Two young, unworldly men, although from different
environments, Pip and Herbert both do not know how to manage their
lives.
- Similarities
Both
Herbert and Pip have never lived on their own before they become roommates. They have no
idea how to budget their allowances, and they both get into financial
difficulties.
Both Pip and Herbert, who are near the same
age, are under the tutelage of Matthew Pocket.
Both Pip and
Herbert disapprove of Estella's manner and attitude.
Both
struggle to become educated, succeed in life, and find a
profession.
- Differences
Herbert
is a relative of Miss Havisham's and is from an upper class family. Pip, as Estella
calls him, is "common," or from the laboring class.
Miss
Havisham sent for Herbert when he was younger "on a trial visit," but she did not
approve of Herbert. When she sent for Pip, he was told to return to play with
Estella.
Pip describes Herbert as a person who has "a
natural incapacity to do anything secret and mean." This is unlike Pip, who is cruel to
Joe when he comes to London to visit Pip in Chapter
27.
Herbert has a sanguine nature; Pip broods at times and
is judgmental and snobbish as he stays at the Blue Boar rather than visiting the forge.
He argues with Biddy about Joe in Chapter 19; he displays his repulsion for Magwitch who
returns to London and tells Pip he is the young man's
benefactor.
Pip becomes aware of the vicissitudes of life
and of Herbert's unrealistic hopes and attitudes. He arranges with Miss Havisham for
Herbert to obtain a position so that he can afford to marry, but Herbert has no idea
that Pip has done this and believes that he has secured the job on his
own.
Pip believes that "clothes make the man" and along
with money, he can become a gentleman; Herbert is truly a gentleman as he is mannerly
and of a kind and polite disposition.
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