<P> Philip Pirrip, called Pip, is the protagonist and narrator in Charles Dickens's novel Great Expectations (1861). He is amongst the most popular characters in English literature, widely portrayed all over the world on stage and screen . </P> <P> Pip narrates his story many years after the events of the novel take place . The novel follows Pip's process from childhood innocence to experience . The financial and social rise of the protagonist is accompanied by an emotional and moral deterioration, which finally forces Pip to recognize his negative expectations in a new self - awareness . </P> <P> When the novel begins in the early 1800s, Philip is a seven - year - old orphan raised by his cruel sister, Mrs. Joe, who beats him regularly, and her husband Joe Gargery, a blacksmith and Pip's best friend . He lives in the marsh area of Kent, England, twenty miles from the sea . </P> <P> Pip never saw either of his parents; he is more than twenty years younger than his sister . Five brothers died in infancy between them: Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias and Roger . He says he was short for his age when he encountered the convicts at age seven, but when he is apprentice to Joe, he is taller and becomes very strong to master the work of a blacksmith . He is known to himself and to the world as Pip because his "infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip". </P>

How old is pip at the start of great expectations