Throughout the novel Pip goes through several states in which an internal transformation takes place within him. Pip learns valuable lessons from his great expectation, however this only come after his pride leads him to do things he later regrets. By the end of the novel Pip learns that the truly good people in his life aren't the people he had thought.

As a child Pip was an orphan raised by his unreasonably strict older sister, Mrs. Joe, and he loving husband Joe. Joe is a blacksmith, and their family is lower to middle class. Joe is like a father figure to Pip and the two have a very close bond. "Young as I was, I believe that I dated a new admiration of Joe from that night we were equals afterwards, as we had been before; but, afterwards at quiet times when I sat looking at Joe...