Frankenstein in Great Expectations The Cost of Making People and the Final Cause of Personal Evil

The imaginary student pursued by the misshapen creature he had impiously made, was not more wretched than I, pursued by the creature who had made me, and recoiling from him with a stronger repulsion, the more he admired me and the fonder he was of me (40: 320).

Pip the narrator is making the only other overt literary reference in Great Expectations besides Hamlet and the Bible, surprisingly considering that it was not considered a major work of fiction, he references Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. However the reader should recognize that this is not just a cast away line but a direct link to a major question and concern. What happens when people try to make people?

Magwitch has made a moral monster out of Pip in his desire to "make a gentleman" and Miss Havisham has made an emotional monster out of Estella when she fashioned her to "wreak revenge on all the male sex" (Chap 22). Even Pip's sister who "brought him up by hand" makes a person not in the natural way with mother’s milk (the milk of human kindness) but for some why to help her rise. Orlick claims that Pip made him and that in actuality it was he who struck down Mrs. Joe.

Mrs Hubble shook her head, and contemplating me with a mournful presentiment that I should come to no good, asked, `Why is it that the young are never grateful?' This moral mystery seemed too much for the company until Mr Hubble tersely solved it by saying, `Naterally wicious.' Everybody then murmured `True!' and looked at me in a particularly unpleasant and personal manner (4: 22-23).

Although not raised by a voice which the reader trusts, the truth is that orthodox Christianity does consider that a human's choices are in their nature going to be flawed because of our "naturally vicous" state, our natural carnal nature. Thus whatever happens to Pip or any of the other characters and however true their complaints are, they are still ultimately responsible.