Charles Dickens: Great Expectations

1. Great Expectations MadebyDebshriChatterjee 10th - A

2. Author’s Profile......... Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was the most popular and prolific English author in his times, and his novels, such as Great Expectations (1861) and A Tale of Two Cities (1859) are considered classics of English literature. Dickens wrote at a furious pace, contributing to magazines, editing journals, and sometimes working on more than one novel at a time. He is loved for his memorable characters, including Ebenezer Scrooge, Oliver Twist, and Uriah Heep, who seem to take on a life of their own.

3. ........Synopsis of the Novel As a young child, the orphan Pip lives with his sister and brother-in-law, the village blacksmith. On Christmas Eve, Pip is walking through the marshes when he meets an escaped convict who threatens him into bringing back food and a file to break the leg-irons. On Christmas Day, the convict is captured and returned to the prison ships known as The Hulks. He never reveals Pip’s assistance when he is caught and asked how he escaped his irons. Much later, young Pip is sent to entertain Miss Havisham, a wealthy old lady who lives in a mansion known as Satis House. Miss Havisham is a bitter woman who was jilted on her wedding day long ago. She still wears her wedding gown, and the now-rotten wedding cake sits atop her dining room table. Her adopted daughter, Estella, is beautiful, and Pip instantly falls in love with her. But Estella is cold and distant. Over time, she softens somewhat toward Pip, but her affection is erratic. She tells him she can never love anyone. Pip is dismissed from Miss Havisham’s service and becomes an apprentice to Joe. But Estella has instilled in him a shame in his commonness. He longs to be a gentleman, not a blacksmith. His discontent grows. One day he learns that an anonymous benefactor has left him an enormous sum of money. He is to move to London, where he will be trained to act as a gentleman. A lawyer, Jiggers, will oversee his inheritance. Pip is certain his benefactor is Miss Havisham, and believes he is being trained as Estella’s future husband. Pip's happiness is unfathomable as he moves to London, away from the only family and friends he has ever known. He is educated by Mr. Mathew Pocket and strikes a great friendship with his son, Herbert. His wealth and position changes him, and soon Pip leads a dissipated life full of idleness. He is ashamed of Joe and Biddy, and wants little to do with them. He thinks association with them will lower him in Estella’s eyes. Estella continues to be a powerful factor in his life.

4. She has been trained by Miss Havisham to break men’s hearts, and is constantly put in Pip’s life to toy with him. Even though she warns him she cannot love him, Pip persists in loving her. On his twenty-fourth birthday, Pip learns that his benefactor is not Miss Havisham, but the convict from long ago. He realizes he is not meant for Estella, and also that Miss Havisham deliberately let him assume incorrectly. As well, he realizes with shame that he has mistreated his good friend Joe, who was always faithful to him. Though Pip is ashamed of the convict, Magwitch, he is grateful and loyal, so he commits himself to protecting Magwitch from the police, who are looking for him. His friend, Herbert Pocket, helps him. Pip's moral education begins. He decides he can no longer accept the convict’s money. He becomes compassionate towards Magwitch, realizing the depth of the convict’s love for him. He tries to help Magwitch escape, but in the chaos, Magwitch is injured and caught. Magwitch dies, but not before Pip discovers that adopted Estella is Magwitch’s daughter and tells Magwitch how lovely she is. Estella marries Pip’s enemy, Drummle. Miss Havisham dies, but not before repenting of the bitterness that has ruined her life. She leaves a good deal of money to Herbert Pocket, at Pip’s request, in the hope that it will earn her forgiveness. Pip goes to Joe and Biddy, who have married one another since the death of Pip’s sister. He atones for his sins against them then sets off on his own, determined to make things right in his life. The novel ends when he meets Estella after many years. She has left Drummle, who has since died. She is remarried. She and Pip part as friends and Pip realizes she will always be a part of his life, as surely as all the other memories of his once-great expectations.

5. Pip (Philip Pirrip) The narrator and protagonist who recounts his life story of growing up in England, beginning in Kent and later moving to London. Pip is a very passionate, romantic and ambitious young man who tries to better himself because he is ashamed of his origins. Fortune and fame eventually find him although he now realizes that those things cannot make him happy or more importantly, obtain Estella’s love. Main Characters……. Estella She is a beautiful young girl around Pip’s age who had been adopted and raised by the wealthy but strange Miss Havisham. She is the object of Pip’s love and desires but she treats him with only contempt and cruelty, repeatedly telling him that she has no heart.

6. Miss Havisham She is a very wealthy but crazy old woman who lives at Satis House near Pip’s village. She had been stood up on her wedding day and now raises the beautiful Estella to try to get “revenge on all men” for her own broken heart. Pip had believed that she was his secret benefactor to promote his social class. Abel Magwitch (Provis/Mr.Campbell) A fearsome criminal who escapes from prison and terrorized the young Pip to bring him food. Awed by Pip’s kindness, he returns as Pip’s secret benefactor and funds his education and living expenses, allowing him to climb the social ladder. He wants Pip to be everything he himself couldn’t be and turns out to be Estella’s birth father. Joe Gargery He is Pip’s brother-in-law who married his sister Mrs. Joe and stays with her out of love for Pip. He is the village blacksmith and is uneducated which makes him of lower class, but shows his pure goodness when Pip expresses disdain for Joe after becoming a gentleman.

7. ……..Settings The story begins in England during the first quarter of the nineteenth century. The setting in the early part of the story is the Chaptham district, where Dickens roamed as a boy. The orphan Pip is a blacksmith’s apprentice in a village in the marsh country. One afternoon Pip has a frightening adventure in the marshes when an escaped convict forces him to supply food and a file for his leg irons. The convict is captured the next day. Shortly after this experience, Pip receives a summons from old Miss Havisham to visit her decaying mansion, a Gothic structure of mystery and gloom surrounded by high walls. She requests that Pip entertain her and her adopted daughter. Miss Havisham’s real motive, however, is sinister: she plans for Estella to break the boy’s heart. The old house symbolizes death, decay, and the inner desolation of its inhabitants, who change Pip’s life forever. Some months later, an unknown benefactor supplies Pip with a sum of money to be used for his education in London as an English gentleman of “great expectations.” London now becomes the principal setting, richly described by Dickens in all its multiplicity: shop after shop, winding streets, an endless stream of traffic and movement, Gothic cathedrals, teeming slums, the fearsome Newgate Prison. In this mighty metropolis, Pip is transformed into a snobbish English gentleman. It is also in London that Pip again meets the convict, with fateful consequences for both.

8. Themes- Theme Analysis........ Pip’s great expectations are a dramatized exploration of human growth and the pressures that distort the potential of an ordinary individual, especially in the process of growing up. Pip is a simple blacksmith’s boy who aspires to cross social boundaries when he realizes his own upbringing is common; however, he has no means to change. Mysteriously, he is given the means, but wealth only brings with it idleness. He learns that happiness in life can be achieved only by hard work and that great expectations not grounded in reality can only lead to tragedy and heartache. Part of this theme is an exploration of the dignity of labor. Pip initially feels ashamed to associate himself with Joe but later realizes that hard work brings honor to a man. As for honor, Pip realizes the importance of traits like loyalty and kindness, and eventually understands that no amount of money can make up for the lack of those traits. Supplementary to this theme is the sharp juxtaposition of appearance and reality, as well as the traditional notion that pride comes before a fall. Pip learns valuable lessons from his misguided assumptions. And his pride causes him to do things he is later ashamed of. A final thematic consideration is the belief that goodness is always able to supplant evil, even in characters like Miss Havisham. Mrs. Joe, Magwitch, Estella, and Pip are further examples of characters whose inherent goodness is apparent despite their wrongdoings. Essentially, it is a novel about contentment and humility, as well as honor. The thematic notion of great expectations touches on every aspect of common emotions like pride, ambition, envy, greed, and arrogance. The lesson Pip learns is that one should never presume he is better than another. As Joe tells him, it is far better to be uncommon on the inside than the outside. A person’s possessions do not matter as much as a person’s actions.

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