A Portable Hearth in Great Expectations: Pip’s Search for Home in London

Abstract

ABSTRACT“A Portable Hearth in Great Expectations: Pip’s Search for Home in London” examines Charles Dickens’s uses of kitchen spaces to create and articulate Pip’s search for home, and thus himself. He does not quite know who he is, but he becomes aware of himself through his movement through the interior spaces of various homes in Kent and London. I use an archive of historical sources, from essayist John Ruskin to architectural writer Robert Kerr, describing London’s changing built environment and the Victorian idealism surrounding the permanence of “home”. I consider these voices along with theories of place and mental development articulated by later writers such as Georg Simmel and Henri Lefebvre. Dickens’s depiction of Pip as he experiences domestic spaces suggests that while the home may affect one’s thinking, as many of the aforementioned essayists and architects maintained, they often trap residents. I conclude that for Pip, home might make one more aware of oneself, but it is portability—carrying the hearth inside one’s mind—that ultimately fosters depth.