Great Expectations

GREAT EXPECTATIONS - CHARLES DICKENS
Great Expectations is the thirteenth novel by English author Charles Dickens

and his penultimate completed novel. The novel is a Bildungsroman and
depicts the education of an orphan nicknamed Pip. The novel was first
published as a serial in Dickens's weekly periodical All the Year Round, from 1
December 1860 to August 1861. In October 1861, Chapman & Hall published
the novel in three volumes.
The novel is set in Kent and London in the early to mid-19th century and
contains some of Dickens's most celebrated scenes, starting in a graveyard,
where the young Pip is accosted by the escaped convict Abel Magwitch.
Great Expectations is full of extreme imagery—poverty, prison ships and
chains, and fights to the death—and has a colorful cast of characters who
have entered popular culture. These include the eccentric Miss Havisham,
the beautiful but cold Estella, and Joe Gargery, the unsophisticated and kind
blacksmith. Dickens's themes include wealth and poverty, love and rejection,
and the eventual triumph of good over evil. Great Expectations, which is
popular with both readers and literary critics, has been translated into many
languages and adapted numerous times into various media.
KEY FACTS ABOUT GREAT EXPECTATIONS
Full Title: Great Expectations
When Written: 1860-1861
Where Written: Kent, England
When Published: Serialized from 1860-1861; published in 1861
Literary Period: Victorian Era
Genre: Coming-of-Age Novel (Bildungsroman)
Setting: Kent and London, England
Climax: Pip discovers his patron is the convict
Antagonist: Orlick, Bentley Drummle, and Compeyson
Point of View: First person (Pip is the narrator)
SUMMARY
Pip is an orphan living in southeast England with his foul-tempered sister,
Mrs. Joe, and her gentle husband, Joe Gargery, the village blacksmith. On
Christmas Eve, Pip encounters an escaped convict in a leg-iron who scares
Pip into stealing food and a metal file for him. Pip steals the food and file
from his sister's pantry and Joe's blacksmith shop. The next day, Pip and Joe
see soldiers capture the convict on the marshes where he wrestles bitterly
with another escaped convict. The convict Pip helped protect Pip by
confessing to the theft of the food and file, and Pip's involvement goes
undiscovered.
Soon after, Pip is invited to start visiting wealthy Miss Havisham and her
snobby adopted daughter, Estella, at Satis House. Miss Havisham was
abandoned by her fiancée twenty years prior and seeks revenge on men by
raising Estella to mercilessly break hearts. Estella's disdain for Pip's
"commonness" inspires Pip's dissatisfaction with life as an apprentice
blacksmith. He grows infatuated with Estella and assesses himself by her
standards long after his Satis House visits come to an end.
Pip is apprenticed to Joe and grows increasingly despondent at his low status,
seeking to elevate himself through independent study. When Mrs. Joe is
brain-damaged by the blows of an intruder at the forge, Pip suspects Orlick,
Joe's cruel journeyman helper. Biddy moves in to run the household and
becomes Pip's confidante, trying in vain to help Pip get over Estella.
One night, Mr. Jaggers tells Pip that he has an anonymous patron who wishes
Pip to be trained as a gentleman. Pip assumes that this patron is Miss
Havisham, and that Estella is secretly betrothed to him. Unsympathetic to Joe
and Biddy's sadness at losing him, Pip snobbishly parades his new status and
goes to study with Matthew Pocket. Pip lives part-time with Matthew's sweet-
tempered son Herbert Pocket in London, where the two become fast friends.
Pip's study mates are Startop and Bentley Drummle, the foul-tempered heir
to a baronetcy who becomes Pip's nemesis when he pursues Estella, now an
elegant lady. Pip also befriends Wemmick, Mr. Jaggers' clerk, who is stoic and
proper in the office and warm and friendly outside of it. Pip spends
extravagantly and puts on airs, alienating Joe on Joe's trip to London. Pip
wishes Joe were more refined and fears association with him will jeopardize
his own social status. He doesn't return to the forge until he hears Mrs. Joe
has died. Even then, his visit is brief.
Back in London, Pip enlists Wemmick's help to invest secretly in Herbert's

career, a gesture Pip considers the best result of his wealth, or
"expectations." One night, Pip's patron finally reveals himself: he is Provis,
the convict Pip helped on the marshes who has saved up a fortune while in
exile and sailed back to England illegally just to see Pip. Pip is appalled by
Provis's manners and devastated to realize Estella can't possibly betroth him.
When he confronts Miss Havisham, she admits she led Pip on regarding
Estelle simply to make her selfish relatives jealous, and that Estella will be
married to Bentley Drummle. When heartbroken Pip professes his love for
her, Miss Havisham realizes her error in depriving Estella of a heart. She
pleads for Pip's forgiveness, which Pip readily grants. Back in London a few
days later, Pip realizes that Estella is the daughter of Provis and Mr. Jaggers'
maid Molly.
Provis' rival on the marshes was Compeyson, Miss Havisham's devious

former fiancée. Compeyson is looking for Provis in London and Pip plans to
get Provis out of England by boat. Before they escape, Orlick manages to lure
Pip to the village marshes and tries to kill him, but Herbert intervenes. Pip
nearly succeeds in escaping with Provis but Compeyson stops them, then
drowns, wrestling with Provis in the water. Provis is arrested and found guilty
of escaping illegally from the penal colony of New South Wales, but dies from
illness before his execution.
Pip falls ill. Joe nurses him and pays his debts. Healthy again, Pip returns to
the village hoping to marry Biddy only to stumble upon her happy wedding
with Joe. Pip goes abroad with Herbert to be a merchant. When he returns
eleven years later, he finds a spitting image of himself in Joe and Biddy's son
Pip II and runs into Estella on the razed site of Satis House. Suffering has
made Estella grow a heart and she and Pip walk off together, never to part
again.

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GREAT EXPECTATIONS - CHARLES DICKENS

Great Expectations is the thirteenth novel by English author Charles Dickens

KEY FACTS ABOUT GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Full Title: Great Expectations

When Written: 1860-1861

Where Written: Kent, England

When Published: Serialized from 1860-1861; published in 1861

Literary Period: Victorian Era

Genre: Coming-of-Age Novel (Bildungsroman)

Setting: Kent and London, England

Climax: Pip discovers his patron is the convict

Antagonist: Orlick, Bentley Drummle, and Compeyson

Point of View: First person (Pip is the narrator)

Back in London, Pip enlists Wemmick's help to invest secretly in Herbert's

Provis' rival on the marshes was Compeyson, Miss Havisham's devious

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