In Great Expectations, the word “taint” describes Pip's guilty conscience and shame about his identity, which he confuses with low-class status and physical filth (Dickens 249 ). Pip's use of it in the passage about his feeling of "contamination" shows the way in which he blends its multiple meanings. He acquires this stain on his morals and self-esteem in the swamps when he gives the file to Magwitch, and for the first time he is consciously ashamed of this baseness when Estella insults him for his clothes and skin. The next decade of Pip's life sees him attempting to bury this taint under fancy dress and elitism so he can physically remove the feeling of taint and win Estella over. However, Pip's coming of age occurs when he realizes the futility of replacing superficial cleanliness with the inner cleanliness he finds in the novel's conclusion. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Pip's experience with the convict in the swamps leaves a stain on his conscience that stays with him into adulthood. The incident not only causes him to feel a sense of guilt that follows him throughout the story, but makes him see the crime itself as a literal contaminant that can stain his identity. As he grows up, the guilt for having disobeyed his sister and Joe mixes with the shame of associating with the vileness of a prisoner. Even as Pip ages, prisons and their inmates still remember the mix of fear, unease, and remorse he first experienced. to the swamps. In the passage about Newgate prison, he says that the sensation he felt in meeting the prisoner remained in his mind "like a faded but not disappeared stain". He reappears in Newgate, indicating that in his mind he has linked the dirtiness of criminals and their living conditions with his personal shame. The convict's past eclipses all his generosity in Pip's mind because it means he is indebted to a common criminal, something he finds both morally and socially repugnant. Pip's tainted feelings become worse when he compares them to his vision of Estella. His obsession to free himself from physical filth and grossness grows when Estella insults him during his first visit to Mrs. Havisham's house. Before this, he had never been aware of his poor status or unkempt appearance because he had no higher level of wealth to compare it to. Suddenly he discovers that he is crude and vulgar, that society considers him shameful and that the first beautiful girl he meets is disgusted by him. The contrast he sees between his ragged appearance and Estella's makes Pip view his past with as much disfavor as she views him. He is therefore uncomfortable with any physical filth that covers him, as when he feels "utter repugnance" when comparing his beauty to the soot and stench he receives from Newgate. In his infatuation, he mentally turns all his insecurities into impurities that he can try to shake off or physically mask. This attempt to literally remove the dirt from himself manifests in Pip's attempt to become a gentleman. Rather than face his fear of the condemned or his remorse for how he separated from Joe and Biddy, he dresses them in clothes that society deems presentable. Ironically, he was very happy at the forge, and his rise in social class only serves to sink his morale. That this struggle to change his nature by elevating his class is in vain is foreshadowed twice in the novel. First, Pip tries to improve Joe's suit when he does.