Miss Havisham would have a familial relationship with an adopted daughter, Estella, on one level and would represent, through her guidance of Estella and her memory of her wedding that never took place, a figure that holds love in no prominence. This, coupled with Miss Havisham’s understandable disdain for her greedy relatives mentioned above, allows Dickens to create a character that remains a symbol of opposition to much of what we consider sacred at the center of his novel.Estella’s bloodline is another instance of how Dickens is able to intertwine family relationships with plot in Great Expectations. Estella is the daughter of Abel Magwitch, Pip’s convict in the opening scene and his subsequent benefactor, and Molly, Mr. Jaggers’ housekeeper. Here we see how Dickens is able to illustrate a familial relationship between three people who will never meet in the context of the story and yet our young protagonist, Pip, not only learns about this ill-fated family but ultimately knows more about them than they do themselves. Magwitch’s importance as Pip’s benefactor and Estella’s father points once again to Dickens’ use of multi-dimensional characters in the novel. Likewise, Molly’s role as a servant to Jaggers, who once defended her for murder, and her maternal link to Estella shows that even a very minor character can be made multidimensional by Dickens.One solitary character in Great Expectations who really experiences no familial relationship himself is the lawyer, Jaggers. Although Jaggers is without family, he certainly should be mentioned here as he is also one of Dickens’ keys to the novel whose actions affect many of its major characters. One can easily understand Jaggers’ importance in Great Expectations through his roles as lawyer to Miss Havisham, confidante of Abel Magwitch as Pip’s beneficiary, defender of Molly as well as her employer, and employer of Mr...
