Do we like them?

Do we like Pip?

A character from Great Expectations (1860-1861)

Our score: 6 out of 10. A kind-hearted kid who gets snobbish and ungrateful when he's given money. He means well and owns his mistakes, so we'd back him, but we'd wince along the way.

Pip is a poor orphan raised by his harsh older sister and her gentle husband, Joe the blacksmith, in the marshes of Kent. Dickens has him narrate his own life. The story starts when he meets a frightened escaped convict in a graveyard, and Pip's pity for the man sets everything else in motion.

As a boy Pip is observant, sensitive and kind. But he is also impressionable. After visiting the eccentric Miss Havisham and meeting the proud Estella, he becomes ashamed of his humble home and of Joe, the person who loves him most. When a mysterious benefactor offers him wealth and a future in London, that shame hardens into snobbery.

We score him a 6 because the book is about a good person acting badly and learning from it. He is vain, he runs up debts and he treats loyal friends coldly. But he is honest with himself in his narration, and his conscience never fully switches off. That makes him easy to forgive, if not always easy to like.