Great Expectations: Pip The following people effect Pip and are effected by him. Each has distinct personal characteristics and qualities. Mrs. Joe, Pip's sister, is about twenty when Pip is born. She is Pip's only known relative that is alive and has brought him up by hand. She is portrayed as a strict mean person to Pip and Joe Gargery throughout her presence in the novel, by using the "tickler," a cane for beating him when bad. Joe Gargery, Pip's brother-in-law and foster father, is the most good-hearted of all Dickens' characters in this book. He submits to Mrs. Joe's rampages because he would rather have her rage fall on him than on Pip. J