what she is, that she might be loved. Love her!”

Havisham wants Pip to feel an all-consuming love that is blind and desperate, which he does. As a result of how she was raised, Estella does not have the capacity to love in return. She is cold and calloused, at one point describing herself as heartless:

“You must know,” said Estella, condescending to me as a brilliant and beautiful woman might, “that I have no heart,—if that has anything to do with my memory.”

Miss Havisham has released this beautiful woman into the world to make men feel the pain she felt. Pip falls in love with her, just as Havisham wanted him to, and Estella is aloof and indifferent. She marries someone else, but she doesn't love him either. Dickens wrote two endings, one in which Pip and Estella definitively do not end up together, and a second, less-common ending, in which there is the suggestion that they might get together.

It is worth mentioning that Dickens loves to play with names and has done so here. Estella literally means 'star.' Pip reveres and adores her, and she is bright and beautiful. But she is also distant and cold, and Pip can never actually have her.

In Great Expectations, Mr. Jaggers advises Pip, "Take nothing on appearances."  Certainly, the Pip-Estella relationship is an example of the Appearances vs. Reality  theme that prevails thoughout Charles Dickens's classic novel.

From the first meeting of Pip with Estella, Pip falls victim to believing in appearances.  The beautiful, haughty girl whose name means "star" is elevated in Pip's esteem simply because she lives with the rich Miss Havisham and is dressed in lovely clothes and speaks in a deprecating way to him, calling him "common."  Immediately, because this vision of superior loveliness who speaks properly has termed him "common," Pip experiences a humiliation.  But, despite her cruel ways, Pip falls hopelessly in love with the beautiful Estella, perhaps even because she is unattainable.  He perpetuates his delusions by hoping that if he becomes a gentleman, Estella will accept him as an equal and requite his love.

Of course, the truth is that from the beginning, Pip's birth has more legitimacy than that of Estella's.  For, his parents were married and, albeit poor, they were certainly not criminals as are the parents of Estella, whose birth came out of the streets of London.

In addition to the theme of Appearance vs. Reality, the relationship of Pip and Estella also points to a salient theme in the works of Dickens:  Class Stratification.  The theme of social class is central to Great Expectations as it acts as extends into the other themes such as the Appearance theme.  Pip's angst over being "common," as Estella has labeled him, is his driving force to become a gentleman and entertain the "great expectations" of having bettered himself sufficiently so that he will become worthy of Estella.  But, of course the class structure is a false one in GreatExpectations, thus paralleling the Appearance vs. Reality theme, as Pip later learns; rather, it is what one is as a person that is truly of value.  Estella, for all her beauty and daintiness is but common in her heart; she is incapable of noble thoughts and acts while Joe, the humble blacksmith is truly a good and noble man. 

To me, one of the major themes of the novel is the idea that suppressed emotions can make a person into something of a cripple.  We see this most clearly in the character of Miss Havisham.

But we also see this theme some in the relationship between Pip and Estella.  Estella is something of a cripple herself because she cannot act according to her true feelings.  Miss Havisham has raised her in such a way that she can't get past hating men.   But this is not how she truly feels.  We see this in the fact that she keeps trying to spare Pip from harm even as she is harming him.

The relationship between the two of them is a very dysfunctional one, with Pip loving her and her trying to hurt him.  Dickens is trying to show us (through this relationship) how much suppressed emotions can hurt people.

Pip and Miss Havisham have a complicated relationship.  She relies on him because she needs someone for Estella to practice on.  Although she hates all men, and presumably boys, she does seem to take a subtle interest in his life.  He continues to keep in touch with her as he gets older, and she allows him to and even continues to push Estella his way.  She tempts and teases him, but she never tells him the truth.  She allows him to assume that she is his benefactor.

Pip is irritated by Miss Havisham, and even confronts her after he realizes that Magwitch is his benefactor.  Even then, he realizes that his life is as bad as she could have hoped.

“What I had to say to Estella, Miss Havisham, I will say before you, presently—in a few moments. It will not surprise you, it will not displease you. I am as unhappy as you can ever have meant me to be.” (ch 44, p. 242)

Miss Havisham asks him why he is surprised by her unkindness, and she has a point.  She has been nothing but manipulative throughout his life, and he was always aware of it.  He put up with it first because he thought he had no choice, and second because he thought he was going to get Estella. 

Pip does care for Miss Havisham, because in a twisted way she is family.  He feels sorry for her, at the end, and jumps into the fire to rescue her.

Estella treats Pip very scornfully when they first meet. They first encounter one another when she lets him into Satis Hall, where he has come to meet Miss Havisham. From the start, Estella seems haughty and proud. She makes no effort to smile or be pleasant, and she calls Pip "boy" over and over, although they seem to be the same age. As Pip recounts:

She seemed much older than I, of course, being a girl, and beautiful and self-possessed; and she was as scornful of me as if she had been one-and-twenty, and a queen.

Estella has been raised to be cold by Miss Havisham. This is Miss Havisham's way of getting back at all men because of the hurt she suffered when her betrothed left her at the altar. Pip, of course, doesn't understand this and assumes when he comes into his great expectations that Miss Havisham is behind his new status. He believes she wants to raise him up to be a gentleman so that he can marry Estella, but that could not be further from the truth.

In Chapter XI of Great Expectations, Pip returns to Satis House and finds it occupied with guests, but Estella is even crueler to Pip, hitting him and calling him names.

When Pip arrives at Satis House for his second visit, Estella comes to lead him into a gloomy room with a low ceiling. There are some people already in the room, and Estella tells Pip to stand by the window and wait until he is called. Later, Estella calls to Pip and again they walk along a dark passageway.

"Well?"
"Well, miss," I answered, almost falling over her and checking myself.
..."Am I pretty?"
"Yes; I think you are very pretty."
"Am I insulting?"
"Not as much as you were last time," said I.
"Not so much so?"
"No."
She slapped my face with such force as she had.
"Now?" said she. "You little coarse monster what do you think of me now?"
"I shall not tell you."

Estella then accuses Pip of waiting until he is upstairs to report her cruel act to Miss Havisham or Mr. Jaggers, who is also there. Then she asks him why he does not cry; Pip replies that he will never again let her see him cry. After this, Miss Havisham has him walk her around a room with a rotting cake. She tells Pip it is her birthday. After this they return to the first room and Miss Havisham has Pip and Estella play cards. All the time that they play, Miss Havisham draws Pip's attention to Estella's beauty, which she enhances by placing jewels on her throat and hair.

Later, Pip encounters the pale young gentleman, who insists that they box and follow the rules of the Marquis of Queensbury. Pip proves the stronger. So Pip says "good afternoon" to him and returns to the courtyard. There Estella stands "with a bright flush on her cheeks." "You may kiss me if you like," she tells Pip. Although Pip kisses her, he feels as though the kiss were given

...to the coarse common boy as a piece of money might have been, and that it was worth nothing.

It was a mere token prize to the boy who won the fight--nothing more.

This is a really interesting question to consider. You might want to think about Chapter Eight, which is our first introduction to Estella, as a good passage to compare both of these characters. Let us remember that in this chapter Estella begins the process of "beggaring" Pip which she carries on until the end of the novel. She is proud, beautiful, contemptuous and somebody who delights in taunting Pip because of his low birth and common nature. Consider the following quote as an example of this:

She put the mug down on the stones of the yard, and gave me the bread and meat without looking at me, as insolently as if I were a dog in disgrace. I was so humiliated, hurt, spurned, offended, angry, sorry--I cannot hit upon the right name for the smart--God knows what its name was--that tears started to my eyes.

The moment that Pip begins to cry he records that Estella looked at his tears with "delight in having been the cause of them." Estella is presented as a cruel female who delights in torturing males and gaining power over them. This is of course in massive contrast to Pip and his innocence, naivety and basic goodness.

However, there is one massive similarity between Pip and Estella that unites them together in spite of these differences. Both are (supposedly) orphans who are brought up by other parental figures in their life and are abused and damaged as a result. Just as Miss Havisham brings Estella up to not be able to love, so Pip is corrupted by the great expectations that his substitute father, Magwitch, supplies him with. Both Miss Havisham and Magwitch "adopt" Estella and Pip for their own selfish reasons.

There are two main reasons Estella does not return Pip’s affection.  One, she is incapable of feeling affection.  Two, she does have brotherly affection for him, but she wants to use her romantic affection to get back at Miss Havisham.

Estella plainly tells Pip that she cannot love him because she does not have the ability to love.  Miss Havisham raised her to be cold and heartless, and have no feelings.  She tells him she has no heart.

“Oh! I have a heart to be stabbed in or shot in, I have no doubt,” said Estella, “and, of course, if it ceased to beat I should cease to be. But you know what I mean. I have no softness there, no—sympathy—sentiment—nonsense.” (ch 29, p. 162)

It is actually out of a sort of affection that she tells him this.  She is trying to spare his feelings.  In her own way, she does care for him.  What she really means is that she has no ability to LOVE romantically.  She cannot be in love with him.  She thinks of him as a brother, because they grew up together.  She also has no desire to marry for love.  Miss Havisham raised her to get revenge on men, and she intends to kill two birds with one stone.  She will offend all of the gentlemen suitors by marrying the dolt Drummle, and she will affend Miss Havisham by not involving her.

Miss Havisham is upset with how Estella turns out.  She wants a daughter she can feel affection for, or who will at least feel affection for her.  She accuses Estella of being cold toward her, which is unacceptable, and Estella accuses her of hypocrisy.

“You should know,” said Estella. “I am what you have made me. Take all the praise, take all the blame; take all the success, take all the failure; in short, take me.” (ch 38, p. 206)

Estella cannot love Miss Havisham.  She informs her that she has her love, as she has been taught to love, and no more.  Estella blames Miss Havisham for the kind of life she had, and the kind of person she has become.

It is one of the great ironies of the book that Miss Havisham's creation turns against her, and Miss Havisham finds herself wanting love, familial love, and not able to get it because of how she has treated those close to her.

If you use this response in your own work, it must be cited as an expert answer from eNotes. All expert answers on eNotes are indexed by Google and other search engines. Your teacher will easily be able to find this answer if you claim it as your own.

In the final chapter of Great Expectations, Pip visits Satis House where he encounters Estella, whom he has not seen for years.

The freshness of her beauty was indeed gone, but its indescribable majesty and its indescribable charm remained.

Her "majesty" and her "charm" are what Pip has always loved. Upon first seeing Estella, whose name denotes "star," Pip is struck by what he perceives as her superiority, a "majesty" that holds a magical "charm," in the sense of allurement, for Pip.

On the day of his first visit to Satis House, little Pip, whose entire world has only been the forge and the marshes, is mesmerized by the beauty of the young lady who leads him up the stairs to the strange room where an even stranger Miss Havisham sits. And, when Estella demeans him as "a common laboring boy," Pip's hyper-imaginativeness and exisential sense generates Estella into a paragon of beauty and social class, the goal to which he must aspire or be inferior:

I took the opportunity of being alone to look at my coarse hands and my common boots. They had never troubled me before, but they troubled me now....I wished Joe had been rather more genteelly brought up, and then I should have been so too.

With Estella as representative of the pinnacle of his aspirations, Pip fails to perceive any faults in her. Instead, encouraged by Miss Havisham to "love her, love her!" he commences his efforts to become a gentleman in order to be worthy of her. Estella, the star," is the wish, the unattainable desire, the reach which exceeds Pip's grasp. Indeed, she is one of his illusionary "great expectations" as Estella is the mere daughter of two convicts, a common person albeit one who possesses uncommon beauty. And, yet, in his romanticized vision of love, Pip retains his perception of "majesty" and "charm" in Estella to the very end.

Pip and Estella are linked, not just by the plot, but thematically as well. Both Pip and Estella are defined by their “expectations,” although what whose expectations are, and the degree to which they are fulfilled, varies quite a bit.

Pip meets Estella at Miss Havisham‘s house. Estella, also an orphan, is being raised by Miss Havisham to “break hearts.” Estella is critical of Pip’s working class ways; for his part, Pip finds Estella proud, pretty, and insulting. Estella is a mystery to Pip; even though he desires her, her aloofness confounds him, and he also understands that she is toying with him. When after a visit on Miss Havisham’s birthday Estella permits Pip to kiss her cheek, Pip feels that “the kiss was given to the coarse common boy as a piece of money might have been, and that it was worth nothing” (chapter 9).

The value of affection, and the difference between genuine feeling and manipulation or double-dealing, is an important theme in the book. Pip’s realization later in the book that he “adores” Estella is a case in point. Pip, keenly aware that “fortune” (Miss Havisham?) has raised him up, thinks that perhaps Miss Havisham has groomed him to be Estella’s husband. The fact that his is not the case—that not only is Miss Havisham not Pip’s mysterious benefactor, but Estella is purposefully attempting to “deceive and entrap” Drummle, and does eventually marry him. It is no surprise that her marriage with Drummle, based on cynicism and contempt, becomes abusive. But Estella’s marriage becomes an important lesson for both Pip and Estella: Estella learns the value of genuine affection, and Pip learns that his “luck” or destiny is not subject to his whims. Even in Dickens, the story does not always turn out the way it ought.

There is some ambiguity about whether Pip and Estella marry after Drummle’s death. The sense, however, is that they do stay together in some way, and that the bond they share, though both understand it differently, cannot be broken.

Pip and Estella have tea together.  She informs him that she is going to Richmond to reside with a socially influential lady.  Estella allows Pip to kiss her cheek, but she still treats him with an attitude of distance.  This is not a deterrent to him.  His admiration of her does not falter.

Pip accompanies Estella in a coach to Richmond on the way to her new home.  The coach drives through Cheapside in London and passes by the walls of the Newgate Prison.  Pip knows this place well, but he does not want to share that fact with Estella.  She asks him about the place.  At first, he pretends not to know anything.  When he does tell her that it is a prison, she "[draws] in her head again, murmuring, 'Wretches!'"  Estella has no sympathy for the prisoners at Newgate, and her attitude causes Pip to hide that he visited there.  He is ashamed to tell her.  Pip greatly admires Estella.  He wants to hide aspects of his life that she will disapprove of.  Pip sees Estella as being better than him, which is why he constantly strives to better himself and impress her.

In order to get better answers, you should tell us whatever you can about where in the book you think the answer is.  I am assuming you are talking about the part in Chapter 33 where Pip and Estella happen to be driving by Newgate Prison.  Pip has just been there the day before.

When she asks Pip what that place is, he pretends at first not to know.  In my opinion, this shows that he still places Estella on a pedestal.  He thinks that she is too good and too delicate to even have to think about such things as prisons.

You can see this attitude of his in this quote from the end of Chapter 32:

I thought of the beautiful young Estella, proud and refined, coming towards me, and I thought with absolute abhorrence of the contrast between the jail and her.

Pip believes he loves Estella, and he is certainly enamored of her for many reasons. First, Estella is beautiful, and Pip is an impressionable young man who is bowled over by her beauty. Moreover, Estella represents everything to which Pip aspires. He longs to be part of the upper class that Miss Havisham and Estella represent. The irony of Estella’s situation is that she does not actually represent Miss Havisham’s upper class in reality; her background is even more lower-class than Pip’s, as she is the daughter of a convict. Pip does not know this early on when he first meets her and believes he has fallen in love with her.

Another aspect of Estella that attracts Pip, ironically, is her haughty manner. Estella treats Pip as if he is beneath her, which is the way Miss Havisham has taught her it is appropriate to treat men. While another young man, perhaps one with a greater sense of self-esteem or self-confidence, would be rebuffed by this, Pip finds it alluring. Estella’s behavior toward him only serves to reinforce his longing to be part of her class and to feel as if he belongs.

This is consistent with his belief that his secret benefactor is a wealthy person—specifically Miss Havisham herself—who has recognized that Pip’s qualities make him someone who should be accepted. Pip does seem to love Estella, but regardless of whether the feelings of love are real or not, he certainly wants to be accepted by her. In the novel's final scene, Pip and Estella leave the ruined grounds of Miss Havisham's house hand in hand, which suggests that the two might share a loving relationship now that they are older and wiser.

In Great Expectations, Joe is both father and friend to the orphaned Pip.  He is protective, shielding Pip from the wrath of Pip's sister, his wife, who rushes at Pip with "Tickler," a switch with which she whips Pip.  He carries Pip with him on the marsh, throwing him on top of his broad shoulders; he holds Pip tenderly by the fire as Pip works on his letters, complimenting Pip's efforts.  Early in the novel, Joe indicates his tenderness and love for Pip as he relates his meeting of Mrs. Joe:

'When I offered to your sister...to be asked in church, at such times as she was willing and ready to come to the forge, I said to her, 'And bring the poor little child.  God bless the poor little child,...there's room for him at the forge.'

After this evening with Joe, Pip declares,

Young as I was, I believe that I dated a new admiration of Joe from that night.  We were equals afterward, as we had been before; but afterward, at quiet times when I sat looking at Joe and thinking about him, I had a new sensation of feeling conscious that I was looking up to Joe in my heart.

When he returns from his first visit to Satis House, Pip complains to Joe that he is "common," as Estella has labeled him, and that he wishes he were that common.  Disturbed by hearing Pip's words, Joe tells him,

'As to being common, I don't make it out at all clear.  You are oncommon in some things.  You're oncommon small.  Likewise you're a oncommon scholar.'

On the occasion of Pip's being apprenticed to Joe, they go to Satis House together where Miss Havisham, who has requested that Joe bring Pip's indentures with him:

It was very aggravating; but, throughout the interview, Joe persisted in addressing me instead of Miss Havisham.  It was quite in vain for me to make him sensible that he ought to speak to Miss Havisham.  the more I made faces and gestures to him to do it, the more confidential, argumentative, and polite he persisted in being to me.

Joe's behavior in this scene indicates his feelings of inferiority to Miss Havisham.  Like a commoner in the presence of royalty, Joe does not directly address Miss Havisham out of respect for her higher social status.  Instead, he speaks through Pip.  This action also indicates that he perceives Pip as socially higher than he, now.

Joe's integrity, however, is insulted when Miss Havisham implies that he wishes a "premium with the boy."  "Cutting me [Pip] short as if he were hurt," Joe responds,

..."which I meantersay that were not a question requiring a answer betwit yourself and me, and which you know the answer to be full 'No.'"

Joe Gargery's love and loyal friendship for Pip know no bounds as he continues to love Pip even when the snobbish Pip neglects him.  Rushing to his aid after he is burned, Joe tenderly nurses Pip back to health, mitigating Pip's apologies for his behavior with his signature phrase, "Ever the best of friends, Pip, ol'chap!"

Great Expectations is a bildungsroman detailing the growth of its hero, Pip, from childhood to adulthood. His name gives some indication of the role he will play in the novel: beginning as a "pip" that will grow into something greater than its origins. As Pip changes, so does his relationship with Estella, Miss Havisham's beautiful ward.

Names are important in this novel. "Estella" as a name accurately represents how Pip sees the girl herself: beautiful, distant, and unattainable, like a star. At first, when they are children, Pip is overawed by Estella, and he pursues her even though she treats him badly. Having been brought up by the scorned bride Miss Havisham, Estella is emotionally stunted and unable to love Pip as he loves her, but despite Estella's protestations, Pip views attaining Estella as representative of his wider goals in terms of class aspirations. When they first meet, Pip is only a blacksmith's boy. He believes fruitlessly that, when he meets her again as an adult who has come into money, she may see him differently, but this does not happen. However, Estella is very honest with Pip, saying that she is pursuing the rich Drummle only for his money and "deceives and entraps . . . all of them but you [Pip]." Only with Pip is she honest about herself.

At the end of the novel, after some years, Pip and Estella meet again, and Pip's attitude towards her has changed. Dickens actually wrote two endings to the novel. In the first ending, Estella is portrayed as having learned from the sufferings of her abusive marriage to Drummle; it has "given her a heart to understand what my heart used to be." But her meeting with Pip is brief, and it is clear that Pip has moved beyond his passion for her.

In the second ending, there is a greater sense of closure between Pip and Estella when they meet again at Miss Havisham's house. Pip declares that they are "friends," to which Estella says they "will continue friends apart." Despite this, however, Pip says he "saw no shadow of another parting from her," which leaves the audience to wonder whether Pip is still fruitlessly longing for Estella, who will only ever be a friend to him, or if they will finally be together.

Estella is so mean to Pip in the novel because she has been taught to be this way by Miss Havisham. Estella is a beautiful girl and is Miss Havisham's ward, and Miss Havisham plans to use her to wreak revenge on men.

Miss Havisham was badly traumatized when she was left at the altar. She has never recovered from the experience, as Pip discovers when he is sent to visit her. She still wears her yellowing wedding gown and has her moldering wedding feast set on a table. It is as if time stopped when she was betrayed.

Because a man broke her heart, Miss Havisham raises Estella to break men's hearts. She wants her ward to be mean, arrogant, and coldhearted. She wants Estella to entice men to fall in love with her so that she can watch Estella reject and hurt them. In the case of Pip, he falls into the trap very nicely, falling in love with a woman who can't return his affection.

Miss Havisham, however, comes to regret the way she brought up Estella. When, late in the novel, she asks her ward why she is so cold to her and can't love her despite everything she has done for her, Estella says that it was Miss Havisham who made her this way. In her desire to hurt others, Miss Havisham has hurt herself and Estella, who lacks the capacity to be affectionate.

Pip is understandably upset--since they were children, Pip has loved Estella and wanted to impress her. And, when he received his inheritance, he assumed that is was from Miss Havisham, for the intentions of bettering his place in society so that he can be worthy of Estella, his hopes soar even higher.  He thinks that the entire purpose of his money is so that he can marry Estella with no sense of shame.

So, not only is he upset that she is getting married--not to him, but he also doesn't like the guy that she gets married to, Bentley Drummle.  When she tells him, he even calls Bentley a "mean brute, such a stupid brute" right to her face.  As it turns out, he is right--Estella does not have a happy marriage, and Bentley treats her horribly.  The news of her engagement to him throws Pip into a serious depression.  He is devastated, and after proclaiming in a very moving speech how much he loves her, he leaves and wanders about in a daze for hours.  Her marriage is news that not only shatters his hopes for marrying her, but also the hope that he was chosen as her future spouse.  He begins to doubt why he received his inheritance from Miss Havisham.

Overall, Estella's marriage to Drummle is very upsetting for Pip, and throws many of his assumptions into doubt.  I hope that those thoughts helped; good luck!

Pip has spent most of his life in a passionate love for Estella.  At the end of the book, he sees her again after an eleven year absence.  Dickens  brings their relationship full circle in that the first place he fell in love with her is the last place he sees her in the book. Pip even comments on that.  He says,

"After so many years, it is strange that we should thus meet again, Estella, here where our first meeting was!"(pg 450 - chapter 59)

She is greatly changed, but it doesn't matter to Pip.  He still loves her.  He says,

" The freshness of her beauty was indeed gone, but its indescribable majesty and it indescribable charm remained.  Those attractions in it I had seen before; what I had never seen before was the saddened, softened light of the once proud eyes; what I had never felt before was the friendly touch of the once insensible hand." (pg 450 - chapter 59)

Notice that she has changed.  She is offering a friendly touch.  She has come to acknowledge that she threw the love Pip had for her away, and she did not recognize its worth.  She recognizes it now. She says,

"There was a long hard time when I kept far from the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth, but since my duty has not been incompatible with the admission of that remembrance, I have given it a place in my heart." (pg 451 - chapter 59)

So, yes, they do part friends, but the "parting" is ambiguous.

Pip tells her that she has always had a place in his heart, something the reader definitely knows. Estella asks Pip,

"I have been bent and broken, but ---I hope --- into a better shape.  Be as considerate and good to me as you were, and tell me we are friends." (pg 451- chapter 59)

Pip replies, "We are friends"

He then takes her hand and they walk together out of the ruined grounds of Satis House.  This is definitely a friendly gesture.  However, Dickens leaves their relationship a little ambiguous.  She says "And we will continue to be friends apart" , but Pip observes in the last sentence of the novel, "I saw no shadow of another parting from her." (pg 451 - chapter 59)

In terms of the theme of loneliness, Pip and Joe find companionship in each other, against Pip’s sister (Joe’s wife). They are a beleaguered pair, holding on to each other in the face of the physical, verbal, and psychological abuse from Mrs. Joe. She berates them constantly with what she sees as their worthlessness. They both remain strong, however, mainly because of their friendship and father/son-like love for each other.

As for Pip’s search for identity, the underlying thread of the novel is that Pip’s true self, which he mistakenly believes is to be found in London in the life of a gentleman, is ultimately found in his appreciation of Joe Gargery. While he does not end up in partnership with Joe in his blacksmith shop, Pip still must come to terms with Joe’s worth, overcoming the shame he felt when his eyes were turned upon his “great expectations.” Joe’s love for Pip is founded on his love for who Pip is on the inside, not on the outside. Joe does not seek to have power over Pip, but freely lets him go, even at the risk of losing him. It is the strength of their relationship, however, that leads Pip back to where he belongs.

Pip is first a playmate for Estella at around the age of 10. Pip being the poor boy from the village blacksmith's home was a strange character to bring to Satis House, Estella's home. The purpose for their relationship at least from the beginning was for Estella to practice being mean to the male race. She effectively made fun of him, mocked him, and therefore hurt him emotionally regularly.

She began to draw him in through his growing years and he grew to love her. His life circumstances led him to believe he was being prepared for her. With an anonymous benefactor whose purpose was to make him a gentlemen, he saw no other reason except for becoming Estella's man.

Estella had a cold heart and could not love Pip or any other man, but I believe in a way, she came to love him. She became engaged to Bentley Drummle and this enraged Pip, but she realized Pip truly loved her. She knew she could not return his love in the romantic sense and wanted to prevent him from the pain it would cause for him to imagine they could be anything more than friends.

By the end of the story, Miss Havisham feels bad for what she created in Estella and would have liked to see Pip's experience with her to have been different. But it is too late.

I think this is part of the purpose for the title Great Expectations, he expected more, but never achieved it.

While the editors at enotes do not write essays for students, we are happy to offer advice.

One approach that you may wish to take in an explication of the relationship of Estella and Pip of Great Expectations may be to explain how this relationship illustrates the predominate theme of Appearances vs Reality in the narrative of Dickens.  For, Pip certainly does not follow the advice of Mr. Jaggers who exhorts him to "Take nothing on appearances."  Instead, he assumes that Estella is a young lady and he is her inferior.  He perceives Estella as something stellar, beautiful, and perfect to which he must attain.  He also assumes that Miss Havisham intends for him to be betrothed to him despite her cruelty to him because as a young lady, Pip is the one always called upon to pick up Estella at the station.  Despite all his kindnesses to Estella, she is not selected for Pip, nor does she care for him; she does not even care for herself.  However, when Pip sees Estella many years later, he remarks,

The freshness of her beauty was, indeed, gone, but its indescribable majesty and its indescribable charm remained....Those attractions in it, I had seen before; what I had never seen before was the saddened, softened light of the once proud eyes; what I had never felt before was the saddened, softened light of the once proud eyes; what I had never felt before was the friendly touch of the once insensible hand

She tells him she is greatly changed, speaking to him in a voice of "touching interest to a wanderer." She tells Pip that suffering has taught her, and Pip feels that her suffering has given her the ability to understand what his "heart used to be."  Estella and Pip become friends, not lovers.

Both Estella and Pip are stuck in family situations that are difficult and even abusive. Pip's sister is physically abusive, and Estella's adoptive mother is emotionally unstable and therefore causes significant emotional damage in Estella.

Part of this abuse stems from a common expectation placed on both of them to behave and live their lives in a specified way. This is especially revealed in the way Estella's adoptive mother expects her to avenge her. This is also revealed in the way Pip is expected to live the "poor orphan" stereotype. He, of course, subverts this stereotype, which leads to the greater expectation of living in high society.

This expectation of living in high society is the expectation that Pip and Estella have and share for the majority of the novel.

Pip and Estella both expect to be part of the upper class.  Estella has been raised by the fairly insane Miss Havisham.  She follows Miss Havisham’s instructions, but never feels like she has control of her own life.  Pip also lacks direction, and just goes where his “expectations” lead him.

Estella’s first decision on her own is to marry Bentley Drumme, committing herself to a life of misery and flaunting both Esella and Pip.

“You should know,” said Estella. “I am what you have made me. Take all the praise, take all the blame; take all the success, take all the failure; in short, take me.” (Chapter XXXVIII, p. 206)

Estella knows that Drummle will not treat her well.  She marries him anyway, because that way she can further hurt all of the other suitors.

When Pip finds out that Magwitch is his benefactor, his expectation to be a gentleman changes.  He goes back to a more common life, and learns to make money on his own and accept his humility.

Pip's interest in Estella, which begins when he is quite young, and is actively fostered by Miss Havisham as part of her revenge against the male race, is probably best described as an infatuation that will not stand the test of time as he grows and changes.  Pip begins the novel as a seven year old orphan who has already absorbed some unhappy lessons in how unjust the world can be, and who puts himself at risk to help feed a hungry criminal; he ends the novel as a gentleman whose education, wealth and standing in society were financed by this same criminal, who went to Australia and made a fortune as a sheep farmer.  In between the "old" Pip, who, though young, was a person of kindness, and the "final" Pip, who had come full circle in terms of character and morality, was the Pip who fell for Estella.  Estella was a cruel, shallow, superficial young woman, but during these years, as he was becoming a gentleman, Pip did not have the maturity or strength of character to notice this, or if he did, to care.  Indeed, convinced that the financing of his expectations is Miss Havisham, and that he has been chosen as a suitor for Estella, he often slips into behavior not unlike Estella's, almost like he is trying to become more like her and her world.  There are times he is dishonest, and he also finds, early on, the presence of his kind brother-in-law, Joe Gargery, to be an embarrassment.

At the novel's original ending, the mature Pip who has developed character and a sense of obligation to do what is morally right, parts ways with Estella, which seems like the ending most in character with the extensive changes his character has undergone.  It is difficult to imagine the Pip who ends the novel ever being happy with someone like Estella, although Dickens later rewrote the ending to suggest that at some point the two might get together. 

Pip's view of Estella does change throughout the novel, although is love for her remains pretty strong.  When he first meets her, he is overwhelmed and dazzled by her confidence, beauty and opinions.  He wants to change everything about himself in order to fit her view of what it is to be a gentleman.  He worships her with a rather unrealistic and naive adoration.  As he grows and attains his money, he still loves her, but he realizes that she has faults.  Her determination to marry someone she doesn't love, for instance, dismays him.  He realizes, through conversations that they have together, that she is a character that has been the victim of Miss Havisham's twisted and broken heart and mind.  He understands her flaws, but, he loves her still.  The dazzle has faded a bit; he can see her as a creature that has weaknesses and errors in her.

Near the very end of the novel, Pip still loves her, though his love for her is more mature.  He has learned to live life without her, and as he confesses to Biddy near the end,

"I have forgotten nothing...but that poor dream, as I used to call it, has all gone by."

He still holds Estella dear in his heart, but has given up ever having her.  When he comes across her at the old house again, he is able to tell her that they can be friends, when the last time that he saw her, he had declared that he loved her passionately and with all of his being.  He looks upon her probably with more kindness and friendly affection.  He went from idolatry of her, to anguish over her, to peaceful acceptance of her fate in conjunction with his.  His love was ever there, but the way he thought about her changed throughout the novel.  I hope that those thoughts helped; good luck!