Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. Search eText, Read Online, Study, Discuss. Estella's Feelings for Pip Hi! I'm writing an essay on Estella's character development, and I want to know what other people think about an interaction between Estella and Pip. Towards the end of Chapter 44 (XLIV), Pip and Estella share the following exchange: I know,ï¿½ said I, in answer to that action; ï¿½I know. I have no hope that I shall ever call you mine, Estella. I am ignorant what may become of me very soon, how poor I may be, or where I may go. Still, I love you. I have loved you ever since I first saw you in this house.ï¿½ Looking at me perfectly unmoved and with her fingers busy, she shook her head again. ï¿½It would have been cruel in Miss Havisham, horribly cruel, to practise on the susceptibility of a poor boy, and to torture me through all these years with a vain hope and an idle pursuit, if she had reflected on the gravity of what she did. But I think she did not.

I think that in the endurance of her own trial, she forgot mine, Estella.ï¿½ I saw Miss Havisham put her hand to her heart and hold it there, as she sat looking by turns at Estella and at me. ï¿½It seems,ï¿½ said Estella, very calmly, ï¿½that there are sentiments, fanciesï¿½I donï¿½t know how to call themï¿½which I am not able to comprehend. When you say you love me, I know what you mean, as a form of words; but nothing more. You address nothing in my breast, you touch nothing there. I donï¿½t care for what you say at all. I have tried to warn you of this; now, have I not?ï¿½ I said in a miserable manner, ï¿½Yes.ï¿½ ï¿½Yes. But you would not be warned, for you thought I did not mean it. Now, did you not think so?ï¿½ ï¿½I thought and hoped you could not mean it. You, so young, untried, and beautiful, Estella!

Surely it is not in Nature.ï¿½ ï¿½It is in my nature,ï¿½ she returned. And then she added, with a stress upon the words, ï¿½It is in the nature formed within me. I make a great difference between you and all other people when I say so much. I can do no more.ï¿½ ... ï¿½On whom should I fling myself away?ï¿½ she retorted, with a smile. ï¿½Should I fling myself away upon the man who would the soonest feel (if people do feel such things) that I took nothing to him? There! It is done. I shall do well enough, and so will my husband. As to leading me into what you call this fatal step, Miss Havisham would have had me wait, and not marry yet; but I am tired of the life I have led, which has very few charms for me, and I am willing enough to change it. Say no more. We shall never understand each other.ï¿½ ï¿½Such a mean brute, such a stupid brute!ï¿½ I urged in despair.

ï¿½Donï¿½t be afraid of my being a blessing to him,ï¿½ said Estella; ï¿½I shall not be that. Come! Here is my hand. Do we part on this, you visionary boyï¿½or man?ï¿½ ï¿½O Estella!ï¿½ I answered, as my bitter tears fell fast on her hand, do what I would to restrain them; ï¿½even if I remained in England and could hold my head up with the rest, how could I see you Drummleï¿½s wife?ï¿½ ï¿½Nonsense,ï¿½ she returned, ï¿½nonsense. This will pass in no time.ï¿½ ï¿½Never, Estella!ï¿½ ï¿½You will get me out of your thoughts in a week.ï¿½ I know Estella is a cold character and doesn't love Pip, but does this passage show she cares for him? Particularly in "'Nonsense,' she returned... in a week'", I think she does feel a little bad for Pip, and is almost trying to convince herself that Pip doesn't love her.

Even more so in when she gives him her hand, Estella acts like she does care for Pip, just not romantically. I'm not entirely sure if that's what Dickens intended for the takeaway to be, though, so I'd like to know what anyone else thinks! Also excuse my possibly confusing sentence structure; I'm writing an essay, and my brain is fried. Thank you!! Posted By hamleit at Sun 1 May 2016, 7:09 PM in Great Expectations || 1 Reply A bit of confusion I've just started reading Great Expectations, and so far am enjoying it. However, there is a particular sentence I'm having a terrible amount of trouble deciphering. Here's the particular passage, with the particular offending part underlined: "There was a fiction that Mr. Wopsle "examined" the scholars once a quarter. What he did on those occasions was to turn up his cuffs, stick up his hair, and give us Mark Antony's oration over the body of Caesar. This was always followed by Collins's Ode on the Passions, wherein I particularly venerated Mr. Wopsle as Fear, whistling to keep his courage up.

It was not with me then, as it was in later life, when I fell into the society of the Passions, and compared them with Collins and Wopsle, rather to the disadvantage of both gentlemen." What exactly was not "with him"? Posted By Murderous Moose at Thu 11 Feb 2016, 7:05 AM in Great Expectations || 3 Replies Finished reading it Hello everyone! 5 days ago I finished reading 'Great Expectations'. It was excellent. I liked the plot, the way it is written, the descriptions of the characters; in a word, I liked everything about it. One of the characters I really liked was Herbert. I liked it when he called Pip 'Handel,' besides he was very kind-hearted. What do you think of him? Do you like him? Posted By Carmilla at Thu 17 Dec 2015, 1:15 PM in Great Expectations || 10 Replies Hello everyone!! I'm reading 'Great Expectations', and I found the word 'warmint'. I was wondering if you could help me with its meaning. Does it mean 'varmint'? Help, please!

:) Posted By Carmilla at Wed 18 Nov 2015, 3:33 PM in Great Expectations || 6 Replies I was just wondering in what ways has Miss Havisham deceived herself about how she has chosen to live her life? Posted By jepense at Sun 12 Jul 2015, 10:06 PM in Great Expectations || 5 Replies An article into which Joe's destiny led him. In the following sentence in chapter 4 of Great Expectations, Dickens wrote : "Mrs. Joe was prodigiously busy in getting the house ready for the festivities of the day, and Joe had been put upon the kitchen door-step to keep him out of the dust-panï¿½an article into which his destiny always led him, sooner or later, when my sister was vigorously reaping the floors of her establishment." Please explain what Dickens implied when he said the dust-pan was an article into which Joe's destiny always led him. Posted By noumenon52 at Mon 29 Jul 2013, 4:06 PM in Great Expectations || 3 Replies Some explanations needed.

In chapter 3 of Great Expectations, when Pip wondered that the convict didn't hear the cannon the previous night. The convict said: ï¿½Why, see now!ï¿½ said he. ï¿½When a man's alone on these flats, with a light head and a light stomach, perishing of cold and want, he hears nothin' all night, but guns firing, and voices calling. Hears? He sees the soldiers, with their red coats lighted up by the torches carried afore, closing in round him. Hears his number called, hears himself challenged, hears the rattle of the muskets, hears the orders ï¿½Make ready! Present! Cover him steady, men!ï¿½ and is laid hands onï¿½and there's nothin'! Why, if I see one pursuing party last nightï¿½coming up in order, Damn 'em, with their tramp, trampï¿½I see a hundred. And as to firing!

Why, I see the mist shake with the cannon, arter it was broad dayï¿½But this man;ï¿½ he had said all the rest as if he had forgotten my being there; ï¿½did you notice anything in him?ï¿½ I don't quite understand what the convict tried to tell Pip. Did he just imagine what another convict might have heard and seen? Did he himself see the pursuing soldiers and hear the cannon? What did he mean when he said ".. and is laid hands onï¿½and there's nothin'! Why, if I see one pursuing party last nightï¿½coming up in order, Damn 'em, with their tramp, trampï¿½I see a hundred. And as to firing! Why, I see the mist shake with the cannon, arter it was broad day---" ? Please explain.

Posted By noumenon52 at Sat 27 Jul 2013, 3:51 AM in Great Expectations || 2 Replies New perspective on Great Expectations In 1858 Dickens wrote six letters (five unpublished) to Patrick-Allan Fraser of Arbroath who wished to gift Hawkesbury Hall near Coventry to Dickens' Guild of Literature and Art. As writer-in-residence at Hospitalfield, I've just read the letters and have reflected on how Pip's Great Expectations may have been inspired (in part) by the author's, as the book was conceived around this time, though not written until 'All the Year Round' needed an injection of quality writing in 1860/61. Anyway, to read more about the research, the link is patisback.co.uk though you'll have to add the w bits as well. Let me know if it's of interest! Duncan McLaren Posted By duncanmclaren at Sat 6 Jul 2013, 6:14 PM in Great Expectations || 0 Replies Do character ages and timelines match? Do the ages and timelines of the characters in this book add up?

In the first chapter, Pip seems about eight years old. Then, according to the book, he first visits Miss Havisham a year later. Here he meets Estella, who Pip thinks is about his own age, although she seems older. The way she talks about the brewery and what 'satis' means makes her sound older than nine. Pip seems somewhat older too. For example, he uses the word melancholy instead of sad. I would say they were both at least eleven. In most films and TV series, the young Estella looks about thirteen. Reading the book I imagined her being prepubescent, although Pip does say that one of the reasons she appeared older was that she was a girl. I am sure the book says he only visited the house for about ten months before he was apprenticed to Joe. Apprenticeships usually started at about age fourteen, so some more years seem to have disappeared from Pip's childhood. Pip learns of his Great Expectations four years later, when he would be eighteen. This just about gives Magwitch time to be transported to Australia, serve his seven years forced labour and to start making lots of money. I also wondered about the ages of the older characters.

Magwitch was described as about sixty when he comes back to see Pip, and he is still quite an active man. That makes him about forty-five when he first terrorises Pip in the graveyard, which is plausible. He would have been thirty-seven when he fathered Estella with Molly, which is plausible too. I am pretty sure he said Compeyson was described as being a younger man than Magwitch. Compeyson was supposed to marry Miss Havisham, so presumably they are about the same age. If anything, Miss Havisham would probably be a bit younger. If Compeyson is five years younger than Magwitch, and Miss Havisham is one year younger than Compeyson, that makes her fifty-four when things come to a head, and only thirty-nine when she first meets Pip. That seems far too young. When Pip first meets her, she already seems like an old crone; she leans on his shoulder to exercise around her dining room. However, she does not seem to have aged any fifteen years later. In addition, Herbert tells Pip that Compeyson jilted Miss Havisham twenty-five years before they were born, which would make that forty-three years previously.

If Miss Havisham was twenty when she was jilted, that would make her between fifty-three and fifty-six when she first met Pip, and sixty-eight when she died. Jaggers usually appears quite old in the TV and film adaptions, but his defence of Molly was the case that made his name as a lawyer. Say he was twenty-five at the time. That would make him forty when he meets Pip in the Jolly Bargemen and forty-five when everything goes badly wrong. Posted By kev67 at Sun 20 May 2012, 3:18 PM in Great Expectations || 2 Replies Physical abuse Do you think there is a disturbing message in GE that domestic abuse made Estella a better person? Evidently, Estella was damaged by Miss Havisham, but that was by psychological abuse, not physical. Miss Havisham would never allow anyone else to chastise Estella; hence her impertinence to adults like Mr Pumblechook and Miss Camilla. Pip's male role model as a child was Joe. Joe never retaliates against his wife's beatings.Therefore Pip learns not retaliate when he is abused, either by his sister or Estella.

Pip does not believe even Bentley Drummle would be scoundrel enough to beat his wife, when Jaggers suggests it. Evidently, Estella's experience of Pip was not good preparation for a life with Drummle. In the last chapter, Estella says she has been bent and broken, but hopefully into better shape. That is not a very edifying message. Posted By kev67 at Mon 14 May 2012, 10:28 PM in Great Expectations || 0 Replies SparkNotes: Great Expectations: Plot Overview Great Expectations Context Character List Pip, a young orphan living with his sister and her husband in the marshes of Kent, sits in a cemetery one evening looking at his parents’ tombstones. Suddenly, an escaped convict springs up from behind a tombstone, grabs Pip, and orders him to bring him food and a file for his leg irons. Pip obeys, but the fearsome convict is soon captured anyway. The convict protects Pip by claiming to have stolen the items himself.

One day Pip is taken by his Uncle Pumblechook to play at Satis House, the home of the wealthy dowager Miss Havisham, who is extremely eccentric: she wears an old wedding dress everywhere she goes and keeps all the clocks in her house stopped at the same time. During his visit, he meets a beautiful young girl named Estella, who treats him coldly and contemptuously. Nevertheless, he falls in love with her and dreams of becoming a wealthy gentleman so that he might be worthy of her. He even hopes that Miss Havisham intends to make him a gentleman and marry him to Estella, but his hopes are dashed when, after months of regular visits to Satis House, Miss Havisham decides to help him become a common laborer in his family’s business. With Miss Havisham’s guidance, Pip is apprenticed to his brother-in-law, Joe, who is the village blacksmith. Pip works in the forge unhappily, struggling to better his education with the help of the plain, kind Biddy and encountering Joe’s malicious day laborer, Orlick. One night, after an altercation with Orlick, Pip’s sister, known as Mrs.

Joe, is viciously attacked and becomes a mute invalid. From her signals, Pip suspects that Orlick was responsible for the attack. One day a lawyer named Jaggers appears with strange news: a secret benefactor has given Pip a large fortune, and Pip must come to London immediately to begin his education as a gentleman. Pip happily assumes that his previous hopes have come true—that Miss Havisham is his secret benefactor and that the old woman intends for him to marry Estella. In London, Pip befriends a young gentleman named Herbert Pocket and Jaggers’s law clerk, Wemmick. He expresses disdain for his former friends and loved ones, especially Joe, but he continues to pine after Estella. He furthers his education by studying with the tutor Matthew Pocket, Herbert’s father. Herbert himself helps Pip learn how to act like a gentleman. When Pip turns twenty-one and begins to receive an income from his fortune, he will secretly help Herbert buy his way into the business he has chosen for himself. But for now, Herbert and Pip lead a fairly undisciplined life in London, enjoying themselves and running up debts.

Orlick reappears in Pip’s life, employed as Miss Havisham’s porter, but is promptly fired by Jaggers after Pip reveals Orlick’s unsavory past. Mrs. Joe dies, and Pip goes home for the funeral, feeling tremendous grief and remorse. Several years go by, until one night a familiar figure barges into Pip’s room—the convict, Magwitch, who stuns Pip by announcing that he, not Miss Havisham, is the source of Pip’s fortune. He tells Pip that he was so moved by Pip’s boyhood kindness that he dedicated his life to making Pip a gentleman, and he made a fortune in Australia for that very purpose. Pip is appalled, but he feels morally bound to help Magwitch escape London, as the convict is pursued both by the police and by Compeyson, his former partner in crime. A complicated mystery begins to fall into place when Pip discovers that Compeyson was the man who abandoned Miss Havisham at the altar and that Estella is Magwitch’s daughter. Miss Havisham has raised her to break men’s hearts, as revenge for the pain her own broken heart caused her.

Pip was merely a boy for the young Estella to practice on; Miss Havisham delighted in Estella’s ability to toy with his affections. As the weeks pass, Pip sees the good in Magwitch and begins to care for him deeply. Before Magwitch’s escape attempt, Estella marries an upper-class lout named Bentley Drummle. Pip makes a visit to Satis House, where Miss Havisham begs his forgiveness for the way she has treated him in the past, and he forgives her. Later that day, when she bends over the fireplace, her clothing catches fire and she goes up in flames. She survives but becomes an invalid. In her final days, she will continue to repent for her misdeeds and to plead for Pip’s forgiveness. The time comes for Pip and his friends to spirit Magwitch away from London. Just before the escape attempt, Pip is called to a shadowy meeting in the marshes, where he encounters the vengeful, evil Orlick. Orlick is on the verge of killing Pip when Herbert arrives with a group of friends and saves Pip’s life. Pip and Herbert hurry back to effect Magwitch’s escape.

They try to sneak Magwitch down the river on a rowboat, but they are discovered by the police, who Compeyson tipped off. Magwitch and Compeyson fight in the river, and Compeyson is drowned. Magwitch is sentenced to death, and Pip loses his fortune. Magwitch feels that his sentence is God’s forgiveness and dies at peace. Pip falls ill; Joe comes to London to care for him, and they are reconciled. Joe gives him the news from home: Orlick, after robbing Pumblechook, is now in jail; Miss Havisham has died and left most of her fortune to the Pockets; Biddy has taught Joe how to read and write. After Joe leaves, Pip decides to rush home after him and marry Biddy, but when he arrives there he discovers that she and Joe have already married. Pip decides to go abroad with Herbert to work in the mercantile trade. Returning many years later, he encounters Estella in the ruined garden at Satis House. Drummle, her husband, treated her badly, but he is now dead.

Pip finds that Estella’s coldness and cruelty have been replaced by a sad kindness, and the two leave the garden hand in hand, Pip believing that they will never part again. (Note: Dickens’s original ending to Great Expectations differed from the one described in this summary. The final Summary and Analysis section of this SparkNote provides a description of the first ending and explains why Dickens rewrote it.) More Help Mr. Jaggers in Great Expectations NEXT Character Analysis Mr. Jaggers is Pip's guardian, Miss Havisham's lawyer, and he really knows his stuff. He's exactly like Billy Flynn : he ALWAYS wins his cases. Judges and juries alike quiver in their boots when Jaggers takes the stage. With minor characters like Jaggers, Dickens takes it easy on us: you can almost always tell what you need to know based on their looks. So let's take a look at Jaggers the first time Pip meets him on the stairs at Miss Havisham's: He was a burly man of an exceedingly dark complexion, with an exceedingly large head, and a corresponding large hand. He took my chin in his large hand and turned up my face to have a look at me by the light of the candle.

He was prematurely bald on the top of his head, and had bushy black eyebrows that wouldn't lie down but stood up bristling. His eyes were set very deep in his head, and were disagreeably sharp and suspicious. He had a large watch-chain, and strong black dots where his beard and whiskers would have been if he had let them. (11.39) This is… well, to be honest, this one is hard to read. Is Jaggers a good guy or a bad guy? In fact, he's kind of neither. He does some bad things, like getting criminals off, but he also gives Estella to Miss Havisham because he thinks he might be able to save her from a life of crime, and he's really enamored of the truth: "Take nothing on its looks," he tells Pip in maybe the best piece of advice the poor boy ever gets: "take everything on evidence. There's no better rule" (40.92). One more things about Jaggers: his hands always smell like soap, and he washes his hands constantly, like he's trying to wash away the grime, the corruption, and the horrors of those he works with everyday.

Synopsis - Great Expectations Great Expectations Two summaries of Dickens' Great Expectations are provided below. If you would just like to familiarize yourself with the main plot, please read the: Brief 5-sentence synopsis If you would like to get a more in-depth description, please scroll farther down Detailed synopsis Brief 5-sentence Synopsis Pip and Estella The narrator, Pip recounts his life story from his childhood to how he matures and grows up to becoming a young man. Throughout this transformation, one thing remains unchanged. Pip falls in love with a wealthy but heartless girl named Estella. From that moment on, everything Pip does in his life is no longer for himself or anyone else but for Estella and only her. Pip even receives a fortune from a secret benefactor to pursue an education and he does this along with obtaining wealth, success and high social class in the hopes of becoming worthy in the eyes of his beloved Estella. Detailed Synopsis The Main Characters The novel starts out with one of the most significant events of Philip Pirrip (Pip)’s life when he is a young child.

As he was sitting one evening, looking at his parents’ tombstones, an escaped convict violently grabs Pip, ordering him to bring food and a file. Even though Pip does everything he is asked, the convict gets caught anyways. Pip returns to living the normal, tranquil life with his older sister and her husband, Mrs and Mr. Joe Gargery in Kent, England. Soon, however, his Uncle Pumblechook takes him to the Satis House where he meets the strange but wealthy Miss Havisham, who had been stood up at her own marriage, and her beautiful adopted daughter Estella. This is the girl that Pip falls madly in love with from the moment he meets her and will continue to do so throughout the rest of his life even though she treats him with only contempt and hostility. Soon Pip learns to be a blacksmith from his brother-in-law, Joe, though he is completely unhappy as Estella mocks him for being such a common labourer. One night, his sister, Mrs. Joe is viciously attacked and will only be able lie in bed until her death so a nice young girl named Bitty is hired to take care of her.

Pip uses this opportunity to ask her to teach him all that she knows academically so that he can better himself in the eyes of Estella. Before long, a lawyer named Jaggers alerts Pip of a large sum of money that had befallen him from a secret benefactor and urges him to travel to London to start his education and pave the way to becoming a “gentleman”. Pip, already thinking of Estella, is delighted at his good fortune and believes that he owes this to Miss Havisham who wants to promote his social status. In London, he makes friends with two gentlemen named Herbert Pocket and Wemmick while receiving a good education. Pip continues to pine after Estella but expresses disdain for his former loved ones like his once beloved Joe. Pip becomes successful, wealthy and well respected over the years, gaining everything he had ever wished to be as a child except at gaining the love of Estella. Many years pass until one particular night when his former convict, Magwitch, returns to Pip, dramatically announcing his identity as Pip’s secret benefactor all these years. Pip shows his utter disgust at this turn of events but agrees to help Magwitch escape, as he is still wanted by the police.

As time goes on, Pip begins to genuinely care for Magwitch. Another twist is discovered by Pip when he realizes Magwitch is the birth father of Estella and that Miss Havisham had never wanted to encourage Estella’s love for Pip but rather persuade her to “break men’s hearts”. Pip is utterly heart-broken when he hears of news that Estella had married Bentley Drummle, a cruel upper-class gentleman. Pip visits Miss Havisham one last time before her death where she asks for his forgiveness and he agrees despite all the pain that he has suffered. Magwitch must escape before time runs out and so Pip and his friends sneak him down the river to catch a ship but is ultimately caught by the police and Magwitch suffers severe injuries that he later succumbs to. Pip returns to his regular lifestyle focusing on his career before returning many years later to the Satis House where he had first met Estella. Once again, Estella and Pip meet in the garden when Estella informs him of the death of her husband and the cruelty that Drummle had treated her with over the years of their marriage. Pip recognizes that Estella’s once cold and bitter eyes have turned warm with compassion as she asks for his forgiveness.

He accepts and they walk out of the garden hand in hand, while Pip believes that they will never be apart ever again. Create a free website SparkNotes: Great Expectations: Character List Great Expectations Plot Overview Analysis of Major Characters Pip - The protagonist and narrator of Great Expectations, Pip begins the story as a young orphan boy being raised by his sister and brother-in-law in the marsh country of Kent, in the southeast of England. Pip is passionate, romantic, and somewhat unrealistic at heart, and he tends to expect more for himself than is reasonable. Pip also has a powerful conscience, and he deeply wants to improve himself, both morally and socially. Read an in-depth analysis of Pip. Estella - Miss Havisham’s beautiful young ward, Estella is Pip’s unattainable dream throughout the novel. He loves her passionately, but, though she sometimes seems to consider him a friend, she is usually cold, cruel, and uninterested in him. As they grow up together, she repeatedly warns him that she has no heart. Read an in-depth analysis of Estella. Miss Havisham - Miss Havisham is the wealthy, eccentric old woman who lives in a manor called Satis House near Pip’s village.

She is manic and often seems insane, flitting around her house in a faded wedding dress, keeping a decaying feast on her table, and surrounding herself with clocks stopped at twenty minutes to nine. As a young woman, Miss Havisham was jilted by her fiancé minutes before her wedding, and now she has a vendetta against all men. She deliberately raises Estella to be the tool of her revenge, training her beautiful ward to break men’s hearts. Read an in-depth analysis of Miss Havisham. Abel Magwitch (“The Convict”) - A fearsome criminal, Magwitch escapes from prison at the beginning of Great Expectations and terrorizes Pip in the cemetery. Pip’s kindness, however, makes a deep impression on him, and he subsequently devotes himself to making a fortune and using it to elevate Pip into a higher social class. Behind the scenes, he becomes Pip’s secret benefactor, funding Pip’s education and opulent lifestyle in London through the lawyer Jaggers. Joe Gargery - Pip’s brother-in-law, the village blacksmith, Joe stays with his overbearing, abusive wife—known as Mrs. Joe—solely out of love for Pip.

Joe’s quiet goodness makes him one of the few completely sympathetic characters in Great Expectations. Although he is uneducated and unrefined, he consistently acts for the benefit of those he loves and suffers in silence when Pip treats him coldly. Jaggers - The powerful, foreboding lawyer hired by Magwitch to supervise Pip’s elevation to the upper class. As one of the most important criminal lawyers in London, Jaggers is privy to some dirty business; he consorts with vicious criminals, and even they are terrified of him. But there is more to Jaggers than his impenetrable exterior. He often seems to care for Pip, and before the novel begins he helps Miss Havisham to adopt the orphaned Estella. Jaggers smells strongly of soap: he washes his hands obsessively as a psychological mech-anism to keep the criminal taint from corrupting him. Herbert Pocket - Pip first meets Herbert Pocket in the garden of Satis House, when, as a pale young gentleman, Herbert challenges him to a fight. Years later, they meet again in London, and Herbert becomes Pip’s best friend and key companion after Pip’s elevation to the status of gentleman.

Herbert nicknames Pip “Handel.” He is the son of Matthew Pocket, Miss Havisham’s cousin, and hopes to become a merchant so that he can afford to marry Clara Barley. Wemmick - Jaggers’s clerk and Pip’s friend, Wemmick is one of the strangest characters in Great Expectations. At work, he is hard, cynical, sarcastic, and obsessed with “portable property”; at home in Walworth, he is jovial, wry, and a tender caretaker of his “Aged Parent.” Biddy - A simple, kindhearted country girl, Biddy first befriends Pip when they attend school together. After Mrs. Joe is attacked and becomes an invalid, Biddy moves into Pip’s home to care for her. Throughout most of the novel, Biddy represents the opposite of Estella; she is plain, kind, moral, and of Pip’s own social class. Dolge Orlick - The day laborer in Joe’s forge, Orlick is a slouching, oafish embodiment of evil. He is malicious and shrewd, hurting people simply because he enjoys it. He is responsible for the attack on Mrs.

Joe, and he later almost succeeds in his attempt to murder Pip. Mrs. Joe - Pip’s sister and Joe’s wife, known only as “Mrs. Joe” throughout the novel. Mrs. Joe is a stern and overbearing figure to both Pip and Joe. She keeps a spotless household and frequently menaces her husband and her brother with her cane, which she calls “Tickler.” She also forces them to drink a foul-tasting concoction called tar-water. Mrs. Joe is petty and ambitious; her fondest wish is to be something more than what she is, the wife of the village blacksmith. Uncle Pumblechook - Pip’s pompous, arrogant uncle. (He is actually Joe’s uncle and, therefore, Pip’s “uncle-in-law,” but Pip and his sister both call him “Uncle Pumblechook.”) A merchant obsessed with money, Pumblechook is responsible for arranging Pip’s first meeting with Miss Havisham. Throughout the rest of the novel, he will shamelessly take credit for Pip’s rise in social status, even though he has nothing to do with it, since Magwitch, not Miss Havisham, is Pip’s secret benefactor.

Compeyson - A criminal and the former partner of Magwitch, Compeyson is an educated, gentlemanly outlaw who contrasts sharply with the coarse and uneducated Magwitch. Compeyson is responsible for Magwitch’s capture at the end of the novel. He is also the man who jilted Miss Havisham on her wedding day. Bentley Drummle - An oafish, unpleasant young man who attends tutoring sessions with Pip at the Pockets’ house, Drummle is a minor member of the nobility, and the sense of superiority this gives him makes him feel justified in acting cruelly and harshly toward everyone around him. Drummle eventually marries Estella, to Pip’s chagrin; she is miserable in their marriage and reunites with Pip after Drummle dies some eleven years later. Molly - Jaggers’s housekeeper. In Chapter 48, Pip realizes that she is Estella’s mother. Mr. Wopsle - The church clerk in Pip’s country town; Mr. Wopsle’s aunt is the local schoolteacher. Sometime after Pip becomes a gentleman, Mr. Wopsle moves to London and becomes an actor.

Startop - A friend of Pip’s and Herbert’s. Startop is a delicate young man who, with Pip and Drummle, takes tutelage with Matthew Pocket. Later, Startop helps Pip and Herbert with Magwitch’s escape. Miss Skiffins - Wemmick’s beloved, and eventual wife. Great Expectations - bunpeiris Literature Great Expectations Great Expectations Marginal Comments by bunpeiris Great Expectations: the realization of a dream of a poor orphan. Oh! boy that’s a happy ending. Tell me that again, please. Okey, okey, hang on! The poor orphan boy makes its rich, makes his name, and wins the hand of the loveliest English rose. What’s more, he was even financed by an unknown benefactor. All you need is a a couple of fortunate coincidences. Well, in our real life, do we expect such good fortune fall into our laps? Well, as Rod Stewart sings [click the word in red] some guys have all the luck . Charles Dickens played to the mass market and nobody ever, till Dickens, had ever played the game so well. Well, W. A.

Silva [Wellawattearachchige Abraham Silva][1890 – 1957], the English edcuated Sinhalese master story teller of British Ceylon [1815-1948] and then Free Ceylon [1948-1972] [as Sri Lanka was then known], writing in Sinhala , would take a leaf from Charles Dickens and produce a loveliest bouquet of novels: he too would have his hero find success and presents the readers with a happy ending by virtue of the good fortune of some timely coincidences: The Begger boy, The School Mistress, The Moon in the Wilderness, The Full Moon in all its Splendour are some of those. Then there were others of contrasting genres:The Silver Wig, The Illusive Times, The Replica of An Aristrocrat, Lakshmi or the Immortal Queen, The King of All Cosmos, The Kingdom of the Gods, The Pillage of King Vijayabahu, The Destiny, The Hand Offering Ambrosia and many others and translations of Ramayanya & 1001 Arabian Nights.

When Charles Dickens entered the literary scene in 1836, the vogue was monthly and weekly serials: novelists were successful in building reader involvement by means of installment approach or peacemeal approach. As I would see, Charles Dickens‘ success with Great Expectations too could also be attributed, at least partly, to the fact that it wasn’t at all published as a novel in the beginning, it was serialized in the local newspaper: he would invariably end the installment of this novel, each week, so apprpriately titled “The Great Expectations” , this work of Victorian literature on a cliff hanger raising the expectations of the readers higher and higher. These days Charles Dickens’s books are staples in literature classes worldwide. We all have Great Expectations. Okey, some don’t. What do you call them, pessimists? Or do you call them realists? Never mind, Charles Dickens was a man ahead of his time. Well, cliff hangers are what you naver fail to see in our serialized Sinhalese teledramas today in Sri Lanka . But then, I wouldn’t see our Sinhalese teledrams.

Seeing the suffering [not only after the engagementring and weddingring, of course, even before that] of our own people in my sitting room, albeit in the digital screen or the idiot’s box, over and above my own suffering, is the thing I could hardly bear. Well, Dickens found a solution to my recurrent problem today, back then: he revised the ending, upon the suggestion of his wealthy aristocratic friend Edward Bulwer-Lytton, a hugely popular crime and historical novelist (no longer read today) whom he greatly admired and respected. The sad ending was deleted and happy ending was introduced. Well, I would go for that: make me entertained, give me a happy ending, give me song and dance as in Bollywood . I have seen enough of suffering.Why should I get sunk in rudderless despair in these seven seas sans cod liver oil or lost in the Great Saharan deserts sans dates? Let me wipe off Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad), Madame Bovary (Gustave Flaubert), Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy) and Tess of the d’Urbervilles (Thomas Hardy) off my desk. All are goddamitman heart-rending tragedies.

I would have none of those anymore. I’ve had enough. I would have no more. Bodhisathva Avalokiteśvara (Lokeśvara) of Mahayana Buddhism is believed to extend his merciful hand towards the poor guys. I must pull the plug on blog and prey to the deity, this superior being, living in some other planet somewhere in this cosmos. Grant me a happy life, grant me the Nobel Prize for Literature in my next birth, in which I would be Kuslan [Sinhala: trophy] [surname unknown], once again in my motherland, as was in my previous birth. I wouldn’t leave Sri Lanka, my motherland even in my death, Insha Allah. Amen. Written by bunpeiris However, Great Expectations has always been rated among the very greatest of Charles Dickens’ achievements. What is the basis of its massive appeal? Emotional power, for one thing; sheer page-turning dramatic tension, for another.

Although it is not as uproariously funny or as blazingly angry as some of Dickens’ earlier fiction, it offers a compensatory depth of feeling, subtlety of tone and density of atmosphere – G K Chesterton praised its ‘quality of serene irony and even sadness which puts it quite alone among his other works’. It manages to be both extraordinarily perceptive about childhood, and maturely sceptical in its adult morality. The plot moves swiftly and surely, without any of the tired, flat patches of writing which mar A Tale of Two Cities or Our Mutual Friend. Its premise is simple: the orphaned Pip Pirrip is anonymously bequeathed a large amount of money which allows him to leave his humble background and live like a gentleman in London, until a surprise from his childhood catches up with him. On this basis, Dickens builds both a tautly constructed thriller and a moving story of disappointment and disillusion, told in the first person through Pip’s narrative voice, ruefully looking back at himself from some unspecified vantage point. Rupert Christiansen Genre: Great Expectation is a Coming of Age Novel Great Expectations is a bildungsroman, or coming-of-age novel.

Other examples of this form include Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, and The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. Great Expectations is unusual in that its main character, Pip, is often hard to sympathize with because of his snobbery and the resulting bad behavior he exhibits toward some of the other characters, like Joe Gargery. Key Facts Genre: Coming-of-Age Novel (Bildungsroman) Setting: Kent and London, England Climax: Pip discovers his patron is the convict Protagonist: Philip (Pip) Pirrip Antagonist: Orlick, Bentley Drummle, and Compeyson Point of View: First person (Pip is the narrator) Historical and Literary Context Serialized : from 1860-1861; published: in 1861 Literary Period: Victorian Era Themes: Social Class; Ambition and Self-Improvement; Integrity and Reputation; Parents; Justice; Generosity; Ambition and Self-Improvement Symbols: The mist clouding the landscape around Pip’s village symbolizes psychological uncertainty. Satis House is a symbol of frustrated expectations.

Ironically, the word “satis” comes from the Latin word for “enough” Social background of Great Expectations Great Expectations is set in early Victorian England. It was a period of transition in England: sweeping the nation were great social changes borne by the Industrial Revolution. Capitalists and manufacturers ventured into business and began amassing fortunes. Although social class was no longer entirely dependent on the circumstances of one’s birth, the divisions between rich and poor remained nearly as wide as ever. London, lit by gas lamps at night and darkened by black clouds from smokestacks during the day, was a teeming mass of humanity striving for better tomorrow, day after day. The urban zones formed a sharp contrast with England’s sparsely populated rural areas. The villagers from remote areas began to flood the cities of England in search of better earning opportunities. Classical education has become the hallmark of the the upperclass in England; coupled with wealth, the transformation gave rise to strict and conservative life style making the behaviour of the elite, elaborate in innumerable social situations. Herein lies the transitory social background that defined Dickens’s time that made manifestations in almost every facet of Great Expectations.

Quotations that you mustn’t forget “…it is a principle of [Matthew Pocket’s] that no man who was not a true gentleman at heart, ever was, since the world began, a true gentleman in manner. He says, no varnish can hide the grain of the wood, and that the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will express itself.” —Herbert Pocket “Oh, there are many kinds of pride,” said Biddy, looking full at me and shaking her head; “Pride is not all of one kind…[Joe] may be too proud to let any one take him out of a place that he is competent to fill, and fills well and with respect.” Biddy Great Expectations Relationship Map Franks and Frisians Germanic tribes united in opposition to the Geats. Hugas a Frisian subgroup or family. Hetware joined with the Franks against Hygelac. Merovingian pertaining to the Franks. Ravenswood site (in Sweden) of major battle between Geats and Swedes. Eofor and Wulf fought Swedes’ King Ongentheow to his death.

For a chronology of the Geats’ feuds, see Chickering, pp. 361-62. corn-chandler a corn merchant. chaise-cart a lightweight carriage with two to four wheels that is drawn by one or two horses. It sometimes has a collapsible top. fell among those thieves this is a biblical reference, referring to the unfortunate man in the parable of the Good Samaritan, Luke 10:30-35, who fell among thieves, was beaten by them, and left for dead. Pip feels that numbers and arithmetic are about as vicious to him as the thieves were to the man in the parable. comes the Mo-gul over us a Mogul is one of the Mongolian conquerors of India and Persia. Joe uses this term to describe Mrs. Joe’s heavy-handed, despotic power over them as if she were some far-eastern prince. myrmidons of Justice this is a reference to Homer’s Iliad . The Myrmidons were followers of Achilles. Here Pip simply means “policemen.” He is afraid he will be arrested for fighting with the pale young gentleman at Miss Havisham’s.

O Lady Fair a popular song of the time, written and set to music by the Irish poet Thomas Moore (1779-1852). Cain or the Wandering Jew Pip associates Orlick with the Bible character Cain, Who bcame a fugitive and vagabond following his muderer of his brother Abel. Pip also associates Orlick with the Wandering Jew, a legendary medieval character who wandered the earth as punishment for his cruelty to Christ. sluice-keeper sluices were floodgates that controlled the flow of water through the marshes. The sluice-keeper was responsible for managing these gates. The two versions of Great Expectations: two endings In his first version of his novel, Pip merely spots Estella, who has been forced suffer abuse from Drummle, at a dinner party. But in the 1863 edition, Charles Dickens’ revised the work to have his narrator report, after seeing Estella, “I saw no shadow of another parting from her”—an alteration about which critics have been split for more than a century. Movie version of David Lean With the revised ending, David Lean found a window to bring about dramatisim to the happy ending of Great Expectations.

Meeting again in Miss Haversham’s mansion, the two face-off, Estella—hurt by her relationship with Drummle—determined to follow the path of Miss Haversham, to join her mentor in her obsession with the past. She argues she belong to where she was brought up and nowhere else. In his fury, Pip tears down moth eaten, damp and dust gathered curtains down to the floor revealing that remains of Miss Haversham’s world is dust and decay physically as well as spiritually. Confessing that she has always been his hearthrob and declaring they belong to each other, Pip leads Estella by the hand off the dilipitated mansion. Great Expectations movie directed by David Lean in 1946 Was the happy ending of The Great Expectations intended? The original ending of Great Expectation wasn’t a happy ending: our hero fails to win the hand the light of his life, fire of his loins. How was that face about by Charles Dickens? Why did he revise he Great Expectations to have a happy ending? “The soul of a very long fiction should be pleasing.” wrote Charles Dickens good friend and fellow writer, Edward Bulwer-Lytton.

Wilkie Collins, another close friend and author of The Woman in White, objected to the not-happy ending Dickens first wrote for Great Expectations: Estella married and widowed and has since then remarried and Pip remains single. Charles Dickens then resorted to write a more conventional ending, which carries the implication that Pip and Estella will marry. Dickens seems content while writing a letter to Forster, explaining his decision to alter the draft ending: “You will be surprised to hear that I have changed the end of Great Expectations from and after Pip’s return to Joe’s…… Bulwer, who has been, as I think you know, extraordinarily taken with the book, strongly urged it upon me, after reading the proofs, and supported his views with such good reasons that I have resolved to make the change. “I have put in as pretty a little piece of writing as I could, and I have no doubt the story will be more acceptable through the alteration.” and “Upon the whole I think it is for the better.” What do we have today? The second ending or the happy ending has generally been published from Charles Dickens‘ time to our own, so that it is the one which most readers know.

Arguments for and agianst the revised ending [happy ending] [1] Against: then Charles Dickens‘ friend and biographer, John Forster, felt the original ending was “more consistent with the draft, as well as the natural working out of the tale.” George Gissing called that revision “a strange thing, indeed, to befall Dickens” and felt that Great Expectations would have been perfect had Dickens not altered the ending in deference to Bulwer-Lytton. [2] For: today Today, though modern literary criticism is split over the matter, the happy ending has been held aloft with stronger arguments. Do you have arguments for this happy ending? **************************************************************** [3] You guys, the readers If you are sitting for OL or AL, you will only have the revised ending or happy ending in the prescribed version of your edition. If you are an undergraduate you will have both endings in the prescribed edition of the novel Great Expectation. Read both ending and make your own conclusion. What’s mine? Well, I hate adult fairy tales. You may read and argue for the ending you would like, argue against the ending you wouldn’t like.

**************************************************************** A glimpse into an episode of the life of Dickens through The Great Expectations As Charles Dickens began writing Great Expectations, he undertook a series of hugely popular and remunerative reading tours. His domestic life had disintegrated in the late 1850s however, and he had separated from his wife, Catherine Dickens. He was keeping secret an affair with a much younger woman, Ellan Ternan. It has been suggested that the reluctance with which Ellen Ternan became his mistress is reflected in the icy teasing of Estella in Great Expectation. However, with the exception of above, Great Expectations does not draw from events in Dickens’s life, as Sylvère Monod pinted out; “at most some traces of a broad psychological and moral introspection can be found” Background of Great Expectations Great Expectations‘s single most obvious literary predecessor is Dickens’s earlier first-person narrator-protagonist David Coppefield. Great Expectations, on as well as David Copperfield keeps a tab on the moral development of a boy to man; relocation from rural environment to the London metropolis. On Christmas Eve, Kent, England, 1812 Pip is at the graves of his parents.

But then having arived at the cemetry to escape the warth of his abusive older sister, Pip woudn’t still find a respite. On this Christmas Eve it would be much scarier than any day in the past. An escaped convict pounds upon the seven year old boy. He scares him into steal food and a file to grind away his shackles, from the home. It would still more scarier if caught by his sister, though his brother-in-law Gregory, a man of hammar and anvil, is of a heart tempered with kindness. Pip’s forced help, though he is only 7 years old, could land him in stillmore scarier touble. The ocnvict while entangled in a fight with another escaped convict was caught by the police. But then the convict wouldn’t betray Pip. He he convict protects Pip by claiming to have stolen the items himself. The convict protects Pip by claiming to have stolen the pile himself. The lady deserted by her groom at the very altar Pip is called in to play with her adoped daughter by a wealthy, forever in mourning and in bridal, by a women deserted by her groom.

Mourning the would be husband who left her at the very altar, plotting in her dilapidated house, she would have her vengeance, in her own vile, on others. Fashioned by Miss Havisham, her adopted daughter isn’t either of a heart of a tender mould in spite of her beauty: she treats Pip with disdain and contempt. Encouraged by his own thought that Miss Havisham, in a way, would help him to become a gentleman and win the hand of his adopted daughter, Pip entertains Great Expectations. But then again, he finds he has aimed at the sky and wouldn’t even hit a tree: following months of regular visits to Satis House, Miss Havisham decides that Pip should be apprenticed to his brother-in-law, Joe. Pip works in the forge though unhappily, still diligently, struggling to better his education with the help of a Jane plain, kind Biddy. Cain or the Wandering Jew Pip finds no respite with Joe’s malicious day laborer, Orlick. One night, after an altercation with Orlick, Pip’s sister, is viciously attacked. She becomes a mute invalid. From her signals, Pip suspects that Orlick was responsible for the attack.

The change of fortunes A long and lonely four years into Pip’s apprenticeship, a lawyer named Jaggers brings about a revealation: Pip may entertain Great Expectations of getting trained in the gentlemanly arts. A benefactor, who wouldn’t reveal his idenetity, had set aside funds. Pip is to leave for London, well groomed. Assuming that Miss Havisham is his benefactor, and he is destined to marry Estella, he visits her to say good-bye. The apprentice blacksmith turned would be gentleman In London, Pip befriends a young gentleman named Herbert Pocket. The two young men live beyond their means and fall deeply in debt. Pip sets up house with Herbert Pocket at Barnard’s Inn and makes friends with Mr. Jaggers’ clerk, Mr. Wemmick, and enjoys visiting him at his Castle. He expresses disdain for his former friends and loved ones, especially Joe, but he continues to pine after Estella. He furthers his education by studying with the tutor Matthew Pocket, Herbert’s father.

Herbert himself helps Pip learn how to act like a gentleman.When Pip turns twenty-one and begins to receive an income from his fortune, he will secretly help Herbert buy his way into the business he has chosen for himself. Pip is told the background of Miss Havisham and her ill-fated wedding day. He also is embarrassed by a visit from Joe. The return of the convict Several years go by, until one night a familiar figure barges into Pip’s room—the convict, Magwitch, who stuns Pip by announcing that he, not Miss Havisham, is the source of Pip’s fortune: he is the one for whom Pip had stolen Mrs. Joe’s Pork Pie and taken it to the graveyard in the church. He tells Pip that he was so moved by Pip’s boyhood kindness that he dedicated his life to making Pip a gentleman, and he made a fortune in Australia for that very purpose. Pip is appalled, but he feels morally bound to help Magwitch escape London, as the convict is pursued both by the police and by Compeyson, his former partner in crime. This knowledge begins the change in Pip from ungrateful snobbery to the humility associated with Joe and home.

It’s a small world: Orlick reappears. Orlick reappears in Pip’s life, employed as Miss Havisham’s porter, but is promptly fired by the lawyer Jaggers after Pip reveals Orlick’s unsavory past. Mrs. Joe dies, and Pip goes home for the funeral, feeling tremendous grief and remorse. The wrath of a bride spurned by her groom A complicated mystery begins to fall into place when Pip discovers that Compeyson was the man who abandoned Miss Havisham at the altar and that Estella is Magwitch’s daughter. Miss Havisham has raised and trained her in the craft of breaking the hearts of men. That would be as revenge for the pain her own broken heart caused her. Pip was merely a boy for the young Estella to practice on; Miss Havisham delighted in Estella’s ability to toy with his affections. Miss Hamishm confesses; Pip forgives As the weeks pass, Pip sees the good in Magwitch and begins to care for him deeply. Before Magwitch’s escape attempt, Estella marries an upper-class lout named Bentley Drummle.

Pip makes a visit to Satis House, where Miss Havisham begs his forgiveness for the way she has treated him in the past. Pip forgives her. Later that day, when she bends over the fireplace, her clothing catches fire and she goes up in flames. She survives but becomes an invalid. In her final days, she will continue to repent for her misdeeds. A Friend in need is a friend indeed The time comes for Pip and his friends to spirit Magwitch away from London. Just before the escape attempt, Pip is called to a shadowy meeting in the marshes, where he encounters the vengeful, evil Orlick. Orlick is on the verge of killing Pip when Herbert arrives with a group of friends and saves Pip’s life. Pip and Herbert hurry back to effect Magwitch’s escape. They try to sneak Magwitch down the river on a rowboat only to be discovered by the police, who Compeyson tipped off. Magwitch and Compeyson fight in the river resulting in Compeyson getting drowned. Magwitch is sentenced to death, and Pip loses his fortune. Magwitch feels that his sentence is God’s forgiveness and dies at peace.

Pip falls ill; Joe comes to London to care for him, and they are reconciled. Joe gives him the news from home: Orlick, after robbing Pumblechook, is now in jail; Miss Havisham has died and left most of her fortune to the Pockets; Biddy has taught Joe how to read and write. After Joe leaves, Pip decides to rush home after him and marry Biddy, but when he arrives there he discovers that she and Joe have already married. As Magwitch’s fortune in money and land was seized by the court, Pip no longer has income. Pip promises to repay Joe. Herbert asks him to join his firm in Cairo; he shares lodgings with Herbert and Clara and works as a clerk, advancing over time. Pip locates Estella and relocates her in her arms. Pip decides to go abroad with Herbert to work in the mercantile trade. Returning eleven years later, Pip visits the ruins of Satis House and meets Estella, widow to the abusive Bentley Drummle. She asks Pip to forgive her, assuring him that misfortune has opened her heart and that she now empathises with Pip.

As Pip takes Estella’s hand and leaves the ruins of Satis House, he sees “no shadow of another parting from her.” More content to be added. I’ll be back. Tuition Literature Cambridge OL

Question: In which Dickens novel would you find a lawyer named Jaggers?
Answer: GREAT EXPECTATIONS