Great Expectations-Charles Dickens
American Literature
American Literature
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Great Expectations
Charles Dickens
Summary of the plot
The reader is introduced to Pip, who says that his real name is Philip Pirrip. However, as that name is too long for him to pronounce, he calls himself Pip. He explains that he only knows his last name is Pirrip because his sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, told him so. He also saw his father's name on his tombstone. Pip never knew his mother and father, who are buried together next to the graves of his five little brothers. He does not know anything about what they were like—he only knows his mother's name was Georgiana from seeing it on a tombstone.Pips earliest clear memory is from a day in which he visits his parents graves. In the graveyard, which is in a marshy area near his house, a frightful man calls to him. The man has irons on his legs, rags on his head, and dirt all over his clothes—he is, Pip will learn, an escaped convict. He threatens Pip, and Pip begs the convict not to cut his throat. The convict asks Pips name and where he lives, and he turns Pip upside down so that a piece of bread falls out of Pips pockets. The convict eats the bread ravenously and asks Pip where his mother and father are. When Pip explains that they are dead, the convict asks who Pip lives with. Pip says he lives with his sister, the wife of the blacksmith. The convict, who tilts Pip backward, asks Pip to bring wittles and a file to the Battery the next morning. He warns Pip not to mention this to anyone, and he tells Pip that he is hiding with a young man who will come after
Pip;s heart and liver if Pip tells anyone about this incident. Pip says that he will bring the file and food the next morning. As the convict limps away, Pip notices that he is holding himself together, and Pip imagines that the dead are almost pulling the man into the graves. The convict limps towards a gibbet, or gallows, where a pirate once was hanged. Pip imagines that the convict is the pirate come to life, and he runs home in terror.
Character Analysis
The protagonist:
Philip Pirrip (who shortens his own name to “Pip” as a child) is the narrator and protagonist of the story, an orphan who grows up in humble circumstances with his sister and brother-in-law, only to find himself suddenly endowed with a large sum of money, the “great expectations” of the title. Great Expectations is a Bildungsroman—the story of an individuals growth and development within a strict social order, and Pip is the focus of this growth in the novel. Pip is really two characters at once: the protagonist going through the trials of one life, and the grown narrator relating the story of his life. At times, adult Pip offers light-hearted observations on his childish behaviour while illustrating the stresses that lead child Pip to react to his world.
One of Pip’s strongest characteristics , is his desire for self-improvement which is one of the central themes of the novel. He analyses the world around him for the best and worst examples of society and emulates the best. Unfortunately, the best examples of society aren’t always the best examples of humanity; Pip the narrator criticises Pip the protagonist for his narrow-minded treatment of those around him.
The young Pip’s desire for self-improvement infringes on the dignity of other characters like Joe and Biddy, although they are kind to him.Pip is capable of kindness to those he loves, but the influence of Miss Havisham and especially Estella brings out the worst in him as his craving for advancement grows stronger. In effect, the women become the role models for the unhappy “middle”section of the story, and the deeper Pip explores his own social standing, the more miserable he becomes. He seems to rally when he inherits a mysterious fortune, but when he discovers the money came from the convict Magwitch and not Miss Havisham, his narrow view of the world and its rules crumbles. Magwitch is hardly the refined gentleman Pip has come to expect as a benefactor, but it is he who appreciated Pip’s kindness early on and rewards it in the end.
Ultimately, Pip is a sympathetic character and a fairly reliable narrator, with whom the reader usually identifies. His sensitivity and romantic nature often lead him astray, and in allowing Miss Havisham and Estella to shape his attitudes to those around him, Pips earnest desire for self-improvement sometimes takes the form of snobbery. However, Pip gains self-knowledge and a sense of proportion over the course of the novel, maturing into the realization that status is meaningless without humanity. His behaviour as a “gentleman” has caused pain to those he loved the most, and the now-mature Pip uses the novel to pay tribute to their undeserved respect of him.
The five boons of life-Mark Twain
Great Expectations: Plot Analysis
The major conflict of Great Expectations revolves around Pip’s ambitious desire to reinvent himself and rise to a higher social class. His desire for social progress stems from a desire to be worthy of Estella’s love: “She’s more beautiful than anybody ever was, and I admire her dreadfully, and I want to be a gentleman on her account.” The plot gets underway when Pip is invited to go to Satis House, and first encounters Estella and Miss Havisham. The inciting action, however, has actually been earlier when Pip had a seemingly random encounter with an escaped convict; neither he nor the reader will know for a long time that this encounter will actually determine the course of his life. The rising action progresses as Pip becomes increasingly dissatisfied with the prospect of living a simple life as a country blacksmith. As he explains, “I never shall or can be comfortable … unless I can lead a very different sort of life from the life I lead now.”
Pip receives news that he is going to be financially supported by an anonymous benefactor and moves to London, where he becomes more refined and sophisticated while also becoming extravagant and self-absorbed. After some years, Pip is astonished to discover that his benefactor is actually Magwitch the convict. This discovery intensifies the conflict around Pip’s desire to be perceived as a gentleman and be loved by Estella, since he is now tainted by an association with a criminal. The rising conflict forces Pip to declare his love to Estella, since he is planning to leave England in order to cover up his secret. He tells her that “you are part of my existence, part of myself,” but she explains that she plans to marry another man. This conversation resolves part of the conflict, making it clear to Pip that Estella is incapable of loving him.
The conflict surrounding Pip’s shame at his social background and desire to be a gentleman continues as he struggles to protect Magwitch and get him to safety. Along the way, Pip realizes that Magwitch is Estella’s father. This discovery transforms Pip’s understanding of social position and criminality. Up to this point, Pip has considered Estella and the criminal underworld Magwitch represents as oppositional to one another, but now Pip understands that Estella and Magwitch have always been interconnected. At the novel’s climax, Pip confides to a dying Magwitch that his lost child “is living now. She is a lady and very beautiful. And I love her!” By showing kindness to a criminal and describing Estella as a both a lady and the daughter of a convict, Pip shows that he no longer thinks about social position in a black or white way. The conflict resolves with Pip letting go of his social aspirations in order to focus on reconciling with the characters who have been loyal to him all along, paying off his debts, and earning an honest living.
Great Expectations: Themes
Ambition and Self-Improvement
The moral theme of Great Expectations is quite simple: affection, loyalty, and conscience are more important than social advancement, wealth, and class. Dickens establishes the theme and shows Pip learning this lesson, largely by exploring ideas of ambition and self-improvement—ideas that quickly become both the thematic center of the novel and the psychological mechanism that encourages much of Pip’s development. At heart, Pip is an idealist; whenever he can conceive of something that is better than what he already has, he immediately desires to obtain the improvement. When he sees Satis House, he longs to be a wealthy gentleman; when he thinks of his moral shortcomings, he longs to be good; when he realizes that he cannot read, he longs to learn how. Pip’s desire for self-improvement is the main source of the novel’s title: because he believes in the possibility of advancement in life, he has “great expectations” about his future. Ambition and self-improvement take three forms in Great Expectations—moral,social, and educational; these motivate Pip’s best and his worst behaviour throughout the novel. First, Pip desires moral self-improvement. He is extremely hard on himself when he acts immorally and feels powerful guilt that spurs him to act better in the future. When he leaves for London, for instance, he torments himself about having behaved so wretchedly toward Joe and Biddy. Second, Pip desires social self-improvement. In love with Estella, he longs to become a member of her social class,and, encouraged by Mrs. Joe and Pumblechook, he entertains fantasies of becoming a gentleman. The working out of this fantasy forms the basic plot of the novel; it provides Dickens the opportunity to gently satirise the class system of his era and to make a point about its capricious nature. Significantly, Pip’s life as a gentleman is no more satisfying—and certainly no more moral—than his previous life as a blacksmith’s apprentice.
Third, Pip desires educational improvement. This desire is deeply connected to his social ambition and longing to marry Estella: a full education is a requirement of being a gentleman. As long as he is an ignorant country boy, he has no hope of social advancement. Pip understands this fact as a child, when he learns to read at Mr. Wopsle’s aunt’s school, and as a young man, when he takes lessons from Matthew Pocket. Ultimately, through the examples of Joe, Biddy, and Magwitch, Pip learns that social and educational improvement are irrelevant to one’s real worth and that conscience and affection are to be valued above erudition and social standing.
Social Class
Throughout Great Expectations, Dickens explores the class system of Victorian England, ranging from the most wretched criminals (Magwitch) to the poor peasants of the marsh country (Joe and Biddy) to the middle class (Pumblechook) to the very rich (Miss Havisham). The theme of social class is central to the novel’s plot and to the ultimate moral theme of the book—Pip’s realization that wealth and class are less important than affection, loyalty, and inner worth. Pip achieves this realization when he is finally able to understand that, despite the esteem in which he holds Estella, one’s social status is in no way connected to one’s real character. Drummle, for instance, is an upper-class lout, while Magwitch, a persecuted convict, has a deep inner worth.
Perhaps the most important thing to remember about the novel’s treatment of social class is that the class system it portrays is based on the post-Industrial Revolution model of Victorian England. Dickens generally ignores the nobility and the hereditary aristocracy in favour of characters whose fortunes have been earned through commerce. Even Miss Havisham’s family fortune was made through the brewery that is still connected to her manor. In this way, by connecting the theme of social class to the idea of work and self-advancement, Dickens subtly reinforces the novel’s overarching theme of ambition and self-improvement.
Crime, Guilt, and Innocence
The theme of crime, guilt, and innocence is explored throughout the novel largely through the characters of the convicts and the criminal lawyer Jaggers. From the handcuffs Joe mends at the smithy to the gallows at the prison in London, the imagery of crime and criminal justice pervades the book, becoming an important symbol of Pip’s inner struggle to reconcile his own inner moral conscience with the institutional justice system. In general, just as social class becomes a superficial standard of value that Pip must learn to look beyond in finding a better way to live his life, the external trappings of the criminal justice system (police, courts, jails, etc.) become a superficial standard of morality that Pip must learn to look beyond to trust his inner conscience. Magwitch, for instance, frightens Pip at first simply because he is a convict, and Pip feels guilty for helping him because he is afraid of the police. By the end of the book, however, Pip has discovered Magwitch’s inner nobility, and is able to disregard his external status as a criminal. Prompted by his conscience, he helps Magwitch to evade the law and the police. As Pip has learned to trust his conscience and to value Magwitch’s inner character, he has replaced an external standard of value with an internal one.
Sophistication
In Great Expectations, Pip becomes obsessed with a desire to be sophisticated and takes damaging risks in order to do so. After his first encounter with Estella, Pip becomes acutely self-conscious that “I was a common labouring-boy; that my hands were coarse, that my boots were thick.” (pg. 59). Once he moves to London, Pip is exposed to a glamorous urban world “so crowded with people and so brilliantly lighted,” and he quickly begins to “contract expensive habits.” As a result of spending money on things like a personal servant and fancy clothes, Pip quickly falls into debt, and damages Herbert’s finances as well as his own. Even more troubling, Pip tries to avoid anyone who might undermine his reputation as a sophisticated young gentleman. In the end, sophistication is revealed as a shallow and superficial value because it does not lead to Pip achieving anything, and only makes him lonely and miserable.
Education
Education functions as a force for social mobility and personal growth in the novel. Joe and Biddy both use their education to pursue new opportunities, showing how education can be a good thing. Pip receives an education that allows him to advance into a new social position, but Pip’s education improves his mind without supporting the growth of his character. Biddy takes advantage to gather as much learning as she can, with Pip observing that she “learns everything I learn,” and eventually becomes a schoolteacher. Biddy also teaches Joe to read and write. Pip’s education does not actually provide him with practical skills or common sense, as revealed when Pip and Herbert completely fail at managing their personal finances. Pip’s emotional transformation once he learns the identity of his benefactor is what ultimately makes him into the man he wants to be, not anything he has learned in a classroom.
Family
Although Pip and Estella both grow up as orphans, family is an important theme in the novel. Pip grows up with love and support from Joe, but fails to see the value of the unconditional love Joes gives him. He eventually reconciles with Joe after understanding his errors. Estella is exposed to damaging values from her adopted mother, Miss Havisham, and gradually learns from experience what it actually means to care about someone. For both characters, learning who to trust and how to have a loving relationship with family members is a major part of the growing-up process.As Estella explains at the end of the novel, “suffering has been stronger than all other teaching.” Both Estella and Pip make mistakes and live with the consequences of their family histories, but their difficult family experiences also helps to give them perspective on what is truly important in life.
Great Expectations: Setting
Great Expectations is set in nineteenth-century England, mainly in London and the surrounding marshlands where Pip grows up. The settings are described through Pip’s point of view, and highlight both his dissatisfaction and his idealism. As Pip becomes increasingly discontented with home and with everything around him being “all coarse and common,” he becomes repelled by the flat marshlands. Comparing them to his prospects he says, “how flat and low both were.” Despite Pip’s ambitious hopes for London, when he arrives in the city Pip finds it “rather ugly, crooked, narrow, and dirty.” Because Pip is constantly chasing his “great expectations,” he can’t see the value or appeal of any of the places he encounters. At the end of the novel, when Pip returns to his hometown humbled and eager to reconcile with Joe and Biddy, he finds that “the June weather was delicious. The sky was blue… I thought the countryside more beautiful and peaceful by far than I had ever known it to be yet.” Because Pip has finally made peace with his history and identity, he can finally appreciate the beauty of the world around him.
The tell-Tale heart -Edgar Allan Poe
Great Expectations: Style of Writing
The style of Great Expectations is primarily wry and humorous. Pip often describes events that are quite tragic and upsetting, but he typically does so in a way that relies on dark humour rather than evoking pity. For example, when he mentions his five dead siblings, he refers to them as having “gave up trying to get a living exceedingly early in the universal struggle.” When he describes the abusive relationship between his sister and Joe, he jokes that “I suppose both Joe Gargery and I were brought up by hand.” The humorous style shows Pip’s tendency to avoid being vulnerable both with readers and with the characters around him, since he does not want to be an object of pity, or be defined by his difficult childhood circumstances. He even jokes about the bad decisions of his younger self, making fun of how badly he managed his money and noting that he saw writing down his debts and actually paying them off as “in point of meritorious character … about equal.”
Great Expectations: Point of View
Great Expectations is written in the first-person point of view, with Pip acting as both the protagonist and narrator of the novel. Pip doesn’t narrate events as they happen, but looks back at his life and tells the story based on what he remembers, a style known as retrospective narration. For example, when Pip describes leaving for London, he admits that his desire to depart without Joe “originated in my sense of the contrast there would be between me and Joe.” Pip says that “If I had cried before,I should have had Joe with me then.” The retrospective point of view allows Pip to reveal his motivations for his behaviour, which he might not even have been aware of at the time. He also reflects on what he now knows would have been a better course of action.
Great Expectations: Motifs
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.
Doubles
One of the most remarkable aspects of Dickens’s work is its structural intricacy and remarkable balance. Dickens’s plots involve complicated coincidences,extraordinarily tangled webs of human relationships, and highly dramatic developments in which setting, atmosphere, event, and character are all seamlessly fused.
In Great Expectations, perhaps the most visible sign of Dickens’s commitment to intricate dramatic symmetry—apart from the knot of character relationships, of course—is the fascinating motif of doubles that runs throughout the book. From the earliest scenes of the novel to the last, nearly every element of Great Expectations is mirrored or doubled at some other point in the book. There are two convicts on the marsh (Magwitch and Compeyson), two invalids (Mrs. Joe and Miss Havisham), two young women who interest Pip (Biddy and Estella), and so on. There are two secret benefactors: Magwitch, who gives Pip his fortune, and Pip, who mirrors Magwitch’s action by secretly buying Herbert’s way into the mercantile business. Finally, there are two adults who seek to mold children after their own purposes: Magwitch, who wishes to “own” a gentleman and decides to make Pip one, and Miss Havisham, who raises Estella to break men’s hearts in revenge for her own broken heart.
Interestingly, both of these actions are motivated by Compeyson: Magwitch resents but is nonetheless covetous of Compeyson’s social status and education, which motivates his desire to make Pip a gentleman, and Miss Havisham’s heart was broken when Compeyson left her at the altar, which motivates her desire to achieve revenge through Estella. The relationship between Miss Havisham and
Compeyson—a well-born woman and a common man—further mirrors the relationship between Estella and Pip.This doubling of elements has no real bearing on the novel’s main themes, but, like the connection of weather and action, it adds to the sense that everything in Pip’s world is connected. Throughout Dickens’s works, this kind of dramatic symmetry is simply part of the fabric of his novelistic universe.
Comparison of Characters to Inanimate Objects
Throughout Great Expectations, the narrator uses images of inanimate objects to describe the physical appearance of characters—particularly minor characters, or characters with whom the narrator is not intimate. For example, Mrs. Joe looks as if she scrubs her face with a nutmeg grater, while the inscrutable features of Mr. Wemmick are repeatedly compared to a letter-box. This motif, which Dickens uses throughout his novels, may suggest a failure of empathy on the narrator’s part, or itmay suggest that the character’s position in life is pressuring them to resemble a thing more than a human being. The latter interpretation would mean that the motif in general is part of a social critique, in that it implies that an institution such as the class system or the criminal justice system dehumanizes certain people.
Great Expectations: Symbols
Satis House
In Satis House, Dickens creates a magnificent Gothic setting whose various elements symbolize Pip’s romantic perception of the upper class and many other themes of the book. On her decaying body, Miss Havisham’s wedding dress becomes an ironic symbol of death and degeneration. The wedding dress and the wedding feast symbolize Miss Havisham’s past, and the stopped clocks throughout the house symbolize her determined attempt to freeze time by refusing to change anything from the way it was when she was jilted on her wedding day. The brewery next to the house symbolizes the connection between commerce and wealth: Miss Havisham’s fortune is not the product of an aristocratic birth but of a recent success in industrial capitalism. Finally, the crumbling, dilapidated stones of the house, as well as the darkness and dust that pervade it, symbolize the general decadence of the lives of its inhabitants and of the upper class as a whole.
The Mists on the Marshes
The setting almost always symbolizes a theme in Great Expectations and always sets a tone that is perfectly matched to the novel’s dramatic action. The misty marshes near Pip’s childhood home in Kent, one of the most evocative of the book’s settings, are used several times to symbolize danger and uncertainty. As a child, Pip brings Magwitch a file and food in these mists; later, he is kidnapped by Orlick and nearly murdered in them. Whenever Pip goes into the mists, something dangerous is likely to happen. Significantly, Pip must go through the mists when he travels to London shortly after receiving his fortune, alerting the reader that this apparently positive development in his life may have dangerous consequences.
Bentley Drummle
Although he is a minor character in the novel, Bentley Drummle provides an important contrast with Pip and represents the arbitrary nature of class distinctions. In his mind, Pip has connected the ideas of moral, social, and educational advancement so that each depends on the others. The coarse and cruel Drummle, a member of the upper class, provides Pip with proof that social advancement has no inherent connection to intelligence or moral worth. Drummle is a lout who has inherited immense wealth, while Pip’s friend and brother-in-law Joe is a good man who works hard for the little he earns. Drummle’s negative example helps Pip to see the inner worth of characters such as Magwitch and Joe, and eventually to discard his immature fantasies about wealth and class in favour of a new understanding that is both more compassionate and more realistic.
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