My mother often told my sisters and me stories about her childhood move from Virginia to North Carolina. She would describe the heartbreak of being torn from her home, her family and her best friends. Although it was painful at the time, looking back, she can honestly say that the move was one of the best things that ever happened to her. Here she met the love of her life and gave birth to her three daughters. The change in environment had a permanent impact on his life. In Great Expectations, Charles Dickens talks about a boy named Pip as he grows and changes as he moves from his home in the swamp to the hustle and bustle of London. In his novel, he proves that our environment has a life-changing impact on us. As a child, the main character and narrator of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, Pip, was an orphan. The death of his parents led his bitter and often cruel sister to adopt him and "hand-raise" him. In the eleventh paragraph of the second chapter, Pip says that Mrs. Joe beats him on his return from the cemetery where his parents are buried. "Mrs. Joe, throwing the door wide open and finding an obstacle behind it, immediately guessed the cause and applied Tickler to her further investigation. She concluded by launching me—I often served as a marital missile—at Joe" (9 ).Pip grew up in the lowlands east of London in North Kent The marshes add a very dark and damp atmosphere to the novel and frighten young Pip, as shown in the very beginning of the novel when Dickens is writing. : “…the little bundle of shivers who began to fear everything and started to cry, was Pip” (4). disturbing environment in which he grew up, probably resulted in...... middle of paper...... ().Ultimately, Pip will become the adult man who narrates the novel In. From the passages scattered throughout the first part, we can see that Pip will learn that social status does not define who you are and that his actions have had negative impacts on the people who love him. And just as my mother realized the impact that moving to North Carolina had on her life, Pip will realize that he has changed in response to the situation around him, which is reinforced when he says: “To what extent my disgraceful condition My state of mind may have been my own fault, but Miss Havisham's and my sister's no longer matter to me or anyone else. The change has taken place in me; the thing was done. Well or badly done, excusable or inexcusable, it has been done”().Works CitedDickens, Charles. Great expectations. New York: Barnes and Noble Classics, 1868. Print.