Tatjana Risti

Great Expectations of Spaces in Dickens Bildungsroman

Synopsis
Great Expectations is considered a Bildungsroman, but it lacks a key feature communication between characters
that enables the hero to become a mature adult. This article shows that there is a kind of communication that
compensates for the lack of verbal one the one between the hero and spaces.
Key words: Dickens Charles, Great Expectations, Bildungsroman, Bildungsheld, prison, emanating subjectivity,
spatial hero, doppelgnger
Summary Even though Great expectations is generally considered a Bildungsroman, the novel lacks one key feature
of this form the communication between characters that enables the Bildungsheld to develop into a mature adult.
Continuing on the works of criticism which suggest that characters of this novel dont talk to each other, but rather
soliloquise, this paper tends to point out that there is another kind of communication that compensates for the lack of
the verbal one the communication between the Bildungsheld and spaces of the novel.
The article examines three types of spaces: private and public spaces, as well as the universal space of the
novel the prison, both physical and metaphorical. Since dominant characters emanate their subjectivity into spaces
around them, their homes influence both the hero and the plot much more than their verbal counterparts. This is
shown through analysis of Jaggers home and workplace, Wemmicks Castle and Miss Havishams Satis house. On
the other hand, public spaces are examined in correlation with undeveloped characters, Pip and Estella, since they do
not have any dominant subject to project their personalities into them. In order for Pip and Estella to fully develop
they must start to project themselves as subjects into spaces around them and make them a reflection of their own
personalities, and not the influence of dominant subjects.
The most influential all of the dominant subjects is Miss Havisham, who tends to make doppelgngers out
of characters and spaces surrounding her. That is especially visible in Estellas case, but I show that Pip also absorbs
Miss Havishams qualities of sterility and decay, which makes him unable to develop into a mature adult. In this
context, the often criticised revision of the novels ending, the demolition of Satis house, is proven crucial for Great
expectations to be considered a Bildungsroman.

Since the term Bildungsroman has been translated into English literature so that two of
Dickens first-person autofictional novels could be treated as such (Schlicke 40), the genre
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classification has been generally accepted for the case of Great Expectations. In such novel the
Bildungsheld, its protagonist, evolves in many subtle ways, one of them being through
communication with other characters. Critics like Pritchett and Van Ghent, however, show that
Great Expectations is a novel in which communication between characters is substantially
ineffective. Pritchett says: The distinguishing quality of Dickens people is that they are
solitaries. They are people caught living in a world of their own. They soliloquize in it. They do
not talk to one another; they talk to themselves (88). If there is no effective communication, 1
side characters do not affect the protagonist and therefore have no role in a Bildungsroman.
However, one can claim that there are means in which effective communication between
characters is achieved. They are simply not verbal.
Pritchetts idea that Dickens characters are trapped in a world of their own actualises quite
literally in Great Expectations. Many characters emanate into spaces around them thus creating
their spatial reflections. I will try to show that in this novel a materialised non-verbal subjectivity
enters communication more successfully than its verbal analogue.
Private spaces which are an emanation of a dominant subject are the opposites of those
where there is no such subject public spaces. These are two types of spaces I shall keep in mind
during my analysis of their influence on Pip. Furthermore, another spacial framework has been
embedded and highly emphasized in the novel: prison (Cockshut). In the world of Great
Expectations this is the predominant realm of great symbolic value. Prison is present in various
ways: as a building, through mention of convicts and as metaphorical imprisonment. Pips
unlikely encounter with the prisoners in the stage coach can be regarded as a realisation of the
saying that we are all in the same boat (47). The idea is further confirmed on a social level
because even Estella, a high class lady, descends from convicts. Metaphorical prisons can be
divided into two groups. First, there are the physical imprisonments of Miss Havisham and Mr.
Barley in their homes as well as Pips imprisonment in the sluice-house. Secondly, there is the
inner prison of Estella and Pip, since they both depend on others expectations of them and do
not have free will to do as they please. Therefore, prison is not only a physical space of the
novel, but a psychological one as well. An imprisoned character is unlikely to be an evolving
1 The most famous example Van Ghent mentions is most likely Joes conversation with Miss Havisham, where Joe
replies to her questions with unrelated responses addressed to Pip. (Van Ghent 155)

character. This could be taken into account when arguing that Great Expectations cannot be
considered a Bildungsroman. However, we must not forget that every novel in this genre
involves the overcoming of boundaries, and imprisonment is certainly one of the biggest. Pips
development must be in tight connection to breaking out of the universal prison of the world he
lives in.
The idea of universality of prison can be justified in the text itself. Pips first encounter
with London is Jaggerss office in Little Britain. The very name of Little Britain implies that this
part of London can be considered a micro representation of Britain as a whole. Pip says: While I
was scared by the immensity of London, I think I might have had some faint doubts whether it
was not rather ugly, crooked, narrow and dirty (153). He uses a synecdoche saying that his
impressions of Little Britain apply to whole London.
Jaggers is the dominant subject in his office and home, therefore he emanates into these
spaces but also into his subordinates. Wemmick stops being in his private and personal
capacity under Jaggers influence while he is in the office and becomes cast down to the status
of an artifact due to the repeated simile of him as a post-office mouth (Van Ghent 160). Hence he
loses his subjectivity and even humanity. He will regain them at his Castle, a place he dominates,
unlike Jaggers housekeeper Molly who stays vacuous of hers. Jaggers does not only empty his
subordinates of their personalities, he vacates his home of all decoration. The minimalism of his
homes interior corresponds to his interrogation method pointing a forefinger at the accused in
order to bring the truth to surface. Focusing on the issue and dismissing everything else, which
this action symbolises, is in the marrow of minimalism since it tends to focus on the essence.
Therefore even when Jaggers is not using his method, his home does it for him. It is not
coincidental that this is the place where the truth of Wemmicks private self has been uncovered
to Jaggers. Also, being in Jaggers house at a dinner party brought out the worst in Pip and
enabled the climax of his conflict with Drummel, his rival. Jaggers home is thus one of the
hostile places of the novel, alongside his office. The hostility of the office is best presented in the
image of its central artifacts (not coincidentally linked to prison): two casts of dead convicts
faces.
Wemmicks Castle is one of few non-hostile places in the novel. Most of it is an
explication of Wemmicks private self and therefore represents an opposition to Jaggers and his
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office which is a picture of prison that reflects the whole of London. Thus Wemmicks Castle
opposes the universal space of the novel. This contrast is quite sharp and was criticised as such
(Cockshut 162).2 This criticism disregards the fact that Dickens softens the contrast emphasising
on disharmony of Castle. In spite of that, Pip is pleased with it. This example serves as a
counterargument for a possible statement that Pip has no personal values and therefore cannot be
considered a Bildungsheld. Wemmicks private self and his Castle hence either reflect what Pip
really is without the influence of his expectations or, if not so, have an immense effect on his
value system. Therefore they play a role of great importance in a novel classified as a
Bildungsroman.
However, we must bear in mind that Wemmicks Castle is not a place of completely positive
values. Apart from it being an emanation of Wemmicks private self, in some aspects it reflects
his work self. The most important part of his home, as Wemmick himself suggests, is the
collection of artifacts related to crime. Hence even Wemmicks cheerful home fails to be a
complete opposite of the rather ugly, crooked, narrow and dirty London, because it has been
infected with its most distinctive feature the prison. However, Castle rather openly opposes the
outside world since it is fortified, and [t]he very idea of fortification itself acknowledges the
vulnerability of the private sphere in this prison-dominated novel (Waters 123).
Apart from mentioned characters and spaces, the most influential ones are undoubtedly
Miss Havisham and Satis house. Their relation best describes Bachelards idea that the house
image would appear to have become the topography of our intimate being (Bachelard xxxvi)
and thus there is ground for taking the house as a tool for analysis of the human soul (ibid.
xxxvii); the house is one of the greatest powers of integration of the thoughts, memories and
dreams of mankind (ibid. 6). Bachelards last statement applies especially well to Miss
Havishams dwelling since this house is a kind of memory container. But since time passes the
wedding cake rots and the white sateen yellows. The static image of the past that Miss Havisham
wants to preserve comes into conflict with the dynamic nature of time. The struggle between the
static and the dynamic of the room is a reflection of the same struggle in Miss Havisham. She is,

2 Cockshut believes that Wemmicks Castle is a bit too jolly for the deadly seriousness of the theme and that it
rather adapts to the world of Nicholas Nickelby.

as a spatial hero, necessarily doubled as an emotional-volitional being and a physical being. 3 Her
inner being becomes static by not allowing itself to change in time, but her external being cannot
avoid changing and is thus dynamic.
Emanation of her personality into Satis house has created another contrast. Her home used to be
a brewery, a place of fertility and hedonism. Due to Miss Havishams destructive nature it has
become a sterile and decaying place, her doppelgnger, and its central artifact is the one that can
be considered her other doppelgnger the rotting wedding cake (Van Ghent 161). Everywhere
around her Miss Havisham sees the double of herself. Moreover, in several occasions Pip finds
her in front of a mirror. In ones looking at their reflection in the mirror Bakhtin finds another
inner struggle, between the I and the other: I am not alone when I look at myself in the mirror: I
am possesed by someone elses soul (Bakhtin 33). We can presume that by surrounding herself
with her own projections Miss Havisham tries to repress the other that is tantalising her her
former lover Compeyson but is simultaneously intensifying the others influence. Hence she
enters a dialogue between her inner self and her projected self, but is left to statically soliloquize
in it.
She tries to overcome the other but is not letting go of the state he has put her in. This
kind of masochism is self-sufficient4 and all-pervading, and this pervasion is egocentric. It
demands the possession of the other through obtrusive spread of her subjectivity. In addition to
emanating into Satis house, Miss Havisham usurps Estellas being, making her another
doppelgnger. Therefore Estella, much like Wemmick and Molly, becomes stripped of her
personality under the influence of a dominant subject. Only her physical self stays her own,
while her emotional self becomes a juncture of hers and Miss Havishams inner selves.
Containing Miss Havishams destructiveness, she cannot be regarded as an appropriate wife for
the Bildungsheld. It is characteristic of the genre that the novel ends with the heros marriage or
3 The theory of the spatial form of the hero is elaborated in Mikhail Bakhtins essay Author and Hero in Aesthetic
Activity. His basic idea is that a character is constituted of two crucial parts an internal and an external one, which
he calls a volitional-emotional being and a physical being. Even though these categories suggest externality, the
main idea is that we constantly fail in trying to visualize our external selves, because we can never be the other of
our own selves. The actual consciousness of the other is necessary for us to have a complete picture of ourselves.

4 Hereof Satis house, because satis is Latin for sufficient.

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an assumption of one. The wife represents a reward for heros reaching the end of his
development. Such a wife cannot contain sterility and decay in her personality. Her development
consists of freeing herself and that is the demand she must fulfill in order to become a life partner
of a developed protagonist, should Pip ever become one.
Speaking of Estella Pip says: In a word, it was impossible for me to separate her, in past or
present, from the innermost life of my life (Dickens 223). Since Miss Havisham and Satis house
are crucial parts of Estella, we must conclude that they are also an essential segment of Pip. This
statement is confirmed earlier in the novel. The first place in which Pip identifies himself is the
marsh next to the graveyard.5 But this place, firstly the space of his identity, becomes the space
of Estella and Miss Havisham: When we had passed the village [] and were out on the
marshes [] I began to combine Miss Havisham and Estella with the prospect, in my usual
way. (Dickens 120) Hence Estella, Miss Havisham and implicitly Satis house are a portion of
his inner self. This is why the most important part of Pips ideals, becoming a gentleman, derives
directly from them. The struggle of the static and the dynamic is present in him as well. He
should be a dynamic hero in order to be regarded as a developing character, but during the novel
he does not change a lot. His wishes and ideals do not transform from his childhood to his 20s.
This is an argument that supports the opinion that Great Expectations is not a Bildungsroman. In
the interest of Pips reaching full adulthood, he must discard the sterile and static part of him.
One of the ways for a character to fully develop is for him/her to become the dominant
personality that rather affects others than is being affected by them. Since dominant personalities
tend to project themselves into their environment, we should explore if Pip does so. Opposed to
Dickens many rich descriptions of interior, Pips homes have been depicted scarcely. The first
home is his sister and Joes house, which is more a reflection of occasion than personalities. It
goes through changes in different situations: at the beginning of the novel it is dominantly
marked with food since it is Christmas; becomes wrapped in black when Pips sister dies; and
5 My first most vivid and broad impression of the identity of things, seems to me to have been gained on a
memorable raw afternoon towards evening. At such a time I found out for certain, that this bleak place overgrown
with nettles was the churchyard; and that Philip Pirrip, late of this parish, and also Georgiana wife of the above,
were dead and buried; and that the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dykes and mounds
and gates, with scattered cattle feeding on it, was the marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond was the river; and
that the distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing, was the sea; and that the small bundle of shivers
growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry, was Pip. (Dickens 1; my italics)

lastly, transforms at the end of the novel to suit Joe and Biddys wedding. The sum of
transformations suggests the totality of life, but those are life phases of Pips relatives, not Pip
himself.
The second place Pip inhabits is Barnards Inn, which is his most thoroughly described
home. It is an untidy place that Pip tries to put in order, bringing elegant furnishing into an
ungraceful space. This symbolises his disharmony with the world of London he has just entered.
The last home is described the least: all we know about the Temple apartment is that it is on the
last floor. That can be related to the fact that this is the last stage of Pips expectations since here
is where he will meet Magwitch again and realise that this convict is his true benefactor.
Therefore the first home symbolises his early, family life, the second represents his inability to
integrate into a new society and the last one stands for the disappointing end of his expectations.
All these places rather suggest phases of Pips developmental path than reflect his personality. To
emanate himself into his environment he has to become a mature adult.
The only space fully opened for Pip and Estella to occupy it with their own personalities
is the coaching departments inn because it does not represent anyone. The metaphorical
structure of this space is quite prolific. After Pips request to be taken to a private sitting-room
they are escorted by a waiter to a room depicted as a black hole. The waiter pulls out a napkin
as if it were a magic clue without which he couldnt find the way up-stairs (Dickens 251). This
can be an allusion to Ariadnes clue and a maze which ends in its central point. Going through
such a maze is going towards the centre, thus the allusion to the rooms position suggests its
importance. The unattractiveness of the room is the obvious reason for Pip to ask for a different
one. However, due to its symbolic potentia, we must see if there is more to this request. The
minimalism of the room suggests the same as the minimalism of Jaggers house going right to
the core of things. This is further enhanced by rooms symbolic position and a diminishing
mirror. Such a mirror, by making things smaller, puts them closer to its centre and makes them
easier to be perceived in totality. In this room, with its position, style and artifacts that tend to
bring the essence to surface without adorning it, Pip feels uncomfortable.
The next room is an evident opposite of the prior one: it has a dinner-table for thirty
people. Pip orders tea for Estella and the waiter brings fifty adjuncts, but no tea. The atmosphere
is once more unappealing, but now he says: Yet the room was all in all for me, Estella being in
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it (ibid. 252). Couldnt he use the same argument for the other room? The new one is big, with a
lot of purposeless adjuncts, but without the ordered item. Therefore they are sitting in a room
indicative of their being on a wrong track, and talking about their relationship with Miss
Havisham. That is the central problem of their lives, so what is unable to come to surface? It is
Estellas emotions, the most personal part of her, but the one that is in control of Miss Havisham.
That is something that the all-focusing room could have brought to light, which would change
the course of Pips development and make it dynamic. During this conversation Pip cleverly
makes a comparison of him and Estella to puppets (ibid. 254), alluding to his and Estellas
metaphorical imprisonment.
His expectations end without him fully maturing. It is not coincidental that the ending of
this journey is described with an analogy to space. Pip speaks of a sultan whose bedroom ceiling
dropped on his head. In that context he says: So in my case; all the work, near and afar, that
tended to the end, had been accomplished; and in an instant the blow was struck, and the roof of
my stronghold dropped upon me (ibid. 297). Since Pip does not have a true home, 6 his
expectations were his stronghold. But they were also an imprisonment due to which he was
unable to develop. After their demolition he is enabled to start his own life. This became a
possibility not only because of Magwitch dying, but because of Miss Havishams death as well.
The last thing for Pip and Estella to do in order to overcome their boundaries is to demolish Satis
house, the last doppelgnger of Miss Havisham. Therefore, the revision of the novels ending
proved to be crucial in considering it a Bildungsroman. Creating a clear space (Dickens 458)
symbolises being set free from all imposed boundaries. Now Pip and Estella have a chance to
become fully developed adults that can someday emanate into spaces around them, making a
world of their own.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. Boston: Beacon Press, 1994.
6 Newsom states that the mysterios note left by Wemmick (Dont go home!) represents an ironic moto that begs
the question wheather Pip has ever had a proper home to go back to. (Newsom 102)

Bakhtin, Mikhail. Art and Answerability: Early Philosophical Essays. Austin: University of
Texas Press, 1990.
Cockshut,

. . . The Imagination of Charles Dickens. London: University Paperbacks,

Methuen, 1965.
Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. London, New York, Toronto: Oxford University Press,
1953.
Newsom, Robert. "Fictions of Childhood". Ed. John O. Jordan. The Cambridge Companion to
Charles Dickens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 92 105
Pritchett, V S. The Living Novel. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1947.
Schlicke, Paul (ed.). The Oxford Companion to Charles Dickens. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2011.
Van Ghent, Doroty. The English Novel: Form and Function. New York: Harpet & Row, 1967.
Waters, Catherine. "Gender, Family and Domestic Ideology". Ed. John O. Jordan. The
Cambridge Companion to Charles Dickens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 120
136.