Like many ghost stories, Great
Expectations has much of the gothic element to it. The opening chapters
depict the mysterious, misty and grey marshes; an evil-seeming man appears from these
mists, threatening Pip. And, after Pip steals the food for him, he hears from the crack
in the floorboards ghostly voices calling after him, "Stop thief!" and "Get up, Mrs.
Joe!" Certainly the figure of Miss Havisham fits the characteristics of the
grotesque of gothic literature: Clad in a yellowed and tattered wedding dress
with a veil that Pip describes as "wrapped around her like a shroud," she lives in a
dark, castle-like mansion that casts shadows through the stairway. Haunted by the
terrible memory of being jilted on her wedding day, she trains her protege, Estella, to
wreak her revenge on the male gender. Later, the grounds of Satis House have the craven
and lurching figure of Orlick as the gatekeeper. He, too, presents a malevolent figure,
a "ghost" from the past, as he tries to kill Pip out on the forboding marshes at the
sluice house.
Then, as an appartition, Magwitch suddenly
appears in London on Pip's steps, so again he is haunted by the "fearful man in grey."
Psychologically, Pip has long been haunted by the memory of this man. And, he is again
faced with danger and he and Herbert seek to get him out of the country. Of course, Pip
is psychologically haunted, too, with his idealized love for Estella, a love that
forever goes unrequited. It is not until the end of the narrative that Pip casts off
all is ghosts and realizes that what he has sought is also but a vapor. For, only true
love, the love of his friends Biddy and Joe Gargery and a poor man named Magwitch has
substance. All others fade away at the end of the novel as Pip emerges a true gentleman
in his heart.
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