Comment on the theme of interdependence in Great Expectations.

This is a very interesting theme to discuss with regard to
this book. In a sense of course, we can relate it to Pip's process of maturing and
education, as he comes to realise by the end of the novel the way that he is
interdependent as a character, and not dependent. Note the way that after he receives
his wealth, he does his best to forget Joe and Biddy and his roots, choosing to stay
elsewhere rather than in his old house when he returns to his childhood village and
feeling highly embarrassed by Joe when he comes to town to visit
him.

However, it is after his suffering, and in particular
the discovery of who his real benefactor is and when he gets wounded by trying to rescue
Miss Havisham, that he becomes much more aware of how wealth does not make you
independent, but that everyone is interdependent. The image we are left with at the end
of the novel, with Pip living in happiness with good relationships with Herbert and his
wife and Joe and Biddy and his godson, suggests that he has reconciled himself to the
necessary interdependence of humans and matured greatly from the days when he thought
that he should deny his past relationships.