Great Expectations

1. Great Expectations Novel Notes

2. Iron Men • Pip was not happy forging ahead in Joe’s profession. • Working with iron requires working with the right tools, practiced know-how, and raw strength, as well as the ability to endure incredible heat. • Origin of Blacksmith • Iron=black metal • Smith =a person who made a career shaping and creating metals

3. Iron Men • A smithy’s fireproof forge is distinguished by a chimney perched atop a work building, with a brick or stone hearth inside. • Blacksmiths were essential to village life in Dickens’s time. Necessities such as cooking pots and farm tools were repaired, not discarded. • Blacksmiths made and fitted iron shoes for the horses needed for transportation and farm work.

4. Prison Cruise • After the American colonies gained their independence, England could no longer send its convicts to Virginia. (50,000 sent before 1776) • The retired man-of-war sailing ships that had transported prisoners across the Atlantic became floating prisons. These once graceful ships, that had proudly defended British interests around the globe, were moored along the Thames.

5. Prison Cruise • “There they sat, large, sad, ungainly vessels bobbing in a small space. Below the decks of these hulks, as they were now called, conditions were filthy. Tiny cells held men and women deemed the worst of those gone wrong.” • After Australia became England’s new penal colony in 1787, many of the prisoners in “hulks” were transported there. • England ended its floating prison system in 1858.

6. Schooling for the Classes, Not the Masses • In Pip’s time what you were formally taught, if anything, depended on your social class, gender, and, sometimes, where you lived. • Upper- and middle- class boys and girls were taught at home until age 12 or 13. Boys then went to a public school such as Eton (public schools in England are synonymous with private schools in the United States) before university study.

7. Schooling for the Classes, Not the Masses • Girls stayed home and were taught skills such as drawing and dancing or went to a finishing school. There was no university study for girls until the late 1850s. • Village children of the lower classes could pay a fee to learn the basics in a “dames school” similar to Pip’s. A church might offer elementary subjects in a Sunday school.

8. Schooling for the Classes, Not the Masses • In cities, charitable foundations set up schools, many also trying to feed and clothe the students. • Institutions that charged no tuition were the “ragged schools”, so named because the students usually wore rags. • Even with such charitable efforts, it is estimated that as many as one half of Pip’s generation remained unschooled.

9. Learning a Trade • Before becoming a full-fledged doctor, a medical school graduate must first serve an internship, during which he or she is supervised by an experienced doctor. • Apprenticeship, like today’s internships, is learning by doing.

10. Learning a Trade • When a master tradesman took on an apprentice, both agreed in a contract, known as an indenture, that the trainee, generally a young teenager, would learn while working exclusively for his teacher for a set time period, usually seven years. • The apprentice then became a journeyman. Eventually the journeyman became a master.

11. Pound? • Wouldn’t it be great to have a couple of pounds of cash? • That all depends on what you mean by pound. As the United States uses dollars, the British use pounds. The nineteenth-century terms for coins in the novel can be equally confusing for the reader, unless you grew up in England.

12. Pound • However, the following list may help you gauge the value of the coins by Pip: • Pound: 20 shillings or 240 pence • Crown: 5 shillings • Half crown: 2 shillings and sixpence • Shilling: 12 pence • Sovereign: gold coin worth one pound • Guinea: 21 shillings or one pound shilling

13. Pound • Quid: slang for one pound • Bob: slang for one shilling So, what is a pound worth in relation to a dollar? It can change daily – check in a newspaper or with your local bank.

14. A Home is a Castle • Wemmick’s house, with its medieval moat and turrets, indicates that he is a stylish, up-to-date Victorian. The Gothic revival in architecture was so popular that Gothic towers, spires, and ornate windows appeared on most public buildings built in that era, including the Houses of Parliament. The prevailing feeling among leading thinkers was that Gothic architecture symbolized the high moral standards of Victorian society.

15. What’s in a name? • For Victorians, the answer to that question would depend on the title that comes before the name. The title indicates the level of peerage. Naturally, the monarchy is without peers; however, following the royal family are those aristocrats eligible to serve in Parliament’s House of Lords. First among peers are dukes, followed by marquises, earls, viscounts, and barons.

16. What’s in a name? • A duke is properly addressed as “Your Grace” or “Duke.” Other peers are addressed as “Lord.” “Sir” is the proper form of address for baronets and knights; although they are titled, they are not considered peerage, but commoners. • All titles in the aristocracy, except for that of knight, are hereditary and can be passed to the oldest male heir. The title of knight is a courtesy title awarded by the monarch. In the nineteenth century, knighthood was bestowed for achievement in battle, business, civil service, or the arts.

17. Get me to the church on time! • Weddings in Victorian England had none of today’s pomp and ceremony. • All that was required to marry was an announcement of intent in church on three consecutive Sundays. • A couple could buy a license, then marry in church or in the registrar’s office. • Until the 1880’s weddings were held between 8:00 a.m. and noon only.

18. Get me to the church on time! • By law no weddings occurred with the church door shut (a centuries-old law to prevent a young woman or man from being kidnapped and forced into marriage). • Only the bride received a ring. Fashion Note: While most brides wore white, any color was appropriate.

19. Different times, Different meanings: • To Victorians, the term making love meant flirting or courting; this is what Herbert means as he tells Miss Havisham’s story. A lover is a suitor.

20. The Rules of the Game • Old Maid is not just a card game, and the teenage girls of Britain in the 1800s knew that to reach the age of 25 unmarried was to risk being an object of ridicule and becoming one who had no rule in middle- and upper-class society. • Young ladies understood the danger of disobeying the unwritten rules of courtship. Parties or dances, which were given for everyone, were an appropriate place for the unmarried to court.

21. Lady in Waiting • While a girl was expected to appear passive, she also could not spend too much time talking to an admirer. If he monopolized her time (trifled) without soon proposing, her value to potential suitors decreased. However, refusing a proposal would damage her reputation, because it was assumed that she had encouraged the suitor.

22. Lady in Waiting • Her reputation could also be damaged by her attending events alone or with an admirer. Therefore, families arrived and left together. Parents and friends kept a watchful eye on couples. If an admirer visited a young lady at home, a chaperone had to be present.

23. The Bachelor’s Dilemma • After the mating dance began, a young man also had rules to follow. He could not appear too eager unless he could propose and marry soon. If he fell in love but could not afford to marry, he was expected to remain silent about his romantic feelings so the woman could marry while her chances were high.

24. The Bachelor’s Dilemma • Long engagements were discouraged. A bachelor who proposed, or appeared to have proposed, then backed out, risked damage to his reputation and a lawsuit. Lawsuits for such breaches promise were rare, however, because a woman’s reputation was damaged more than a man’s reputation.

25. The Bachelor’s Dilemma • Consequently, most young women and their parents preferred not to expose such a social injury publicly. A respectable household (house, servants, many children) was expensive, and many Victorian men could not marry until their thirties. They typically chose a much younger woman.