Pip's Quote

"Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day."

When Pip is thinking this, or looking back on that day and interpreting it, he means that what you do or think on just one day will change your life and perspective on something for the rest of your life. Like a chain, one link is connected to another which is connected to another and so on, but the first link is what every other link is built off of, and will have an influence on all of the other links. This is the day that he goes to Miss Havishams mansion and is humiliated my Estella about things that he had never thought about before. By being made fun of for his hands and boots, Pip changed his views on his appearance and his status, which has made him feel ashamed of his family, especially Joe because he is just a lowly blacksmith. In the following chapters he says things like, "It is a most terrible thing to feel ashamed of home...(106)" and "Now, is was all coarse and common, and I would not have had Miss Havisham  and Estella see it on any account," which he would have never said in earlier chapters, before the idea of being lower than somebody else was brought into his mind. These changes in Pip's personality and ideas are giving him bad thoughts about his home and Joe, which will turn out to be mistakes because Joe has always been there for him and he shouldn't feel ashamed of a person like that. For me, Pip was more enjoyable to read about when he didn't care about what other people thought of him because I really like Joe, and Pip is being annoying when he is embarrassed by him.

A day in my life that started a long chain of events is when my Mom took me to my first orchestra concert in fourth grade, played by the Olympia Symphony Orchestra. That was the day that I decided that I was going to play the violin, so my Mom signed me up for violin lessons and rented me a tiny violin. After a couple months of lesson I auditioned for Student Orchestras of Greater Olympia and got in and have been in it ever sense. This year I am in the top orchestra and have had an amazing experience playing with some phenomenal players from around Olympia. Violin has given me a lot of opportunities to play in front of crowds up to 2500 people (for a free concert of the Messiah)  Now, I spend a lot of my time with my violin and have made a lot of friends because of it!