Great Expectations Summary

Great Expectations is the story of Pip, an orphan boy adopted by a blacksmith's

family, who has good luck and great expectations, and then loses both his luck
and his expectations. Through this rise and fall, however, Pip learns how to find
happiness. He learns the meaning of friendship and the meaning of love and, of
course, becomes a better person for it.
The story opens with the narrator, Pip, who introduces himself and describes a
much younger Pip staring at the gravestones of his parents. This tiny, shivering
bundle of a boy is suddenly terrified by a man dressed in a prison uniform. The
man tells Pip that if he wants to live, he'll go down to his house and bring him
back some food and a file for the shackle on his leg.

Pip runs home to his sister, Mrs. Joe Gragery, and his adoptive father, Joe
Gragery. Mrs. Joe is a loud, angry, nagging woman who constantly reminds Pip
and her husband Joe of the difficulties she has gone through to raise Pip and
take care of the house. Pip finds solace from these rages in Joe, who is more his
equal than a paternal figure, and they are united under a common oppression.

Pip steals food and a pork pie from the pantry shelf and a file from Joe's forge
and brings them back to the escaped convict the next morning. Soon thereafter,
Pip watches the man get caught by soldiers and the whole event soon
disappears from his young mind.

Mrs. Joe comes home one evening, quite excited, and proclaims that Pip is going
to "play" for Miss Havisham, "a rich and grim lady who lived in a large and dismal
house."
Pip is brought to Miss Havisham's place, a mansion called the "Satis House,"
where sunshine never enters. He meets a girl about his age, Estella, "who was
very pretty and seemed very proud." Pip instantly falls in love with her and will
love her the rest of the story. He then meets Miss Havisham, a willowy, yellowed
old woman dressed in an old wedding gown. Miss Havisham seems most happy
when Estella insults Pip's coarse hands and his thick boots as they play.
Pip is insulted, but thinks there is something wrong with him. He vows to change,
to become uncommon, and to become a gentleman.

Pip continues to visit Estella and Miss Havisham for eight months and learns
more about their strange life. Miss Havisham brings him into a great banquet hall
where a table is set with food and large wedding cake. But the food and the cake
are years old, untouched except by a vast array of rats, beetles and spiders
which crawl freely through the room. Her relatives all come to see her on the
same day of the year: her birthday and wedding day, the day when the cake was
set out and the clocks were stopped many years before; i.e. the day Miss
Havisham stopped living.

Pip begins to dream what life would be like if he were a gentleman and wealthy.
This dream ends when Miss Havisham asks Pip to bring Joe to visit her, in order
that he may start his indenture as a blacksmith. Miss Havisham gives Joe twenty
five pounds for Pip's service to her and says good-bye.

Pip explains his misery to his readers: he is ashamed of his home, ashamed of
his trade. He wants to be uncommon, he wants to be a gentleman. He wants to
be a part of the environment that he had a small taste of at the Manor House.

Early in his indenture, Mrs. Joe is found lying unconscious, knocked senseless
by some unknown assailant. She has suffered some serious brain damage,
having lost much of voice, her hearing, and her memory. Furthermore, her
"temper was greatly improved, and she was patient." To help with the housework
and to take care of Mrs. Joe, Biddy, a young orphan friend of Pip's, moves into
the house.
The years pass quickly. It is the fourth year of Pip's apprenticeship and he is
sitting with Joe at the pub when they are approached by a stranger. Pip
recognizes him, and his "smell of soap," as a man he had once run into at Miss
Havisham's house years before.

Back at the house, the man, Jaggers, explains that Pip now has "great
expectations." He is to be given a large monthly stipend, administered by
Jaggers who is a lawyer. The benefactor, however, does not want to be known
and is to remain a mystery.
Pip spends an uncomfortable evening with Biddy and Joe, then retires to bed.
There, despite having all his dreams come true, he finds himself feeling very
lonely. Pip visits Miss Havisham who hints subtly that she is his unknown
sponsor.

Early in his indenture, Mrs. Joe is found lying unconscious, knocked senseless
by some unknown assailant. She has suffered some serious brain damage,
having lost much of voice, her hearing, and her memory. Furthermore, her
"temper was greatly improved, and she was patient." To help with the housework
and to take care of Mrs. Joe, Biddy, a young orphan friend of Pip's, moves into
the house.
The years pass quickly. It is the fourth year of Pip's apprenticeship and he is
sitting with Joe at the pub when they are approached by a stranger. Pip
recognizes him, and his "smell of soap," as a man he had once run into at Miss
Havisham's house years before.
Back at the house, the man, Jaggers, explains that Pip now has "great
expectations." He is to be given a large monthly stipend, administered by
Jaggers who is a lawyer. The benefactor, however, does not want to be known
and is to remain a mystery.
Pip spends an uncomfortable evening with Biddy and Joe, then retires to bed.
There, despite having all his dreams come true, he finds himself feeling very
lonely. Pip visits Miss Havisham who hints subtly that she is his unknown
sponsor.

Pip stays away from Joe and Biddy's house and the forge, but walks around
town, enjoying the admiring looks he gets from his past neighbors.

Soon thereafter, a letter for Pip announces the death of Mrs. Joe Gragery. Pip
returns home again to attend the funeral. Later, Joe and Pip sit comfortably by
the fire like times of old. Biddy insinuates that Pip will not be returning soon as he
promises and he leaves insulted. Back in London, Pip asks Wemmick for advice
on how to give Herbert some of his yearly stipend anonymously.

Narrator Pip describes his relationship to Estella while she lived in the city: "I
suffered every kind and degree of torture that Estella could cause me," he says.
Pip finds out that Drummle, the most repulsive of his acquaintances, has begun
courting Estella.
Years go by and Pip is still living the same wasteful life of a wealthy young man
in the city. A rough sea-worn man of sixty comes to Pip's home on a stormy night
soon after Pip's twenty-fourth birthday. Pip invites him in, treats him with
courteous disdain, but then begins to recognize him as the convict that he fed in
the marshes when he was a child. The man, Magwitch, reveals that he is Pip's
benefactor. Since the day that Pip helped him, he swore to himself that every
cent he earned would go to Pip.
"I've made a gentleman out of you," the man exclaims. Pip is horrified. All of his
expectations are demolished. There is no grand design by Miss Havisham to
make Pip happy and rich, living in harmonious marriage to Estella.

The convict tells Pip that he has come back to see him under threat of his life,
since the law will execute him if they find him in England. Pip is disgusted with
him, but wants to protect him and make sure he isn't found and put to death.
Herbert and Pip decide that Pip will try and convince Magwitch to leave England
with him.

Magwitch tells them the story of his life. From a very young age, he was alone
and got into trouble. In one of his brief stints actually out of jail, Magwitch met a
young well-to-do gentleman named Compeysonwho had his hand in everything
illegal: swindling, forgery, and other white collar crime. Compeyson recruited
Magwitch to do his dirty work and landed Magwitch into trouble with the law.
Magwitch hates the man. Herbert passes a note to Pip telling him that
Compeyson was the name of the man who left Miss Havisham on her wedding
day.
Pip goes back to Satis House and finds Miss Havisham and Estella in the same
banquet room. Pip breaks down and confesses his love for Estella. Estella tells
him straight that she is incapable of love -- she has warned him of as much
before -- and she will soon be married to Drummle.

Back in London, Wemmick tells Pip things he has learned from the prisoners at
Newgate. Pip is being watched, he says, and may be in some danger. As well,
Compeyson has made his presence known in London. Wemmick has already
warned Herbert as well. Heeding the warning, Herbert has hidden Magwitch in
his fiancé Clara's house.
Pip has dinner with Jaggers and Wemmick at Jaggers' home. During the dinner,
Pip finally realizes the similarities between Estella and Jaggers' servant woman.
Jaggers' servant woman is Estella's mother!

On their way home together, Wemmick tells the story of Jaggers' servant woman.
It was Jaggers' first big break-through case, the case that made him. He was
defending this woman in a case where she was accused of killing another
woman by strangulation. The woman was also said to have killed her own child,
a girl, at about the same time as the murder.

Miss Havisham asks Pip to come visit her. He finds her again sitting by the fire,
but this time she looks very lonely. Pip tells her how he was giving some of his
money to help Herbert with his future, but now must stop since he himself is no
longer taking money from his benefactor. Miss Havisham wants to help, and she
gives Pip nine hundred pounds to help Herbert out. She then asks Pip for
forgiveness. Pip tells her she is already forgiven and that he needs too much
forgiving himself not to be able to forgive others.

Pip goes for a walk around the garden then comes back to find Miss Havisham
on fire! Pip puts the fire out, burning himself badly in the process. The doctors
come and announce that she will live.

Pip goes home and Herbert takes care of his burns. Herbert has been spending
some time with Magwitch at Clara's and has been told the whole Magwitch story.
Magwitch was the husband of Jaggers' servant woman, the Tigress. The woman
had come to Magwitch on the day she murdered the other woman and told him
she was going to kill their child and that Magwitch would never see her. And
Magwitch never did. Pip puts is all together and tells Herbert that Magwitch is
Estella's father.
It is time to escape with Magwitch. Herbert and Pip get up the next morning and
start rowing down the river, picking up Magwitch at the preappointed time. They
are within a few feet of a steamer that they hope to board when another boat
pulls alongside to stop them. In the confusion, Pip sees Compeyson leading the
other boat, but the steamer is on top of them. The steamer crushes Pip's boat,
Compeyson and Magwitch disappear under water, and Pip and Herbert find
themselves in a police boat of sorts. Magwitch finally comes up from the water.
He and Compeyson wrestled for a while, but Magwitch had let him go and he is
presumably drowned. Once again, Magwitch is shackled and arrested.

Magwitch is in jail and quite ill. Pip attends to the ailing Magwitch daily in prison.
Pip whispers to him one day that the daughter he thought was dead is quite alive.
"She is a lady and very beautiful," Pip says. "And I love her." Magwitch gives up
the ghost.

Pip falls into a fever for nearly a month. Creditors and Joe fall in and out of his
dreams and his reality. Finally, he regains his senses and sees that, indeed, Joe
has been there the whole time, nursing him back to health. Joe tells him that
Miss Havisham died during his illness, that she left Estella nearly all, and
Matthew Pocket a great deal. Joe slips away one morning leaving only a note.
Pip discovers that Joe has paid off all his debtors.

Pip is committed to returning to Joe, asking for forgiveness for everything he has
done, and to ask Biddy to marry him. Pip goes to Joe and indeed finds happiness
-- but the happiness is Joe and Biddy's. It is their wedding day. Pip wishes them
well, truly, and asks them for their forgiveness in all his actions. They happily give
it.

Pip goes to work for Herbert's' firm and lives with the now married Clara and
Herbert. Within a year, he becomes a partner. He pays off his debts and works
hard.

Eleven years later, Pip returns from his work overseas. He visits Joe and Biddy
and meets their son, a little Pip, sitting by the fire with Joe just like Pip himself did
years ago. Pip tells Biddy that he is quite the settled old bachelor, living with
Clara and Herbert and he thinks he will never marry. Nevertheless, he goes to
the Satis House that night to think once again of the girl who got away. And there
he meets Estella. Drummle treated her roughly and recently died. She tells Pip
that she has learned the feeling of heartbreak the hard way and now seeks his
forgiveness for what she did to him. The two walk out of the garden hand in
hand, and Pip "saw the shadow of no parting from her."