Paper

Stephen Atencio
Engl 123-Dr. Sexson
August 3rd, 2008
The Great Expectations of Matilda
Ernest Hemingway was once quoted as saying; “All good books have one thing in common - they are truer than if they had really happened.” This quote is exemplified by Lloyd Jones’s novel Mr. Pip, as well as in the lessons taught in Dr. Sexson’s English 123 class. In Mr. Pip the reader is delivered to the tropical setting of the island of Bougainville, a link in the chain of Islands known as the Solomon’s and more specifically into the life of a young girl named Matilda. A dispute between guerrilla natives, and a New Guinea mining firm have left the children and other villagers feeling the impact of trade embargos, and civil unrest. It is not until a mysterious and odd white man by the name of Mr. Watts volunteers to educate the children that they are offered some relief. He chooses to read to them from Charles Dickens’s, Great Expectations. As more is learned about Mr. Watts and the children it becomes apparent that this story is much more than a work of fiction to this motley bunch, but an escape from the horrors of their reality, a means of salvation, and a friend in a lonely world.
As anyone who has ever read knows, a book can be a wonderful escape from their troubles. A good story can help one escape an array of ailments, whether it simply is the mundanity of everyday life or the horrors of an island sealed off from the outside world. “Mr. Watts had given us kids another piece of the world. I found I could go back to it as often as I liked. What’s more I could pick up at any moment in the story. Not that I thought of what we were hearing as a story. No. I was hearing someone give an account of themselves and all that had happened (Jones 24). The above passage illustrates just how real this story has become for Matilda. In the midst of so much unrest and hardship she need do nothing more than tune into this story and tune out from the rest of the world. This story became so real to her that she did not even think of it as that, a story. She later goes to mention that like Pip, she never knew her father, in expressing that thought she has shared with the reader, some insight to the intimate bond she feels with Pip. This introduction to Matilda and Pip’s bond shows the reader just how close the two will be. Although it is not clear exactly how or why, it is obvious that Matilda is approaching the start of her own “Great Expectations”. This bond also serves to illustrate how powerful literature really is, A 13 year old girl living in a 1990’s oppressed tropical island setting is bonding with, and lets her life be influenced by a made up character from a novel written and set in an 1800’s Great Britain.
With Matilda’s exposure to this strange and foreign novel so comes exposure to ideals very different to those of the islanders, and specifically Matilda’s Mother. In keeping with the long standing human tradition of xenophobia Matilda’s Mother meets these strange ideas with scorn and disdain. When the parents are invited to share lessons with the class, some provide the students with very useful ideas, pertinent to island life and others share colorful stories. Matilda’s Mother however makes her anti-Watts agenda apparent and tries to insert some of her religious ideals into her lessons. It is made obvious that Matilda’s mother does not understand the profound impact that literature can have on a person’s life, yet almost paradoxically she clings to her Pigin Bible as the literal word of God. “Stories have a job to do. They can’t just lie around like lazybone dogs. They have to teach you something” (Jones 86). This passage illustrates Matilda’s Mother’s disproval of the story, but also the cultural idea that stories must be of a utilitarian nature or teach some sort of moral lesson. The story of Great Expectations holds truth even for Matilda’s mother, though she is too steadfast in her denial of new ideas to realize it. Matilda’s Mother remains embittered by the departure of her husband to work in the “white mans world”; this theme of the jilted lover may remind some of a certain Miss Havisham. One could also see Matilda’s Mother as an Estella like character, at one point in Mister Pip Matilda even follows her mother around listening to her insults to be reminded of things Estella said to Pip. Like Pip and Estella, Matilda must be separated from her mother before she can come into her “great expectations”.
“So I called myself Pip, and Came to be called Pip.” (Dickens 1) Matilda is not the only character of the story that is closely related to young Pip, but also Mr. Watts, at one point in the story Mr. Watts is confused with Pip and shot and fed to hungry pigs. “We called him Popeye” (Jones 1) both Great Expectations and Mister Pip open with similar lines and it would seem that the author did that in an attempt to illustrate the connection between the two characters. Like Matilda, Mr. Watts’s connection to this story holds more truth than people like Matilda’s Mother can possibly understand. “Those boys sitting around the fire were catching up on what us kids already heard in class. The stalemate between Mr. Watts and my mum. The preparedness of Mr. Watts to believe in one made up character (Pip) and not another (The devil). The conviction of my mum that the devil was more real than Pip. To Matilda and Mr. Watts Dickens’s words were more believable than the word of god, it was the gospel according to Dickens. This strengthens the theme of this novel and this class that literature is truth, and that the story is a supremely useful tool. Ones religion could rightfully be said to be literature, if they loved it enough, and had enough regard for the truth contained therein.
The theme of religious truth does not escape young Matilda in a final act of desperation she contemplates allowing the river to sweep her away, and in her moment of thought it does just that. As she is being washed violently about by the deluge her survival mode kicks in and she decides to live. “What would you call a savior? The only savior I knew went by the name of Mr. Jaggers. And so it was natural for me to name my savior, this log, after the man who had saved Pip’s life. Better to cling to the worldliness of Mr. Jaggers than the slimy skin of a water soaked log. I couldn’t talk to a log. But I could talk to Mr. Jaggers.”(Jones 216). Some people in a time of near death may pray to God, Jesus, or some other widely recognized deity, but not Matilda her savior is the same as Pip’s savior, it is Mr. Jaggers. Matilda has placed characters from this story on a level playing field with the gods (who after all are just characters from a different story).
As the novel draws to a close and Mr. Watts and her mother are both dead and gone Matilda is traveling to her “great expectations” via aircraft. This part is reminiscent of Pip’s journey to London. Her life is still shaped by the story of Pip even after she escapes the island. She states that the escape the story granted her and the friend that Pip provided was magic. Every one who reads has a story so very dear to them that it can reduce them to tears or give them the chills, and Matilda is no exception. She even pursues English academically writing her thesis about how Dickens and Watts changed improved her quality of life. She states also that she does not want to think about what happened to her, but she would feel remiss in forgetting it. She is again using literature to purge herself of these horrid memories, and yet preserve them at the same time by creating her own story.
The story of Matilda in Mister Pip contains many examples some mentioned, others not of just how important the story is to humans. We have recorded our myths, our victories, and our losses, and by reading other people’s stories we can relate and find our truth. We are Matilda just as she is Pip. If Mr. Dickens had not touched Matilda’s life through Mr. Watts it is hard to say what would have happened but one thing is certain, Pip provided Matilda with a dear friend at a time in her life when she desperately needed it. Matilda has been made as real to us, as Pip was to her. We seek truth, and we find it in fiction.

I pasted it over and the format was obviously loss. Read at your own risk my friends.