Dickens uses a character

We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community… Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others, for their sakes and for our own (Cesar Chavez). According to Chavez ambitions can’t be narrow to the point where once we achieve what we set out for we have nothing left and we can’t move forward. Our ambitions should be broad much like how Charles Dickens argued in his book Great Expectations.

In this novel, Dickens argues that ambitions can make a person blind by making them try to move forward as quick as possible.

Dickens uses a character Philip Pirrip also known as Pip throughout the book. Pip’s ambitions develop drastically during the beginning of the novel, but it also changes while he is living in London. In the book Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Dickens argues that ambitions have major consequences both positive and negative.

In the pioneering chapters of the novel, Pip’s ambitions are vague as he is still quite young. Later on, he meets Miss Havisham and Estella and is in a way is fascinated by their lifestyle. At one point Pip is on his bed thinking about his encounter with Estella and Miss Havisham and he thinks I thought how Joe and my sister were then sitting in the kitchen, and how I had come up to bed from the kitchen, and how Miss Havisham and Estella never sat in a kitchen, but were far above the level of such common doings. I fell asleep recalling what I used to do when I was at Miss Havisham’s; as though I had been there weeks or months, instead of hours” and as though it were quite an old subject of remembrance, instead of one that had risen only that day. (98)

This is the moment when pip realizes that he’s nothing compared to Miss Havisham and Estella. Pip becomes ambitious and wants to become far above the level of such common doings in turn setting his sights on a wealthier lifestyle where he doesn’t have to be common anymore. Another example of this is after Pip comes back from school when he is talking to Joe. Pip reflects Whatever I acquired, I tried to impart to Joe. This statement sounds so well that I cannot in my conscience let it pass unexplained. I wanted to make Joe less ignorant and common, that he might be worthier of my society and less open to Estella’s reproach.(136) This shines a light on the fact that Pip’s ambition to become a gentleman is the driving factor that pushes him to want Joe to become less ignorant, indicating that Pip will do anything to realize his dream.