Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

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eNotes: Table of Contents 1. Great Expectations: Introduction 2. Great Expectations: Overview 3. Great Expectations: Charles Dickens Biography 4. Great Expectations: Summary 5. Great Expectations: Summary and Analysis ♦ Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary and Analysis ♦ Part 1, Chapter 2 and 3 Summary and Analysis ♦ Part 1, Chapter 4 and 5 Summary and Analysis ♦ Part 1, Chapter 6 and 7 Summary and Analysis ♦ Part 1, Chapter 8 and 9 Summary and Analysis ♦ Part 1, Chapter 10 and 11 Summary and Analysis ♦ Part 1, Chapter 12 and 13 Summary and Analysis ♦ Part 1, Chapter 14 and 15 Summary and Analysis ♦ Part 1, Chapter 16 and 17 Summary and Analysis ♦ Part 1, Chapter 18 and 19 Summary and Analysis ♦ Part 2, Chapter 20 and 21 Summary and Analysis ♦ Part 2, Chapter 22 and 23 Summary and Analysis ♦ Part 2, Chapter 24 and 25 Summary and Analysis ♦ Part 2, Chapter 26 and 27 Summary and Analysis ♦ Part 2, Chapter 28 and 29 Summary and Analysis ♦ Part 2, Chapter 30 and 31 Summary and Analysis ♦ Part 2, Chapter 32 and 33 Summary and Analysis ♦ Part 2, Chapter 34 and 35 Summary and Analysis Great Expectations

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♦ Part 2, Chapter 36 and 37 Summary and Analysis ♦ Part 2, Chapter 38 and 39 Summary and Analysis ♦ Part 3, Chapter 40 and 41 Summary and Analysis ♦ Part 3, Chapter 42 and 43 Summary and Analysis ♦ Part 3, Chapter 44 and 45 Summary and Analysis ♦ Part 3, Chapter 46 and 47 Summary and Analysis ♦ Part 3, Chapter 48 and 49 Summary and Analysis ♦ Part 3, Chapter 50 and 51 Summary and Analysis ♦ Part 3, Chapter 52 and 53 Summary and Analysis ♦ Part 3, Chapter 54 and 55 Summary and Analysis ♦ Part 3, Chapter 56 and 57 Summary and Analysis ♦ Part 3, Chapter 58 and 59 Summary and Analysis 6. Great Expectations: Quizzes ♦ Part 1, Chapter 1 Questions and Answers ♦ Part 1, Chapters 2 and 3 Questions and Answers ♦ Part 1, Chapters 4 and 5 Questions and Answers ♦ Part 1, Chapters 6 and 7 Questions and Answers ♦ Part 1, Chapters 8 and 9 Questions and Answers ♦ Part 1, Chapters 10 and 11 Questions and Answers ♦ Part 1, Chapters 12 and 13 Questions and Answers ♦ Part 1, Chapters 14 and 15 Questions and Answers ♦ Part 1, Chapters 16 and 17 Questions and Answers ♦ Part 1, Chapter 18 and 19 Questions and Answers ♦ Part 2, Chapters 20 and 21 Questions and Answers ♦ Part 2, Chapters 22 and 23 Questions and Answers ♦ Part 2, Chapters 24 and 25 Questions and Answers ♦ Part 2, Chapters 26 and 27 Questions and Answers ♦ Part 2, Chapters 28 and 29 Questions and Answers ♦ Part 2, Chapters 30 and 31 Questions and Answers ♦ Part 2, Chapters 32 and 33 Questions and Answers ♦ Part 2, Chapters 34 and 35 Questions and Answers ♦ Part 2, Chapters 36 and 37 Questions and Answers ♦ Part 2, Chapters 38 and 39 Questions and Answers ♦ Part 3, Chapters 40 and 41 Questions and Answers ♦ Part 3, Chapters 42 and 43 Questions and Answers ♦ Part 3, Chapters 44 and 45 Questions and Answers ♦ Part 3, Chapters 46 and 47 Questions and Answers ♦ Part 3, Chapters 48 and 49 Questions and Answers ♦ Part 3, Chapters 50 and 51 Questions and Answers ♦ Part 3, Chapters 52 and 53 Questions and Answers ♦ Part 3, Chapters 54 and 55 Questions and Answers ♦ Part 3, Chapters 56 and 57 Questions and Answers ♦ Part 3, Chapters 58 and 59 Questions and Answers 7. Great Expectations: Essential Passages ♦ Essential Passages by Character: Pip ♦ Essential Passages by Theme: False Expectations 8. Great Expectations: Characters 9. Great Expectations: Themes 10. Great Expectations: Style 11. Great Expectations: Historical Context 12. Great Expectations: Critical Overview eNotes: Table of Contents

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13. Great Expectations: Character Analysis 14. Great Expectations: Essays and Criticism ♦ Great Expectations: Overview ♦ Great Expectations: A Reflection of Serial Publication and Dickens' Social Concerns ♦ The Character of Estella in Great Expectations ♦ Imagery and Theme in Great Expectations 15. Great Expectations: Suggested Essay Topics 16. Great Expectations: Sample Essay Outlines 17. Great Expectations: Compare and Contrast 18. Great Expectations: Topics for Further Study 19. Great Expectations: Media Adaptations 20. Great Expectations: What Do I Read Next? 21. Great Expectations: Bibliography and Further Reading 22. Great Expectations: Pictures 23. Copyright

Great Expectations: Introduction This was Dickens' second-to-last complete novel. It was first published as a weekly series in 1860 and in book form in 1861. Early critics had mixed reviews, disliking Dickens' tendency to exaggerate both plot and characters, but readers were so enthusiastic that the 1861 edition required five printings. Similar to Dickens' memories of his own childhood, in his early years the young Pip seems powerless to stand against injustice or to ever realize his dreams for a better life. However, as he grows into a useful worker and then an educated young man he reaches an important realization: grand schemes and dreams are never what they first seem to be. Pip himself is not always honest, and careful readers can catch him in several obvious contradictions between his truth and fantasies. Victorian-era audiences were more likely to have appreciated the melodramatic scenes and the revised, more hopeful ending. However, modern critics have little but praise for Dickens' brilliant development of timeless themes: fear and fun, loneliness and luck, classism and social justice, humiliation and honor. Some still puzzle over Dickens' revision that ends the novel with sudden optimism, and they suggest that the sales of Dickens' magazine All the Year Round, in which the series first appeared, was assured by gluing on a happy ending that hints Pip and Estella will unite at last. Some critics point out that the original ending is better because it is more realistic since Pip must earn the self-knowledge that can only come from giving up his obsession with Estella. However, Victorian audiences eagerly followed the story of Pip, episode by episode, assuming that the protagonist's love and patience would win out in the end. Modern editions contain both denouements for the reader to choose a preference.

Great Expectations: Overview Background In order to understand the literature during the Victorian Age, one needs to have an understanding of England at that time. The era is named for England’s popular Queen Victoria who ruled for nearly 60 years. This era was a complex time and one of change. It was during the nineteenth century that England definitely became the Great Britain that is known today. The expansion of the British Empire was indeed worldwide. England was wealthy, yet democracy was slowly being forced upon her by industrial changes and political reforms. The problems of a growing democratic spirit in politics and the problems of social and industrial adjustment needed to be solved. The Industrial Revolution changed England from a primarily agricultural nation to one that was primarily industrial and mercantile. Inventions such as the steam engine, the spinning jenny, and the power loom made machines replace hand labor, giving rise to mass unemployment. The factory system was introduced, and it Great Expectations: Introduction

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was in this setting that Dickens grew up. London was the center of world dominance, but raw sewage flowed along its streets. Slums lined the Thames River. Employers used women and child labor at starvation wages. Children were taken from homes of greedy parents or from orphanages and “workhouses” and put to work in the factories. Along with the Industrial Revolution, there was another revolution taking place between science and theology. Charles Darwin and Thomas Henry Huxley were upsetting the nation with their new doctrine that man evolved from earlier forms through a process of long development. Warfare began between those who believed that Man was created in a day in the image of God and given authority over the animal world, and those who believed Man evolved scientifically. Victorian literature was another revolution, replacing the romantic literature of the past that had romanticized the upper classes. Victorian literature was written for the people. Magazines became very popular with the English people and catered to all classes of readers. The popular magazines provided an outlet for many writers who wrote their novels in month to month sections, much like a serial. Because these installments usually appeared month to month or week to week, the writer strung his story out based on its popularity with readers. The pressure of social problems tended to create a new awareness of and interest in human beings and relationships; thus, characterization became a dominant quality in literature. List of Characters Pip (a.k.a. Philip Pirrip, Handel)—Narrator of the novel who has great expectations. Miss Havisham—Eccentric woman who lives in seclusion after being jilted on her wedding day. She has an adopted daughter Estella. Abel Magwitch (a.k.a. Provis, First Convict, Mr. Campbell)—Pip’s benefactor and Estella’s father. Estella—Adopted daughter of Miss Havisham who marries Bentley Drummle. Joe Gargery—Married Pip’s sister. He is a blacksmith in the village. Mrs. Joe Gargery (a.k.a. Georgiana M’Ria)—Pip’s sister who dies as a result of a blow on the head. Biddy—Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt’s granddaughter and an orphan. She marries Joe Gargery after the death of Mrs. Joe. Mr. Jaggers —Pip’s guardian and Miss Havisham’s lawyer. He is also Abel Magwitch’s lawyer. Herbert Pocket, Pale Young Gentleman—Pip’s roommate in London and close friend. John Wemmick—A clerk in Mr. Jaggers’ office. Matthew Pocket—Father to Herbert Pocket and tutor for Pip while he is in London. Compeyson, Second Convict—Fiance who jilted Miss Havisham and partner with Abel Magwitch and Arthur in illegal dealings. Uncle Pumblechook—Joe’s uncle and the one who takes the credit for Pip’s fortunes. Dolge Orlick—Responsible for Mrs. Joe’s death and is Pip’s enemy.

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Clara—Marries Herbert Pocket. Bentley Drummle—Also known as the Spider. Was tutored by Matthew Pocket and married Estella. Aged Parent—John Wemmick’s father who is deaf. Miss Skiffins—Marries John Wemmick. Molly—Servant to Mr. Jaggers and Estella’s mother. Arthur—Miss Havisham’s half brother and a partner to Compeyson. Mr. Wopsle, Mr. Waldengarver—A clerk in the church before becoming an actor. Mr. Trabb—A local tailor and undertaker in Pip’s village. Mr. Trabb’s boy—Makes fun of Pip when he receives his fortune, but leads Herbert and Startop to the sluice house where Orlick is holding Pip captive. Bill Barley, Gruffandgrim—Father of Clara and an ex-purser. Startop—Like Pip and Drummle, is tutored by Matthew Pocket. He is also a friend of Pip’s who helps try to get Magwitch out of the country. Mr. Hubble—A wheelwright in Pip’s village and a guest at Christmas dinner when Pip was young. Mrs. Hubble—Wife of Mr. Hubble and also a guest at Christmas dinner. Mr. Wopsle’s Great-Aunt—Runs an evening school in the village. She also runs a little store where Biddy works. Mrs. Camilla—Relative to Miss Havisham. Cousin Raymond—Relative to Miss Havisham. Sarah Pocket—Relative to Miss Havisham and works briefly for her. Georgiana Pocket—Relative to Miss Havisham. Mrs. Whimple—The landlady where Clara and her father live. It is also her house where Magwitch is hidden. Flopson and Millers—Nurses who work for Matthew Pocket. Pepper, Avenger—A servant for Pip while he is in London. Skiffins—Miss Skiffins’ brother. He is an accountant who arranges for Herbert to become a partner with Clarriker. Clarriker—The merchant that Pip arranges for Herbert to go into business with. Mrs. Brandley—A widow and the lady Estella is living with in Richmond. Great Expectations: Overview

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Belinda Pocket—Wife of Matthew Pocket and mother to Herbert Pocket. Jack—The man who dresses in the clothes left by roomers or takes them from drowned victims. He is at the public house where Herbert, Magwitch, Pip, and Startop spend the night before rowing out to sea. Squires—Landlord of the Blue Boar. Mrs. Coiler—A widow and a neighbor to Mr. and Mrs. Matthew Pocket. Sophia—A servant of Matthew and Belinda Pocket. Colonel—A soldier in Newgate Prison who is sentenced to die. Sally—Compeyson’s wife. Mary Anne—A young servant working for Mr. Wemmick. Stranger at the Three Jolly Bargemen—A recent convict who knew Abel Magwitch. He gave Pip some money from Magwitch and stirred his drink with Joe’s file. Summary of the Novel Great Expectations can be divided into three stages in the life of Pip. The first stage presents Pip as an orphan being raised by an unkind sister who resents him, and her husband, who offers him kindness and love. While visiting the tombstones of his parents in the cemetery, Pip encounters a convict and is made to bring him food and a file the next day. Pip’s convict and a second convict are caught by soldiers of the Crown and returned to the prison ships (the Hulks). Uncle Pumblechook arranges for Pip to go to Miss Havisham’s house to play, and there he meets and falls in love with Estella. Pip returns to Miss Havisham’s house to walk her around the decayed banquet table every other day for nearly 10 months. Miss Havisham rewards Pip for his service by paying for his apprenticeship to become a blacksmith with Joe. Pip is unhappy with his position and longs to become a gentleman in order that he may eventually win Estella’s affection. One day a lawyer, Mr. Jaggers, comes to tell Pip that a beneficiary has left him great fortunes. Pip is to go to London to become a gentleman. Pip believes that the benefactor is Miss Havisham. The second stage of Pip’s life takes place in London where he becomes friends with Herbert Pocket. The two young men live beyond their means and fall deeply in debt. Pip makes friends with Mr. Jaggers’ clerk, Mr. Wemmick, and enjoys visiting him at his Castle. Pip is told the background of Miss Havisham and her ill-fated wedding day. He also is embarrassed by a visit from Joe. An unexpected visit from his convict reveals that the convict, not Miss Havisham, is his benefactor. The man’s name is Magwitch; he is the one to whom Pip had brought food in the churchyard. This knowledge begins the change in Pip from ungrateful snobbery to the humility associated with Joe and home. The third stage in Pip’s life solves all the remaining mysteries of the novel. Compeyson, the second convict who was Magwitch’s enemy, is drowned when Pip tries to aid Magwitch in his escape from London. Pip finds out who Estella’s mother and father are. Pip is rescued from Orlick. Magwitch dies in prison, and Pip becomes a clerk in Cairo with Herbert. He returns 11 years later and finds Estella at the site of Satis House. The more popular ending indicated that they stayed together.

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Estimated Reading Time Four weeks should be allowed for the study of Great Expectations. Three weeks will be required to read the novel, reading four chapters at a sitting. The student should read every day from Monday through Friday. After reading the chapters, the student should answer all study questions in this book to ensure understanding and comprehension. The essay questions may be used if needed. The fourth week is set aside for reports, projects, and testing as deemed necessary by the teacher.

Great Expectations: Charles Dickens Biography From the time he was twenty-one Charles Dickens knew he would not be the great actor he had imagined, nor even the journalist he next attempted to be. Instead, he felt he was destined to become a great novelist. He not only had experiences with the same joys and tragedies his characters would have, but he also had the great talent to make his readers feel and see all these experiences in detail. The second of eight children of John and Elizabeth Dickens, Charles was born on February 7, 1812, in Portsmouth, England. His early childhood was a happy one. Though plagued by frequent illnesses, his first years were also filled with exciting stories told to him by his parents and his nurse. However, when Dickens was twelve, his family moved to London, where his father was imprisoned for debts he could not pay. Charles was forced to go to work pasting labels on bottles at a bootblack factory. Although this job lasted less than a year, he often felt hungry and abandoned, especially compared to his sister Frances, who continued studying at the Royal Academy of Music, where she was winning awards. For Dickens, the injustice was almost more than he could stand, and his suffering was multiplied by his mother's delight about the job that he always remembered with hatred.

Charles Dickens Although his critics are the first to say that Great Expectations is not directly autobiographical, Dickens' own words tell us that he resented having to work in the factory, where he dreamed of the better life he felt he deserved, much as Pip is eager to leave Joe's forge. Also, Dickens' essay "Travelling Abroad" describes a small boy who rides in a coach with Dickens past his grand house, Gad's Hill. Although the boy in the essay does not know Dickens or that this is the great author's house, he remarks that his father has told him that hard work will earn him this house, which Dickens had also admired for years before finally being able to afford it in 1856. Dickens' familiarity with youthful expectations and later-life remembrances of them are clear in this reflection. Likewise, Dickens' first love for Maria Beadnell so impressed him by its horrible failure that even years later he could barely speak of it to his friend and biographer, John Forster. All that Dickens had written about her Great Expectations: Charles Dickens Biography

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he later burned. He believed that Maria had rejected him because of social class differences, since Dickens had not yet established his writing career at the time and Maria's father was a banker. Decades later, his character Miss Havisham would burn, shooting up flames twice her size, in compensation for her cold heart. Dickens' marriage to Catherine (Kate) Hogarth, the daughter of a newspaper editor, in 1836 produced ten children. Their union ended in separation in 1858, however. By the time Great Expectations was published in 1860, Dickens had known his mistress Ellen Ternan—an actress he had met when he became interested in the stage—for several years, and he established a separate household in which he lived with Ternan. It would not be until after the author's death, however, that Dickens' daughter would make the affair public. Ternan was twenty-seven years younger than Dickens, a fact that resembles the age difference between the happy, later-life couple Joe and Biddy in Great Expectations. Dickens protected his privacy because he was worried about his reputation as a respected writer and the editor of Household Words, a family magazine. Such turmoil and ecstasy in Dickens' intimate relationships have since been compared to the misery and bliss of couples in his novels. If anything, Dickens' descriptions of suffering were and still are his chief endearing quality to readers who find them both realistic and empathetic. Beginning with Bleak House in 1852, Dickens is widely acknowledged to have entered a "Dark Period" of writing. Yet he seemed to enjoy his continuing popularity with readers and to ignore his critics' remarks that his stories were too melodramatic. While readers have long accepted that tendency, they have also warmed to Dickens' love of humor. Critics suggest that the part of Dickens' life that is most reflected in A Tale of Two Cities is his personal relationships with his wife and Ellen Ternan. In 1855, he reestablished contact with his childhood sweetheart Maria Beadnell, but he was very disappointed with their meeting and depicted his disillusionment in the 1857 novel Little Dorrit. A quarrel with his publishers Bradbury & Evans over his mistress's reputation led Dickens to turn to a new publishing house, Chapman & Hall, to publish A Tale of Two Cities. Some critics suggest that Dickens' depiction of Lucie Manette in A Tale of Two Cities and the behavior of the two principal characters, Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay, toward her, reflects his own attitude toward Ternan. Dickens died of a brain aneurysm in June 1870. Although he had expressly wished to be buried at his country home, Gad's Hill, his request was disregarded, apparently owing to his fame. Instead, he was buried in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey, London.

Great Expectations: Summary The First Stage of Pip's Expectations Charles Dickens' Great Expectations opens as seven-year-old Philip Pirrip, known as "Pip," visits the graves of his parents down in the marshes near his home on Christmas Eve. Here he encounters a threatening escaped convict, who frightens Pip and makes him promise to steal food and a file for him. Pip steals some food from his brother-in-law, the blacksmith Joe Gargery, and his cruel sister "Mrs. Joe," with whom he lives, and takes it to the convict the next day. The convict is soon caught and returned to the "Hulks," the prison ships from which he had escaped. Pip is invited to visit the wealthy Miss Havisham, and to play with her adopted daughter, Estella. Miss Havisham lives in the gloomy Satis House, and Pip discovers her to be an extremely eccentric woman. Having been abandoned on her wedding day many years earlier, Miss Havisham has never changed out of her wedding dress since that time, and nothing in the house, including the rotting wedding cake covered with spider webs, has been touched since she discovered that her fiance had left her and had cheated her out of a great deal of money. Miss Havisham has raised Estella to be a cold and heartless woman who will avenge her adopted mother by breaking the hearts of men. Great Expectations: Summary

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Pip continues to visit Satis House to play with Estella, and he begins to fall in love with her, despite the fact that she is rude and condescending to him. Because of Miss Havisham's interest in him, Pip's family and friends speculate on his future prospects, and Pip attempts to improve those prospects by asking his friend, the orphaned Biddy, to tutor him. Eventually, Miss Havisham gives Pip some money, tells him his services are no longer needed, and that it is time for him to be apprenticed to his brother-in-law, Joe. Pip is disappointed. One day Pip learns that someone has broken into his home and that his sister, Mrs. Joe, has been injured with a great blow to the back of the head. Biddy moves in to help take care of her and the household and continues to tutor Pip, with whom she is falling in love. Biddy believes that it was Orlick, a contemptuous employee of Joe's, who injured Mrs. Joe. Biddy also fears that Orlick is falling in love with her. Pip continues to work for Joe, visiting Miss Havisham every year on his birthday, and constantly regretting his desire for a more comfortable lifestyle and his infatuation with Estella. Some time later a stranger visits Pip and informs him that an anonymous benefactor would like to transform him into a gentleman. The stranger, a lawyer named Jaggers, will administer Pip's new income and suggests that Pip move to London and take a man named Matthew Pocket as his tutor, who happens to be a relative of Miss Havisham. Pip assumes that Miss Havisham is his mysterious benefactor. Pip buys himself some new clothes and bidding his family farewell, slips out of town on his own, embarrassed to be seen in his new outfit with Joe. The Second Stage of Pip's Expectations In London, Pip lodges with Pocket's son Herbert. Pip also becomes friends with John Wemmick, Jaggers' clerk, and learns that Jaggers is a famous lawyer who is noted for his work in defending prisoners and thieves who face execution. Wemmick takes Pip home to dinner one night, and Pip is intrigued by his house, which resembles a tiny castle, complete with drawbridge and moat, where Wemmick lives with his elderly and stone-deaf father, whom he calls "the Aged P." Pip is also invited to dine at Jaggers' house, where he meets Jaggers' sullen housekeeper, Molly. Joe comes to London to bring a message to Pip, who is embarrassed to have Joe visit him. The message is from Miss Havisham, who invites Pip to come to see Estella, who is visiting her mother. Going to Satis House at once, Pip is surprised to find that Orlick is now Miss Havisham's watchman, and he tells Jaggers that the man should be dismissed. Not long after this, Pip learns that his sister has died, and he returns home for her funeral. While he is there, he promises Biddy that he will visit Joe often in the future, but Biddy expresses her doubt that he actually will do so: "I am not going to leave poor Joe alone." Biddy said never a single word. "Biddy, don't you hear me?" "Yes, Mr Pip." "Not to mention your calling me Mr. Pip—which appears to me to be in bad taste, Biddy—what do you mean?" "What do I mean?" asked Biddy, timidly. "Biddy," said I, in a virtuously self-asserting manner, "I must request to know what you mean by this?"

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"By this?" said Biddy. "Now don't echo," I retorted. "You used not to echo, Biddy." "Used not!" said Biddy. "O Mr. Pip! Used!" … "Biddy," said I, "I made a remark respecting my coming down here often, to see Joe, which you received with a marked silence. Have the goodness, Biddy, to tell me why." "Are you quite sure, then, that you WILL come to see him often?" asked Biddy, stopping in the narrow garden walk, and looking at me under the stars with a clear and honest eye. "Oh dear me!" said I, as if I found myself compelled to give up Biddy in despair. "This really is a very bad side of human nature! Don't say any more, if you please, Biddy. This shocks me very much." The Third Stage of Pip's Expectations One day Pip is visited by a stranger, and soon recognizes him to be the convict to whom he had brought food years ago. The convict, Abel Magwitch, has made a fortune as a sheep farmer in New South Wales, Australia, and he has prided himself on having used his money to make a gentleman out of the little boy who had helped him long ago. Pip is shocked and embarrassed to learn that it is the convict who has given him his "great expectations" and not Miss Havisham. Magwitch tells him of his history, and how he became involved with another more gentlemanly criminal who got him into trouble, and yet was punished less severely when they were both caught. Pip and Herbert deduce that this criminal is Compeyson, the man who schemed with his partner, Arthur, to swindle Miss Havisham of her money. Arthur was supposed to marry Miss Havisham to get her money, but his conscience caused him to abandon her at the altar when he couldn't go through with the plan. Because Magwitch faces certain death if he is discovered in England, Pip and Herbert concoct a plan for helping him escape unnoticed. Planning to leave the country with Magwitch, Pip pays Miss Havisham a call. The old lady admits that she allowed Pip to believe that she was his benefactress, and Pip asks her to help him with a plan he has to set Herbert up in business anonymously. Pip is shocked to learn that Estella plans to marry his doltish acquaintance Bentley Drummle. Dining one night with Jaggers, Pip learns more about the housekeeper Molly's history. Having been accused of killing another woman involved with her husband and having threatened to murder her own daughter, Molly was successfully defended by Jaggers. Recognizing her face and hands, Pip realizes with astonishment that Molly is the mother of Estella. Pip is summoned to Miss Havisham's again, where the old lady begs Pip to forgive her. After leaving her, Pip is disturbed and decides to return to the house to look in on her. He finds the poor old woman ablaze, having sat too close to the fire, and he is burned while trying to put out the flames. Later Pip learns of Miss Havisham's death, and that she has left money to Herbert, as he had requested. Returning to London, he learns the story of Magwitch's wife, and deduces that Magwitch was married to Molly, and therefore is Estella's father. Summoned back to the marshes near his old home by a mysterious note, Pip narrowly escapes death when he is attacked by a vengeful Orlick and rescued just in time by some local villagers. He returns to London where he and Herbert carry out their plan to sneak Magwitch into a steamer on the Thames. Their plans fail, however. They are attacked by another boat and Magwitch is severely wounded. As the kind old Magwitch is dying, Pip tells him of his daughter Estella.

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After being nursed out of a serious illness by the devoted Joe, Pip joins the business partnership he has established for Herbert in the East. After eleven years, he returns to England and visits Joe and Biddy, who have married and have a family. He also meets Estella, who has left her husband, on the property of the now demolished Satis House. This time, Pip says that "I saw no shadow of another parting from her." In Dickens' original version, Pip and Estella part with the understanding that they will probably never see each other again, but in the revised version, Dickens' makes the ending more optimistic by implying that they will, indeed, have a future together someday.

Great Expectations: Summary and Analysis Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary and Analysis New Characters Pip (Philip Pirrip): a young boy about six or seven years of age who is the narrator of the novel Mrs. Joe Gargery: Pip’s sister First Convict: a man who is hiding in the cemetery and threatens to kill Pip by cutting out his heart and liver if he does not bring him “wittles” (food) and a file “Philip Pirrip, Late Of This Parish”: inscription written on Pip’s father’s tombstone “Georgiana Wife Of The Above”: inscription written on Pip’s mother’s tombstone Alexander, Bartholomew Abraham Tobias, Roger: Pip’s brothers who died as infants; their tombstones are located next to the parents’ stones in the cemetery Summary Pip, an orphan being brought up by his sister, goes to the village cemetery to visit the tombstones of his parents and five little brothers. In the churchyard, a convict with an iron on his leg frightens Pip. The escaped convict—wet, cold, and hungry—questions Pip. After learning that Pip lives with his sister and her husband, the convict demands that Pip bring him “wittles” (food) and a file for his leg iron. The convict threatens to cut out Pip’s heart and liver if he does not return by the next morning. The demands are enforced with references to an unseen, evil companion who knows how to “get” young boys who do not do as they are told. Pip, terrified, runs home, which is located near the marsh country and 20 miles from the sea. Discussion and Analysis The opening chapter of Great Expectations focuses on a young orphan who is visiting his family in the churchyard. Because Pip has no living family, except for his sister with whom he lives, the reader is made to feel sympathy for the young boy. He seems to have a lonely life that is further complicated by the appearance of a convict who threatens him. The convict is also represented as a lonely outsider to society. Loneliness is not only presented in the character of Pip, but also in the setting. The churchyard is presented as dreary, isolated, and overgrown with nettles. Pip, in Chapter 1, can be described as a young, lonely, and trusting character. He always refers to the convict as “sir.” The convict, on the other hand, is coarse in speech and actions. He has obviously escaped from prison and is hiding in the churchyard.

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The novel is written from a first person point of view. The story is told from a mature Pip who is looking back over his life and telling his story to the readers, beginning when he was about six or seven years of age.

Part 1, Chapter 2 and 3 Summary and Analysis New Characters Joe Gargery: a blacksmith who is married to Pip’s sister Second Convict: an escaped convict from the hulks who has a bruise on his left cheek Summary Pip runs home from the churchyard only to be informed by Joe that his sister is out looking for him. His sister is 20 years older than Pip and is described as “not a good-looking woman … with black hair and eyes and a prevailing redness of skin.” Joe, on the other hand, is gentle and protective towards Pip and is described as “a fair man, with curls of flaxen hair on each side of his smooth face.” Mrs. Joe returns to the house, and upon finding Pip there, throws him across the room, striking him with “Tickler” (a beating rod). After demanding to know where he has been, she serves Joe and Pip some bread and butter. Remembering his promise to the convict, Pip decides to hide his serving of food down his pants leg. When Pip is sent to bed, he struggles with his fear of the convict’s companion and a heavy load of guilt, knowing that in the morning he is going to steal from Mrs. Joe. Pip gets up at sunrise, steals food, brandy, a pork pie, and one of Joe’s files. He then heads for the battery near the churchyard. As he nears the battery, Pip sees a convict huddled with his arms folded in sleep. Pip taps him on the shoulder, but when the startled convict turns around, it is not the first convict. The second convict strikes at Pip and runs off into the mist. Pip proceeds to the battery and locates the first convict, giving him the food and file. Pip asks the convict why he isn’t going to share with his companion. The first convict is startled when Pip tells about the second convict with the bruise on his left cheek. The first convict asks Pip which way he ran and begins to rapidly file off his leg iron. Pip hurries home. Discussion and Analysis The feeling of guilt has an unsettling effect on Pip. He cannot sleep; he cannot think of anything but his promise to steal for the convict. The theme of right and wrong or good and evil is introduced in these chapters. The guilt Pip feels is kept within himself, and he does not seek help or advice from his sister or Joe. Pip’s feeling of guilt is further emphasized when he questions his sister about the cannon fire and the Hulks. His sister replies that “people are put in the Hulks because they murder, and because they rob, and forge, and do all sorts of bad; and they always begin by asking questions.” Pip firmly believes that he is definitely on his way to join the convicts on the Hulks because he asks questions; even worse, in the morning he is planning to steal. In Chapters 2 and 3, Dickens presents vivid characterizations of Pip, Joe, and Mrs. Joe. Joe is portrayed as a gentle, caring, but simple man who tries to protect Pip from his sister’s wrath. His sister, on the other hand, is the domineering force in the Gargery household. She rules not only Pip, but also Joe, with a firm hand. At this point in Pip’s life, he feels that Joe is his friend and equal. Pip, even though he is terrified of the convict, is concerned about the man’s health and welfare. More because of his terror than his concern, he does not intend to break his promise.

Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary and Analysis

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Part 1, Chapter 4 and 5 Summary and Analysis New Characters Mr. Wopsle: the clerk at church and a guest at the Gargery’s Christmas dinner Mr. Hubble: the wheelwright (one who makes and repairs wheels) and a guest at the Gargery’s Christmas dinner Mrs. Hubble: wife of the wheelwright, also a guest at the Gargery’s Uncle Pumblechook: Joe’s uncle, a well-to-do corn chandler (grain merchant) and a guest at the Gargery’s Sergeant and His Soldiers: men in pursuit of the two escaped convicts; they stop at the Gargery house to have some handcuffs repaired Summary As the chapter opens, Mrs. Joe is busily cleaning and getting ready for the holiday dinner while Joe and Pip try to stay out of her way. It is Christmas Day, and Pip and Joe go to church where Pip feels the urge to confess his wrongdoing, but he does not. After church the dinner guests arrive, and Pip is constantly in fear that the theft will be discovered. During the dinner, Pip is often compared to a swine and reminded by the dinner guests that he should be grateful to his sister for his upbringing. Mrs. Joe reaches for the stone bottle that holds the brandy and prepares to pour Mr. Pumblechook a drink. After a drink of the liquid, Mr. Pumblechook jumps to his feet and rushes out the door, “violently plunging and expectorating.” (Unknowingly, Pip had replaced the stolen brandy with tar-water.) Puzzled about how the tar-water got into the brandy bottle, Mrs. Joe prepares a hot gin and water for Uncle Pumblechook. Finally, Mrs. Joe offers to serve the pork pie, and Pip grabs the table leg to stop his trembling. Mrs. Joe goes to the pantry to get the pork pie which is more than Pip can stand. He runs for the door and runs head-on into a party of soldiers. Pip is certain they have come to arrest him for stealing, because the sergeant is holding a pair of handcuffs. Actually, the sergeant is seeking a blacksmith to have him repair the handcuffs. The soldiers are after the two escaped convicts. After the cuffs are repaired, Mr. Wopsle, Joe, and Pip join the soldiers in their search for the convicts. Pip, sitting on Joe’s back in the sleeting weather, hopes that they do not succeed. He worries that the convict will think that he is the one who brought the soldiers to the marshes. After hearing shouts, the convicts are located in a ditch fighting one another. After capture, the second convict claims that the first convict tried to murder him. The first convict claims that he could have murdered him but preferred to help the soldiers return him to the Hulks. The first convict sees Pip in the group, and Pip quickly shakes his head. Before being returned to the Hulks, the first convict confesses that he was the one who stole from Joe and Mrs. Joe. Joe reassures the convict that they would not want him to starve, no matter what he had done. Discussion and Analysis Throughout the novel, Dickens presents several themes. One of these is the theme of good versus evil. Pip knows that stealing is wrong and that his wrongdoing will more than likely cause him to end up in the Hulks. When Pip and Joe attend church before the Christmas dinner, Pip comes close to confessing. Guilt has consumed the small boy, and he states that what “I suffered outside was nothing to what I underwent within.” It is the fear of Mrs. Joe and the knowledge that she would find him guilty of his childhood crimes that causes Pip so much inward pain. Although Pip feels remorse over his actions, he cannot undo any part of it. Pip is caught between his fear of his sister and his fear of the convict. Pip not only feels the guilt of his sins, but is also terrified when he witnesses the capture of the convicts for fear that the first convict will think that Pip betrayed him. Part 1, Chapter 4 and 5 Summary and Analysis

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After the convicts are caught, the arguing between the two reveals a small insight into the past lives of both of them. The first convict assures the soldiers that he would rather be caught again than to let the second convict get his freedom. The first convict makes the statement, “Let him make a tool of me afresh and again? Once more? No, no, no.” By this statement the reader can assume that the two convicts had known one another before their capture, and in some way, the second convict had taken advantage of the first. There seems to be a tremendous amount of hate between the two. At the end of Chapter 5, Joe’s genuine goodness is seen again as he tells the first convict, “We don’t know what you have done, but we wouldn’t have you starved to death for it, poor miserable fellow creature.” It is the convict who recognizes the “goodness” of Pip rather than the guiltiness of Pip. He sees in Pip someone who brought him food and kept his secret. This may be the reason why the convict confessed to be the one who stole the pork pie.

Part 1, Chapter 6 and 7 Summary and Analysis New Characters Mr. Wopsle’s Great-Aunt: keeps an evening school in the village and also runs a general store Biddy: runs Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt’s general store and is her granddaughter; she is an orphan Miss Havisham: mysterious rich lady who lives in town and leads a secluded life Summary Pip is one year older, and although he attends Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt’s evening school in the village, it is Biddy who teaches him to read and write. Joe and Pip sit by the hearth and Pip writes Joe a letter. Joe is impressed by Pip’s awkward but scholarly endeavor and praises him. Pip asks Joe to read it, but Joe can only read the letters “JO.” Pip realizes that Joe can neither read nor write. Pip asks him about his schooling and Joe relates his past to Pip. He tells that his father was a drunkard and made him go to work instead of attending school. He beat Joe and his mother; they left him many times, but he would always come and get them. Joe began working as a blacksmith at a very young age. His father died, then his mother. Joe tells Pip that after living alone he began to notice Pip’s sister trying to raise Pip by herself. The people in the village talked about how she was bringing Pip up “by hand.” So Joe began to see Pip’s sister, married her, and encouraged her to bring the “poor little child” with her to the forge. Joe, caring for Pip as if he were his son, would readily take Pip’s punishments if he could. Pip cries, realizing the amount of love Joe has for him. Joe then asks Pip to teach him to read and write, but it must be done secretly because Mrs. Joe does not want anyone to be a scholar in her household. Pip feels a new admiration for Joe. Because Uncle Pumblechook is a bachelor, Mrs. Joe helps him do his shopping. Upon returning from one of their shopping trips, Mrs. Joe tells Joe and Pip that when Uncle Pumblechook went to pay his rent to Miss Havisham she asked if he knew of a boy who could come and play. Uncle Pumblechook recommended Pip, and he is to go to her house the next morning. Mrs. Joe scrubs and cleans Pip, reminds him that he should be grateful, and sends him off with Mr. Pumblechook who will take him to Miss Havisham’s house the next day. Discussion and Analysis Joe’s characterization is further developed when he relates his past to Pip. Joe, much like Pip, has had a difficult childhood. The abuse from his alcoholic father makes Joe have a special tenderness for Pip, and this is probably the reason he married Pip’s sister. Joe’s education also suffered during his youth resulting in his inability to read and write. The knowledge of Joe’s past causes Pip to have a new admiration for him.

Part 1, Chapter 6 and 7 Summary and Analysis

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Pip states in Chapter 6 that he loves Joe and that he “ought to tell Joe the whole truth. Yet I did not … for fear of losing Joe’s confidence.” Characterization is further developed when Pip states, “I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong.” Pip’s life is again out of his control when he learns from Mrs. Joe and Uncle Pumblechook that he is to go to Miss Havisham’s to play. Pip has no idea why he is going to her house to play. Dickens intentionally leaves many questions unanswered with each chapter. This technique purposely builds suspense with the foreshadowing of future events, leaves mysterious questions unanswered, and introduces new characters right at the end of a chapter.

Part 1, Chapter 8 and 9 Summary and Analysis New Characters Estella: a young girl about the same age as Pip who lives with Miss Havisham Summary Pip goes home with Mr. Pumblechook and is sent directly to bed. In the morning Pip is given bread crumbs and diluted milk while Mr. Pumblechook drills him in math. At ten o’clock they go to Miss Havisham’s house which is dismal and closed up. Some of the windows are walled up while most of the remaining ones are encased in iron bars. The courtyard in front is also barred. There is an old brewery on one side of the house and the unkempt grounds are overgrown with tangled weeds. Pip and Mr. Pumblechook stand at the gate waiting to be let in. Estella lets only Pip in and turns Mr. Pumblechook away. As Pip and Estella walk toward the house, she tells him that it is called Satis, which means “enough” and that “when it was given that whoever had this house could want nothing else.” Even though the sun is shinning outside, Estella leads Pip into the dark house lit only by candles. She knocks on a door and is instructed to enter. Pip is to go in by himself, and Estella leaves. As he enters the sunless room lighted with wax candles, he sees that it is a woman’s dressing room. Sitting at her dressing table is Miss Havisham. She is dressed in a white dress which is now yellow with age. Her hair is white, and a yellowed veil hangs from her hair. Everything that should be white is faded and yellow. The flowers in her hair have withered long ago, and her dress hangs loosely about her body as if her body has also withered away since she put it on. Pip also notices that other dresses are scattered about the room and packing trunks are left open. As he glances around the room, he discovers that all the clocks have stopped at twenty minutes to nine. Miss Havisham tells him that she needs diversion, and he is to play. Pip, feeling awkward and afraid, does not know what to play. Miss Havisham sends for Estella and makes them play a card game called “Beggar my Neighbour,” which is the only game Pip knows. Estella is proud and insulted that she has to play with such a common boy. Even thought they are about the same age, Estella insults Pip by calling him a “common labouring-boy” and makes fun of him. When Pip is permitted to leave, Miss Havisham tells him to return in six days to play again. Estella takes him downstairs, gives him some food, and leaves him alone while he eats. He has never before thought of himself as coarse or common, and because Pip is a very sensitive boy, Estella has hurt him deeply. He buries his face in his sleeve and cries. After eating, Pip explores the brewery when a strange thing happens to him. He imagines Miss Havisham hanging from a wooden beam by her neck. He runs from the building and is brought back to reality by the sunlight outside and Estella approaching with the keys to let him out of the gate. Pip walks the four miles home and is met by Mr. Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe who want to know all the details of his visit. Pip knows that they would not understand what really happened, so he makes up a story about Part 1, Chapter 8 and 9 Summary and Analysis

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Miss Havisham sitting in a black velvet coach, huge dogs eating veal-cutlets out of a silver basket, and playing with flags. When Joe comes into the house from the forge, Pip feels guilty for lying. Mrs. Joe and Mr. Pumblechook discuss the possibility of Pip getting some money from Miss Havisham if he stays in her favor. Pip confesses to Joe that he had been lying. Joe gives Pip a lecture about lying. It was a memorable day for Pip, and it changed his life forever. Discussion and Analysis Dickens goes into lengthy description of Satis House and Miss Havisham. It is ironic that the name of the house means “enough” and it, as well as Miss Havisham, appear so neglected and in need. She lives in a dark, timeless world. Similes are used to help the reader picture Miss Havisham by stating that “not even the withered bridal dress on the collapsed form could have looked so like grave-clothes, or the long veil so like a shroud. So she sat, corpse-like, as we played at cards; the frillings and trimmings on her bridal dress, looking like earthy paper.” Until this day at Miss Havisham’s, Pip has been content with Joe and his life at the forge. But, for the first time, he is made to realize that his hands are coarse, and his boots are thick, and that he is just a “common labouring-boy.” Estella, proud and cold, has succeeded in making him feel dissatisfied with his position in life for the first time. Again, the theme of good and evil resurfaces when Pip exaggerates his experiences at Satis House to Mrs. Joe and Uncle Pumblechook. Lying is evil, and he cannot lie to Joe. The gentle, honest, always good Joe cautions that lies do not make a person uncommon, and he should never lie again. The bond between them is strong, and Pip wants Joe to see him as “good.”

Part 1, Chapter 10 and 11 Summary and Analysis New Characters Stranger at the Three Jolly Bargemen: questions Joe about Pip and stirs his rum with Joe’s file Mrs. Camilla, Cousin Raymond, Sarah Pocket, Georgiana Pocket: relatives of Miss Havisham who come to visit her on her birthday in hopes that they will be rewarded monetarily one day Gentleman coming downstairs at Miss Havisham’s: stops Pip on his way up to see Miss Havisham Pale Young Gentleman: fights with Pip in the garden at Miss Havisham’s Summary Following his visit to Miss Havisham’s, Pip decides to learn everything he can to become uncommon. Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt’s evening school offers him no educational advantages or learning. The great-aunt frequently falls asleep, and the students do as they please. Biddy tries to get the students to read what they can, but all is chaos. Pip asks Biddy if she will teach him everything she knows. Every evening they meet and discuss prices, copy letters, and read. One Saturday Pip goes to the Three Jolly Bargemen, a public house in the village, in order to walk home with Joe. Joe is seated with Mr. Wopsle and a mysterious stranger. Upon hearing Joe call Pip’s name, the stranger is extremely interested in Pip. He looks at no one but Pip. When no one else is looking at him except Pip, he begins to stir his rum and water with Joe’s file. Pip is spellbound by the realization that this man knows his convict—the one he helped on the marshes. As Pip and Joe get up to leave the public house, the stranger stops them and gives Pip a shilling wrapped up in some crumpled paper, which turns out to be two one-pound notes.

Part 1, Chapter 10 and 11 Summary and Analysis

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On Wednesday Pip returns to Miss Havisham’s. Estella again opens the gate for him, but takes him to a different room filled with Miss Havisham’s relatives. Pip detects a coldness towards him as he waits in the room. Finally, Estella escorts Pip to another room upstairs. While going up the stairs, Pip and Estella encounter a large man coming down the stairs. They pause, observing one another, and the man admonishes Pip to “behave himself.” Pip and Estella proceed up the stairs and into a room with a large table in the center. There, Pip is instructed to aid Miss Havisham in walking around and around the long table. In the center of the table is a decayed bridal cake infested with beetles, spiders, and mice. As they walk, Miss Havisham tells Pip that when she dies, she is going to be laid on that table. The relatives are ushered in, but Miss Havisham and Pip continue to walk. They attempt a conversation with the ever-moving Miss Havisham, but she cuts their remarks short. The reader learns that the relatives have come because it is Miss Havisham’s birthday, and they are all hoping that after her death, they will receive some monetary compensation for their pretended concern over her. It seems that only one relative has never come to inquire about Miss Havisham, and he is Matthew Pocket. Miss Havisham assures everyone that when she is dead that he too will be there, and she points out where each relative will stand around the table. The relatives are dismissed, and Pip is ushered out into the decayed and tangled garden where he encounters a pale young gentleman who challenges him to a fight by butting him in the stomach. The fight is humorous, and with each punch, Pip succeeds in repeatedly knocking the boy down. The young man finally declares the fight over and Pip the winner. Estella escorts Pip to the gate. Discussion and Analysis Because Pip has become dissatisfied with himself and his station in life, he has decided to do something about it by getting Biddy to help him become “uncommon.” Pip does not simply accept his station in life but begins to strive to change his destiny which brings a new theme into focus—that of what it takes to make a person a gentleman or a lady. Pip is correctly convinced that the first step to becoming a gentleman is education. Dickens continually introduces characters by describing them instead of giving them a name. The reader finds out later who the characters are, but by introducing them in this manner, the author is able to maintain suspense and interest within the reader. In these two chapters, we meet a stranger who stirs his drink with a file, a large gentleman coming down the stairs at Miss Havisham’s, and a pale young gentleman who fights with Pip. The novel is written much like a gigantic puzzle that will be put together as the chapters reveal bits and pieces of information. Finally, a name is given to each of these characters, and the entire picture, or novel, comes together. Pip is affected by all the people he encounters, either negatively or positively. The direction of his life has been changed by his visit to Miss Havisham and by the arrogant and proud Estella. Even though he does not understand, at the time, what effect a new character will have, it is certain that sooner or later, the character will reappear and affect Pip’s life.

Part 1, Chapter 12 and 13 Summary and Analysis Summary Pip worries about the fight with the pale young gentleman and wonders if he will be severely disciplined for hitting the young boy. He is afraid to return to Miss Havisham’s, but after searching the scene of the fight and surveying the overlooking windows, Pip decides that no punishment is to come to him. He finds that Miss Havisham must now be pushed in a wheelchair when she becomes too tired to walk, and that sometimes they walk for as long as three hours. Pip returns every other day for about eight to ten months, and as they walk, they talk.

Part 1, Chapter 12 and 13 Summary and Analysis

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Miss Havisham often asks Pip if Estella is growing prettier. She then whispers to Estella to “break their hearts, my pride and hope, break their hearts and have no mercy!” After noticing one day that he has grown taller, Miss Havisham asks that Joe accompany Pip on his next visit. She believes that he should become apprenticed to the blacksmith as soon as possible. While at home at the forge, Pip’s sister and Uncle Pumblechook discuss what they might gain as a result of Pip’s visits with Miss Havisham. The next day Joe, dressed in his Sunday clothes, and Pip go to Miss Havisham’s. Mrs. Joe is angry because she was not invited to accompany them and goes to visit Mr. Pumblechook. Pip is embarrassed by the way Joe looks in his clothes and decides that he “looked far better in his working dress.” He is again embarrassed when, instead of directly talking to Miss Havisham, he answers her through Pip. Miss Havisham pays Joe 25 guineas for his apprenticeship. Pip asks if he is to come again to Satis House, and Miss Havisham answers, “No.” Pip and Joe leave and go to Uncle Pumblechook’s where Joe tries to make Mrs. Joe believe that Miss Havisham sent her compliments to her. He lets Mrs. Joe have the money, and Mr. Pumblechook makes all of them go to the Town Hall to have Pip made a bound apprentice legally. After leaving the Town Hall, Pumblechook takes all the credit for getting the money from Miss Havisham for Pip’s apprenticeship and insists that they all have dinner at the Blue Boar. Pip goes to bed that night feeling “truly wretched,” and with a strong feeling “that I should never like Joe’s trade. I had liked it once, but once was not now.” Discussion and Analysis The theme of right and wrong surfaces again as Pip worries about what will be done to him for fighting with the pale young gentleman. He envisions Miss Havisham herself or hired mercenaries coming to punish him for his deed. He remembers his station in life is that of a common laboring boy and that the other boy is a gentleman. Pip’s unhappiness and dissatisfaction become more evident when he is embarrassed by the appearance of Joe at Miss Havisham’s and by the fact that Joe would not communicate directly with her. He makes the statement that “I was ashamed of the dear good fellow.” Pip would like for Joe to be something he is not. Even though Pip wishes that Joe were more genteel and more knowledgeable, Joe himself is satisfied with his station in life and only is made to feel uncomfortable when trying to be something he is not. Pumblechook is portrayed as pretentious and wanting credit where none is due. Joe, trying to soften Mrs. Joe’s feelings for not being asked to Miss Havisham’s, makes her feel that Mrs. Havisham’s health prevented her from including Mrs. Joe in her invitation. He is always considerate of Mrs. Joe no matter how she treats him. The apprenticeship system was a means of training young men for a trade or occupation. The master, or teacher, would usually be paid a fee, and he would specify the number of years it would take to complete the training. The indenture papers were a binding contract.

Part 1, Chapter 14 and 15 Summary and Analysis New Character Dolge Orlick: a journeyman working for Joe who has great strength and is always slouching; he is 25 years of age and dislikes Pip Summary Pip begins his apprenticeship to Joe and feels that “it is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home.” Pip Part 1, Chapter 14 and 15 Summary and Analysis

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realizes that he could have run off and become a sailor, but it is because of Joe that he does not. He fears that Estella will come to the forge and see him at his dirtiest, and he imagines her face in the flames of the fire in the forge. Pip is still trying to learn all he can to become uncommon, receiving lessons from not only Biddy, but Mr. Wopsle as well. Everything Pip learns he tries to teach to Joe because he “wanted to make Joe less ignorant and common, that he might be worthier of my society and less open to Estella’s reproach.” Every Sunday Pip and Joe go out to the marshes, and Pip tries to teach Joe. Although Joe never retains much knowledge, he always enjoys this time with Pip. One afternoon Pip suggests that he ought to return to Miss Havisham’s to thank her for all she has done for him. Joe does not think he should return for fear that she might think he wants something from her. He finally agrees to allow a half day holiday so that Pip might go. Orlick, a large, slouching journeyman, overhears Joe give Pip permission to leave early and accuses Joe of favoritism. Joe agrees to allow Orlick off for half a day also. When Mrs. Joe hears Joe’s decision, she begins to shout at Joe and Orlick. Orlick responds by calling her “a foul shrew,” causing Mrs. Joe to go into a “rampage.” Joe tries to get Orlick to “let her alone,” but they continue to shriek at one another. Mrs. Joe demands to know why Joe is not taking up for her. Joe has no choice now but to fight Orlick. Joe knocks him to the ground and then carries Mrs. Joe, who has fainted, into the house. Pip goes into town looking forward to seeing Estella, which is the real reason he wants to go see Miss Havisham. But it is Miss Sarah Pocket who comes to the gate instead of Estella. Pip is escorted in to see Miss Havisham where she says, “I hope you want nothing? You’ll get nothing.” Pip assures her that he does not, and he only wants to thank her for his apprenticeship. She invites him to return to see her on his birthday. She notices Pip looking for Estella and tells him that she is abroad becoming a lady. On his way home, Pip runs into Mr. Wopsle, and they both go to Mr. Pumblechook’s to discuss a book that Mr. Wopsle has just purchased. About eleven at night, Mr. Wopsle and Pip start home from the village. The night is shrouded with a heavy mist, very wet and thick. They meet Orlick, also heading for home, and the three of them walk together. Cannon fire is heard in the distance as another escaped convict is announced. Hearing a commotion at the Three Jolly Bargemen, Mr. Wopsle goes in to inquire, runs out, and announces that something has happened at Pip’s house. They run home to find the house filled with people and Mrs. Joe lying on the floor in front of the fireplace unconscious. She has been struck on the back of the head with a tremendous blow. Discussion and Analysis Pip’s reasons for educating Joe are not for Joe but for himself. Pip’s values are changing, and honesty and goodness are not enough. Pip is trying to change himself, and he feels that in order to become uncommon, he must also change those around him. He assumes that Joe, too, wants to be different. Pip, who at one time was very sensitive to Joe and others, is now very self-centered. It is interesting to note that Joe never complains of their Sunday lessons but seems to view them simply as an opportunity to enjoy Pip’s company. A sinister character is introduced in these chapters. Orlick not only does not like Pip, but argues with Mrs. Joe and even fights with Joe. The result of the confrontation reveals Joe’s fairness and goodness as he agrees to allow Orlick to take off half a day, and he defends Mrs. Joe against Orlick’s remarks. Up until these chapters, Joe has been portrayed as almost childlike—simple and trusting. Now the reader sees him pressured into fighting which only adds to his character and is not a negative quality in him. The attack on Mrs. Joe at the end of Chapter 15 leaves the reader with anticipation and questions. Could the firing of the cannons on the Hulks be foreshadowing or is Dickens presenting several possibilities concerning the identity of the attacker?

Part 1, Chapter 14 and 15 Summary and Analysis

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Part 1, Chapter 16 and 17 Summary and Analysis Summary After Mrs. Joe is attacked, Pip feels guilt and goes over and over the evidence and circumstances of the attack. Joe had been at the Three Jolly Bargemen; Orlick had been in town and even walked home with him and Mr. Wopsle. Nothing had been taken or disturbed at the house; however, an important piece of evidence was found beside Mrs. Joe—a convict’s leg iron. After looking at the iron, Joe decides that it had been filed off a long time ago. Pip believes that the iron belongs to the first convict, but he does not believe that his convict is the one who attacked his sister. Pip suspects the attacker to be either Orlick or the stranger who stirred his rum with Joe’s file, and he feels guilty because he had provided the weapon. Mrs. Joe is ill for many months with multiple complications. Her sight, hearing, and memory are impaired, and her speech is unintelligible. Because Mrs. Joe has to have constant care, Biddy moves into the house to take care of her and the household. During this time, Mrs. Joe keeps tracing on her slate a figure that looks like a “T.” Pip finally determines that it could represent a hammer. Mrs. Joe does not want a hammer, but she wants to see Orlick every time she draws the figure. When Orlick comes into the house, she does not appear angry or disturbed, but seems humble and almost kind to him. Time passes and it is Pip’s birthday. He returns to see Miss Havisham, who gives him a guinea. Estella is still abroad. Pip becomes accustomed to his life at the forge and almost begins to accept it. He begins to notice that Biddy, though common, has changed and become pretty. He invites her to take a walk on the marshes on Sunday, and it is on this walk that he confides to her his desire to be a gentleman. She listens patiently, but asks Pip if he should not be happy as he is. Pip then relates to her that the reason he wants to become a gentleman is because of his admiration of Estella. He promises always to tell Biddy everything, but Biddy replies, “Till you’re a gentleman.” They begin to walk home and come upon Orlick. He offers to walk home with them, but Biddy tells him that she would rather he not accompany them. Biddy is afraid that Orlick is attracted to her, and he frightens her. Pip declines his offer, and they walk home with Orlick following at a distance. About the time Pip begins to consider keeping company with Biddy, becoming partners with Joe, and settling down to a happy, contented life at the forge, his thoughts return to Miss Havisham and Estella. Pip still hopes that maybe Miss Havisham will help him become a gentleman after his apprenticeship is over. Discussion and Analysis After Biddy moves into the forge, Pip begins to notice her. She has become pretty in an honest, sincere way. Biddy is wise for her years, and after hearing Pip’s desire to be a gentleman replies, “But don’t you think you are happier as you are?” She tells Pip that having to change for someone is an indication that the person is not worth it. Pip notices how different Biddy is from Estella. Biddy is always the same, never temperamental or changing, and he realizes that if it were not for Estella, he would probably consider keeping company with her.

Part 1, Chapter 18 and 19 Summary and Analysis New Characters Mr. Jaggers: a lawyer from London who informs Pip of his great expectations; he is to be Pip’s guardian Mr. Trabb: a tailor in the village who makes Pip’s new clothes Mr. Trabb’s Boy: a young boy who works for Mr. Trabb and treats Pip with disdain Part 1, Chapter 16 and 17 Summary and Analysis

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Summary Pip has been an apprentice to Joe for four years. He, Joe, Mr. Wopsle, and some other villagers are in the Three Jolly Bargemen enjoying Mr. Wopsle’s dramatic reading about a murder case in the newspaper. A stranger challenges the group concerning jumping to conclusions about a person’s guilt and makes Mr. Wopsle feel insignificant. The stranger asks for Joe and Pip to accompany him outside where he tells them that he has some news for Pip. They return to the forge and sit at the kitchen table where he offers money to end Pip’s apprenticeship. Joe refuses the money. Pip recognizes the stranger as the gentleman who was coming downstairs at Miss Havisham’s on Pip’s second visit. The stranger reveals his name as that of Mr. Jaggers, a lawyer from London. He then informs Pip that Pip has acquired great expectations and will leave for London in one week. He tells Pip that Jaggers is to be his guardian, and he gives Pip 20 guineas in order that he might go into the village and have new clothes made. His tutor in London will be Mr. Matthew Pocket. Pip recognizes the name as belonging to the cousin of Miss Havisham. Mr. Jaggers tells Pip that there are three stipulations to the great fortune. One, he must always keep the name of Pip; two, the name of the benefactor will remain a secret until that person decides to reveal it to him; and three, Pip is never to inquire or question anyone concerning the identity of the benefactor. Pip agrees to the stipulations, and Mr. Jaggers again offers some money to Joe who becomes angry that Mr. Jaggers would even think that Joe would take money for Pip’s good fortune. Pip is certain that it must be Miss Havisham who is the benefactor, but he says nothing. After breakfast the next morning, Joe and Pip throw his indenture papers into the fire. The next few days are spent getting ready to travel to London. He goes to Mr. Trabb’s tailor shop in order to purchase new clothes. After learning that Pip has money, the tailor treats him quite politely. The tailor begins to call Pip “Sir,” and Pip decides that money has great power. Pip goes to see Mr. Pumblechook, who has already heard of his good fortune. Mr. Pumblechook fawns over him by calling him “My dear friend,” and shaking his hand often. Pip goes to see Miss Havisham to tell her that he will be leaving. Sarah Pocket hovers about them as they talk, and Miss Havisham seems to relish the idea of making Mrs. Pocket think she is giving money to Pip. At the end of the week Pip is off to London feeling sorry for his ingratitude toward Joe, but looking forward to his great expectations. Discussion and Analysis The novel is divided into three distinct phases or stages in Pip’s life. The first stage ends here with Chapter 19. These first chapters represent innocence of childhood in Pip. The spiritual values given to him in his childhood in the first stage of Pip’s life will now be replaced with the material values of the wealthy. However, Pip is already guilty of false pride and self-deception by the time he leaves for London. Pip feels both guilt and elation—elation that he is given the chance to become a gentleman and guilt for not being happy at the forge with Joe. Another possible theme emerges at the close of the first stage of Pip’s life—the theme of money and its affects on the possessor and those who are acquainted with the possessor. People treat people of wealth differently, as Pip discovers with both Mr. Trabb the tailor and Mr. Pumblechook. Pip has his only argument with Biddy when he asks her to help improve Joe. Pip has acquired an air of superiority, and he wants to share his great expectations by moving Joe up in society. However, he is disregarding Joe’s pride and his happiness with his station in life. When Biddy argues against improving Joe, Pip accuses Biddy of envy. Pip refuses to see her wisdom. Biddy knows that money and social standing do not guarantee goodness or happiness. Pip, on the other hand, is experiencing inner conflict. He is dissatisfied with his life at the forge, but he recognizes the goodness in Joe and Biddy and feels guilt for wanting to leave them. Part 1, Chapter 18 and 19 Summary and Analysis

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There are many circumstances that point to Miss Havisham as Pip’s “fairy godmother.” Miss Havisham’s lawyer is Mr. Jaggers. When Pip comes to see her, she already knows the conditions of the inheritance. She is the only rich person Pip knows, and during Pip’s latest visit, she encourages Pip to believe it was she who is the benefactor. Also, his tutor in London is to be Matthew Pocket, a cousin of Miss Havisham.

Part 2, Chapter 20 and 21 Summary and Analysis New Characters Mr. John Wemmick: Mr. Jagger’s clerk in London Mr. Pocket, Jr.: Herbert Pocket, also known as the “pale young gentleman” in Chapters 10 and 11; he is to be Pip’s roommate in London Summary Pip, anticipating great expectations, is dismayed with London which is located about five hours from his village. He is not prepared for the ugliness and filthiness of the city. He is brought down a “gloomy” street to Mr. Jaggers’ office, described by Pip as “a most dismal place.” Pip tires of waiting for Mr. Jaggers’ return and goes walking, where he encounters the jail, Newgate Prison, the gallows, and many people speaking admirably of Mr. Jaggers’ ability as a lawyer. After overhearing one remark, “Jaggers would do it if it was to be done,” Pip’s estimation of his new guardian grows. Pip sees Mr. Jaggers approaching and they walk back together to his office. As they walk through the crowds, Mr. Jaggers admonishes some to stay away, some to tell him nothing more than he wants to hear, and still others that everything is taken care of. He exhibits no sentimentality and detaches himself emotionally from humanity. Pip is instructed to go to Barnard’s Inn and stay with Matthew Pocket’s son. In the meantime, he is given cards of tradesmen and told to get any clothes or anything else he might need. Mr. Wemmick walks him to his new living quarters where Pip is disappointed by the run-down, shabby appearance of Barnard’s Inn. He was expecting something much finer and grander. Mr. Pocket, Jr., has gone out and Wemmick leaves Pip to wait for his return. Mr. Pocket returns and Pip recognizes him as the “pale young gentleman” he fought with in Miss Havisham’s garden. Analysis Discussion and Analysis A new setting is presented to the reader and to Pip. Pip is disappointed that the city appears “rather ugly, crooked, narrow, and dirty.” He is also dismayed to find that Barnard’s Inn, his new lodging place, is also dismal, dilapidated, and run down. His disappointment is tempered when he meets his new roommate and discovers that Herbert Pocket is the “pale young gentleman” who was at Miss Havisham’s. Because Herbert is Miss Havisham’s relative, Pip is even more certain that she is his benefactor. He feels that he is being made a gentleman so that he will be worthy of Estella. Herbert is friendly and makes Pip feel quite at home. Pip is impressed with his guardian’s popularity among the people and finds that he is a criminal lawyer of great renown. Mr. Jaggers, Pip’s guardian, is a dominant force in Pip’s new life. To Pip, he is a man of much expertise and power.

Part 2, Chapter 22 and 23 Summary and Analysis New Characters Handel: a name given to Pip by Herbert Pocket

Part 2, Chapter 20 and 21 Summary and Analysis

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Belinda Pocket: wife of Matthew Pocket, quite helpless and dependent upon her nurses; she is obsessed with titles, positions, and luxury Matthew Pocket: Pip’s tutor and father of Herbert Pocket Flopson and Millers: two nurses working for Mr. and Mrs. Pocket Bentley Drummle: a student of Mr. Pocket Startop: a student of Mr. Pocket Mrs. Coiler: a “toady” neighbor to Mr. and Mrs. Pocket , also a widow Jane: one of the Pocket’s young daughters who helps take care of the other children Joe and Fanny: children of the Pockets Sophia: a servant to Mr. and Mrs. Pocket Summary Herbert and Pip renew their friendship and talk of their fight at Miss Havisham’s. Herbert tells Pip that he (Herbert) had been asked to come to Miss Havisham’s in order to see if Estella could “take a fancy” to him, but she did not. Pip asks how he felt about the rejection and Herbert replies, “She’s (Estella) a Tartar.… That girl’s hard and haughty and capricious to the last degree, and has been brought up by Miss Havisham to wreak revenge on all the male sex.” Herbert tells Pip that Estella is adopted and then tells him Miss Havisham’s story. It seems that Miss Havisham had a half brother who was “riotous, extravagant, undutiful—altogether bad.” On his deathbed her father decided to leave the brother a portion of his vast wealth, but the majority went to Miss Havisham. Her half brother wasted his inheritance and held a grudge against Miss Havisham. Then, along came a suitor for Miss Havisham with whom she fell madly in love. His pretenses of being a gentleman were not lost on Matthew Pocket and he warned her of him, after which Miss Havisham ordered him from the house. Meanwhile, the suitor got large sums of money from her and “induced her to buy her brother out of a share in the brewery … at an immense price.” The wedding day was set and the preparations made, but the bridegroom did not appear. That was 25 years ago at twenty minutes till nine o’clock, and Miss Havisham has never seen the sun since. It was found later that her suitor and her half brother were in a conspiracy and shared all the money gotten from her. Pip asks Herbert to help him become a gentleman by offering advice concerning his manners. The first advice that Herbert offers is not to put the knife into your mouth, and a spoon is to be held overhand not under. The advice is offered in such a kind, friendly way that both young men laugh. Herbert decides that a better name for Pip would be Handel because of a piece of music called “The Harmonious Blacksmith” written by Handel. Herbert takes Pip to Hammersmith where he is to be tutored by Herbert’s father. Upon arriving, Pip notices that the household is run completely by the nurses and servants and that Belinda Pocket spends her time reading about titles and peerage. She appears quite helpless and allows the nurses to have complete charge of her seven children, as well as of the household. Mr. Pocket also does not seem to have much authority concerning his family. At supper, Pip meets two other students, Bentley Drummle and Startop.

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Discussion and Analysis Pip and Herbert get along beautifully. Herbert is both pleasant and friendly. While Pip has a liberal allowance and credit, Herbert is working at a counting-house and earns nothing. He is there looking for possible ways to earn money. Herbert, unlike Pip, seems content with his life, his meager surroundings, and his shabby living place. Herbert is considered a gentleman, yet has little as far as material possessions. Pip’s money will provide any of the luxuries that the two will enjoy at Barnard’s Inn. Herbert’s mother Belinda has the possessions, but lacks the name and heritage. She is portrayed as “ornamental” and incapable of caring for her children or her household. The reader may begin to wonder if Pip is being developed as something ornamental without much use, for he is not being taught any trade or business as he becomes a gentleman. During these chapters, the mystery of Miss Havisham and her peculiar behavior is cleared up by Herbert as he relates her story to Pip. The background of Estella still remains a mystery.

Part 2, Chapter 24 and 25 Summary and Analysis New Character Aged Parent: Mr. Wemmick’s deaf father who lives with him at Walworth Summary Pip learns from Mr. Pocket that he is not being trained for any particular profession, but he is to be educated enough to “hold my (Pip) own with the average of young men in prosperous circumstances.” Pip decides to keep his room at Barnard’s Inn as well as his room at Mr. Pocket’s home. He asks Mr. Jaggers for enough money to buy the furniture, which is at the time only rented, at Barnard’s Inn. Mr. Jaggers forces Pip to set the amount and has Mr. Wemmick give him that exact amount. Wemmick introduces Pip to the other clerks in the office who he finds repulsive and dirty. Wemmick leads Pip back to Mr. Jaggers’ office, and they discuss two horrible casts or masks hanging on the wall. Pip learns that the casts had been made after the subjects had been hanged. Wemmick invites Pip to visit him at his home in Walworth and inquires if Mr. Jaggers has asked him to dinner yet. Wemmick tells Pip that when he does go to dinner at Mr. Jaggers, pay close attention to his housekeeper and “you’ll see a wild beast tamed.” Mr. Wemmick takes Pip into court to see Mr. Jaggers at work. Pip feels that Mr. Jaggers bullies not only his clients, but everyone else as well. “The magistrates shivered under a single bite of his finger. Thieves and thieftakers hung in dread rapture on his words, and shrank when a hair of his eyebrows turned in their direction.” In Chapter 25, Dickens describes Bentley Drummle as a “sulky” fellow who is “heavy in figure, movement, and comprehension.” Pip finds that Drummle is “idle, proud … and suspicious.” On the other hand, Startop is a more delicate young man, and he and Pip get along quite well. As Pip lives and studies with Mr. Pocket, other relatives visit at various times. They all regard Pip with hatred and suspicion. Pip decides to accept Mr. Wemmick’s offer for dinner and a visit. He and Mr. Wemmick walk to Walworth, and Wemmick begins to loosen up and become a totally different if extremely eccentric man. He is exceedingly proud of his small house, called “the Castle.” Pip and Wemmick cross over a bridge, and Pip meets the Aged Parent, Mr. Wemmick’s father. The Aged Parent is well cared for and is very pleasant. Because the Aged Parent is almost totally deaf, Pip is instructed to keep nodding to him, as this makes him happy. At nine o’clock, they shoot off a cannon called “the Stinger.”

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When Pip mentions Mr. Jaggers, Wemmick explains that Mr. Jaggers knows nothing of his private life. Wemmick replies, “No: the office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the castle behind me, and when I come into the castle, I leave the office behind me.” Discussion and Analysis Bentley Drummle is described as a suspicious character and not one that Pip enjoys being around. Pip has now made two new friends—Herbert and Startop. Pip takes up the sport of rowing, a sport that will be used later in the novel. One character, Mr. Wemmick, is described in these chapters as having two lives and two personalities. His work with Mr. Jaggers requires him to be a hard, serious man, while his home life offers personal pride and pleasures. He takes great pride in his castle, a small replica of a Gothic castle, which in reality is quite small and insignificant. He is presented as good humored and very caring for his father. Pip learns that Mr. Wemmick enjoys gardening, and the dinner he serves consists of items from his own garden. Humor is again pictured with the Aged Parent. His inability to hear, Pip’s continuous nodding to him, and the enjoyment he gets from the firing of a cannon all create a light hearted tone to the novel.

Part 2, Chapter 26 and 27 Summary and Analysis New Characters The Spider: the name Mr. Jaggers gives to Bentley Drummle Molly: Mr. Jaggers’ housekeeper who has great strength in her wrists Pepper: also called the Avenger; a servant who works for Pip Summary Mr. Jaggers invites Pip and his friends to dinner. Pip finds his house bare and neglected. Dinner is served by Mr. Jaggers from a dumbwaiter. Mr. Jaggers takes a liking to Bentley Drummle and refers to the “blotchy, sprawly, sulky fellow” as “the Spider.” The housekeeper appears, and Mr. Jaggers tells her to show her wrists to the guests. Her wrists are “disfigured—deeply scarred and scarred across and across.” Mr. Jaggers points out that few men or women have the strength that Molly has in her wrists. During the course of the dinner, Drummle implies that Pip and Herbert are too free with their money. They reply that they observed Drummle borrowing money from Startop. Drummle replies that he did, but would never lend money to anyone. The discussion becomes an argument and results in Startop’s walking home on one side of the street and Drummle on the other side. As Pip prepares to leave, Mr. Jaggers cautions him by saying, “Don’t have too much to do with him (Drummle). Keep as clear of him as you can.” Upon Pip’s arrival at Barnard’s Inn, he receives a letter from Biddy saying that Joe will be arriving in London the next day. Pip’s reception of the letter was “not with pleasure, though I (Pip) was bound to him by so many ties; no; with considerable disturbance, some mortification, and a keen sense of incongruity. If I could have kept him away by paying money, I certainly would have paid money.” Joe arrives the next day feeling awkward around Pip because Pip makes him feel inferior. The dinner is awkward because of Joe’s eating habits, and because his hat keeps falling off the mantle causing Joe to grab for it. Joe calls Pip “Sir” and brings news of Mr. Wopsle and Estella. It seems that Mr. Wopsle has left the church and has gone into “play-acting.” Estella has come home and would be glad to see Pip. This news excites Pip so much that he attempts to be a little kinder to Joe, but Joe is ready to leave. Joe leaves after Part 2, Chapter 26 and 27 Summary and Analysis

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telling Pip that he would not come to London again to see him, but he hoped that Pip would come to see him at the forge where he is more comfortable. Discussion and Analysis There is a sharp contrast between the two dinners Pip attends. Mr. Wemmick completely separates work from home and offers Pip a relaxed and friendly atmosphere with a dinner of home grown foods. On the other hand, Mr. Jaggers’ home seems to be an extension of his work. He rules his house, serving dinner himself with the help of only one person. His house is stark with little to offer in the form of pleasure or relaxation. He asks his guests to leave at precisely 9:30 in order for him to study cases. Mr. Jaggers has an obsession about washing his hands with a scented soap after each client or court case. It is almost as if he is washing away any personal involvement that might occur. The character of Drummle is extended when the young men discuss money and borrowing. Although Jaggers takes a special interest in Drummle, he warns Pip to stay away from him. Mr. Jaggers obviously sees something in Drummle that is fearful. Possibly the fact that Mr. Jaggers deals with criminal clientele so much that it allows him to see something very powerful and sinister in Drummle, something that the reader cannot see. The visit with Joe illustrates how far Pip has come in his journey from child to gentleman. Pip does not want to see Joe with his “simple dignity” and is very conscious of who might see them together. Pip especially does not want Drummle to see Joe. “So throughout life our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise.” Pip has become a snob and does not, at this point, recognize that Joe is probably more a gentleman than Pip is with his fine clothes, his serving boy, and his extravagant surroundings. It is Joe who recognizes the fact that he does not belong in this atmosphere and invites Pip to come visit him in his environment. It is certain that Joe would never make Pip feel as uncomfortable as Pip is making Joe feel in London. Even Pip realizes that most of the uncomfortableness in Joe is because of him. “… if I had been easier with Joe, Joe would have been easier with me.” Dickens continually adds a little humor to awkward situations. While trying to locate Pip’s door, Joe is pictured “breathing in at the keyhole.” The episode of Joe’s hat, with Joe holding it like a “bird’s-nest with eggs in it,” also helps relieve the tension that Pip has established within the scene. More humor is added when the hat continually falls from the mantle, and Joe has to grab for it before it hits the floor. The absurdity of the situation brings humor to the reader and mortification for Pip.

Part 2, Chapter 28 and 29 Summary and Analysis Summary Pip prepares to return immediately to see Estella. He knows he needs to stay at the forge with Joe while he is there, but he invents all kinds of reasons why it would be better for him to stay at the Blue Boar in the village. “I should be an inconvenience at Joe’s; I was not expected, and my bed would not be ready; I should be too far from Miss Havisham’s, and she was exacting and mightn’t like it.” Pip boards the coach heading for home with two convicts who are accompanied by a jailor returning them to the Hulks. Pip recognizes one of the convicts as the mysterious stranger who stirred his rum with Joe’s file so long ago at the Three Jolly Bargemen. Pip is relieved that he has changed so much that the convict does not recognize him. As they travel, Pip overhears the two convicts discuss an incident that directly involved Pip. The mysterious convict confesses to the other that he has been to the village before. He was about to be released when a fellow convict asked him to give two one-pound notes to a boy named Pip. This was to be a repayment for a kindness the boy had done for him. Now, Pip definitely knows that the notes came from his convict (the first convict) in the cemetery near the marshes. The mysterious stranger also relates how Pip’s Part 2, Chapter 28 and 29 Summary and Analysis

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convict was tried again for prison breaking and given life. Pip is so unnerved by this conversation that he gets off the stage as quickly as it nears his village. He goes to the Blue Boar where he learns that Pumblechook has taken all the credit for Pip’s good fortune. Pip goes to Miss Havisham’s with the confidence that just as she adopted Estella, she “adopted” him also. He feels that his mission is to be the hero who is “to restore the desolate house, admit the sunshine into the dark rooms, set the clocks a-going … do all the shining deeds of the young knight of romance, and marry the princess.” Pip’s romantic attitude is disrupted when he finds that Orlick is now working for Miss Havisham, and it is he who opens the gate for Pip. He goes in to see Miss Havisham, who has not changed in any way and does not, at first, recognize that the beautiful lady sitting beside her is Estella. Pip recognizes her eyes first and then has a fleeting feeling that she resembles someone else, but he does not recognize who. He and Estella walk together in the overgrown garden, but Pip can only see beauty there because Estella is there with him. They talk of the past, but Estella says she remembers none of the incidences Pip remembers. Estella says, “You must know that I have no heart—if that has anything to do with my memory.” When Pip and Estella rejoin Miss Havisham, Miss Havisham has Pip push her around the bridal table as he did so many times in the past. She draws Pip down to her and says, “Love her, love her, love her.… If she favours you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces … love her, love her, love her.” Mr. Jaggers arrives; he, Sarah Pocket, Estella, and Pip have dinner together. Miss Havisham does not eat with them. When Pip sees Miss Havisham after dinner she tells him that Estella is to come to London, and Pip is to meet her at the coach and be her escort. This knowledge makes Pip even more sure that he is the gentleman being groomed for Estella. Because he does not want Estella or Miss Havisham to know that he still associates with Joe, he does not even go see him, Biddy, or his sister. Discussion and Analysis Again, Pip’s guilt pulls at him, but he ignores its tugs. He knows he should stay at the forge with his “family,” but decides against it. In Pip’s childhood, he had considered Joe his equal; now Pip regards him as an embarrassment. By this time in Pip’s life, he considers himself much better than they. Pip’s snobbish behavior is also recognized with his wanting to take his servant along with him to his little village. He felt it would make quite an impression. But, because Pip is afraid of someone’s talking too much, he decides to leave the servant in London. Dickens uses coincidence again to pull Pip back to his early beginnings. It is a coincidence that he rides on a stage with the two convicts, one of whom is the stranger who had Joe’s file and had given Pip two one-pound notes. It is also coincidence that Pip must sit near them and overhear them talking about that very incident in the Three Jolly Bargemen of so long ago. Dickens is a master at weaving his plot intricately through so many characters and having them all in touch with one another in some way. The nature of love is a prominent theme in Dickens’ novel. The reader is shown different kinds of love and asked to decide which is the true love. There is Miss Havisham’s definition of love: “It is blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the whole world, giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter—as I did!” There is the simple, uncomplicated, undemanding love of Joe for Pip. And, there is the heart rending, romantic love that Pip feels for Estella. Pip says, “I loved Estella with the love of a man, I loved her simply because I found her irresistible. Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.” Part 2, Chapter 28 and 29 Summary and Analysis

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Part 2, Chapter 30 and 31 Summary and Analysis New Characters Clara: Herbert’s fiancee Mr. Waldengarver: a name Mr. Wopsle is using as a stage name Summary While still staying at the Blue Boar, Pip confides to Mr. Jaggers that he does not believe that Orlick is the right man to have a position of trust with Miss Havisham. Mr. Jaggers agrees and assures Pip that it will be taken care of. As Pip walks through the village, most of the people make it a point of seeing him because of his fortunes. However, Trabb’s boy ridicules and aggravates him by bowing down to him and then following him down the street crowing at him. Pip catches the stage headed back to London. He sends Joe some codfish and a barrel of oysters because he did not go see him. Upon returning to Barnard’s Inn, Pip finds it hard to keep the Avenger busy. He invents errands for him to do. Pip asks Herbert if he might confide in him. Herbert and Pip sit in front of the fire while Pip talks of his love for Estella. “‘Herbert,’ said, I, laying my hand upon his knee, ‘I love—I adore—Estella.’” Herbert tells Pip that he has known that fact all along. Pip and Herbert both feel that Pip has been chosen for Estella by Miss Havisham. However, Herbert cautions Pip that in the event that this is not the case, he must be able to detach himself from her. Pip assures Herbert that he would never be able to do that. Herbert then confides to Pip that he is engaged to a girl from London. Her name is Clara, and they plan to be married when Herbert has enough money. That evening Pip and Herbert go to see a play featuring Mr. Wopsle as one of the actors. After the performance, a man tells the two young men that Mr. Waldengarver would like to see them backstage. Herbert suggests that Mr. Waldengarver is probably Mr. Wopsle. Herbert and Pip visit with Mr. Wopsle and invite him home to supper. Discussion and Analysis Pip’s new station in life, one of wealth and prosperity, has grown stronger than his love for Joe. Pip feels guilty for not going to see Joe and seeks to soften his guilt by sending him a present of codfish and a barrel of oysters. Even the present Pip sends is showy and ostentatious and does not indicate any remorse for not wanting to see Joe. He struts through his village feeling extremely proud of himself until Trabb’s boy, with his ridicule, reminds him of his past and humiliates him. Back in London, Pip confides to Herbert that he is not sure what his benefactor’s expectations are of him. Pip is not even sure if Estella is part of it, but he would be unable to give her up anyway. Mr. Wopsle’s role of Hamlet is a ridiculous farce. The presentation is realistic only in the eyes of Mr. Wopsle.

Part 2, Chapter 32 and 33 Summary and Analysis New Character Colonel: a soldier condemned to die at Newgate Prison Summary Pip receives a note from Estella telling him that she is to arrive in London, and he is to meet her at the stage. Pip is overjoyed and goes to the coach office hours before her time of arrival. While waiting for Estella, Mr. Part 2, Chapter 30 and 31 Summary and Analysis

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Wemmick asks Pip if he would like to see Newgate Prison. They go to the prison which Pip finds neglected, disorderly, and depressing. Mr. Wemmick has a knowledge of all the prisoners and speaks with them or tips his hat. Mr. Wemmick introduces Pip to a soldier condemned to be hanged the following Monday. After leaving the prison, Pip feels contaminated by the filth of the prison and its occupants. Estella arrives and Pip is overjoyed. They discuss Miss Havisham’s plans for them. Pip was not only to meet her at the stage but is to send for a carriage and take her to Richmond. Estella is to live in Richmond with a powerful woman who will introduce her into society. Estella tells Pip how much Miss Havisham’s relatives hate him, and how she has disliked them all her life. She hates people who deceive and play up to others, as the Pockets do Miss Havisham. Pip sends for tea as they wait for a carriage to take them to Richmond, and Estella inquires about Pip’s affairs. When the carriage comes, Pip takes her to Richmond and is told that he may call upon her at any time. Pip returns to London and goes to see Mr. Pocket. Mr. Pocket is away lecturing on “domestic economy,” and Mrs. Pocket is upset because she had given the baby a box of needles to keep it quiet, and there are some needles missing. Discussion and Analysis Pip’s relationship with Estella has not changed. She has completely captured his heart, but Pip is still unhappy. He eagerly awaits her arrival in London and anticipates her warm welcome, but she is never warm or overly friendly to him. While they wait for the carriage that will take them to Richmond, Estella and Pip have tea together in a private sitting room. Pip states, “I thought that with her I could have been happy there for life. (I was not at all happy there at the time, observe, and I knew it well.)” The happiness that should come with Estella’s presence eludes Pip because his affection for Estella is so obviously not reciprocated. Upon arriving in Richmond, Pip helps Estella move all her boxes into the house. As Pip departs, he stands looking back at the house and thinks, “how happy I should be if I lived there with her, and knowing that I never was happy with her, but always miserable.” The relationship is lacking in warmth and love, for there can never be a happy one-sided affair. Another important influence in Pip’s life is Newgate Prison. It seems that criminals, prisons, and lawyers have played a part in Pip’s life ever since he was very young and living on the marshes with Joe. After Mr. Wemmick and Pip leave Newgate Prison, Pip thinks “how strange it was that I should be encompassed by all this taint of prison and crime; that, in my childhood out on our lonely marshes on a winter evening, I should have first encountered it; that it should have reappeared on two occasions, starting out like a stain that was faded but not gone; that it should in this new way pervade my fortune and advancement.” When Pip leaves Newgate Prison he feels contaminated, but he can never shake off the influence of prisons and convicts throughout his life. Dickens’ loathing of the criminal element is due to his association with this atmosphere as a child growing up in London. Another side of Mr. Wemmick’s character is seen as he escorts Pip through Newgate Prison. He seems to be popular with the inmates, and Pip says, “It struck me that Wemmick walked among the prisoners much as a gardener might walk among his plants.” After introducing Pip to a soldier who is condemned to die the following Monday, Mr. Wemmick “looked back, and nodded at his dead plant, and then cast his eyes about him in walking out of the yard, as if he were considering what other pot would go best in its place.” The prisoners are compared to plants by the use of similes. Mr. Wemmick recognizes that some will die and others will go on to live, much like the plants he cares for in his garden at the Castle.

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Part 2, Chapter 34 and 35 Summary and Analysis Summary Pip begins to look at the effects of his Great Expectations, and he does not like what he sees. His wealth has affected others as well as himself. Influenced by Pip’s lavish expenditures, Herbert has also spent beyond his means. They join an expensive club called the Finches of the Grove and spend extravagantly. Pip states, “We spent as much money as we could, and got as little for it as people could make up their minds to give us. We were always more or less miserable.…” Pip and Herbert sit down and try to straighten out their debts. Humorously, more action is taken in gathering all the debts and papers than in actually paying off any of the expenditures. A letter from Trabb and Company arrives for Pip telling him of his sister’s death. The funeral will be the following Monday at three o’clock in the evening. This is the first time that death has entered into Pip’s life, and it causes him to reflect back to his life on the marshes with Joe and his sister. He has no tender remembrances of his sister, but her image seems to be everywhere. He cannot imagine the kitchen without her in it. He thinks of Joe and Biddy and their tenderness and kindness. He arrives in his village and goes directly to his old home. Trabb and Company has taken over the entire funeral—telling everyone what to wear and where to stand. Refreshments have been set up in the parlour, and Mr. Pumblechook is sampling everything. Pip, Joe, and Biddy follow the body of Mrs. Joe through the village to the cemetery. Joe feels that Mrs. Joe would have liked all the attention; however, he would have preferred to have carried her to the cemetery himself without all the ceremony. After the funeral, Biddy tells Pip that she will be leaving the forge on the next day and will become the mistress in the new school. Biddy tells Pip that she saw Orlick hiding behind a tree on the night Mrs. Joe died, and that she had just seen him again as they were walking. Pip tells her that he will get Orlick run out of the country. Pip also tells Biddy that he will return often to see her and Joe. Biddy questions Pip and asks him if he really will come often, and Pip is insulted that Biddy doubts him. The next morning Pip leaves to return to London, knowing that he probably will not return, and Biddy was right. Discussion and Analysis Pip’s money has not brought happiness. In fact, Pip is becoming more and more unhappy with his circumstances. In spite of having a great deal of wealth, Pip goes farther and farther in debt, dragging Herbert along with him. “My lavish habits led his easy nature into expenses that he could not afford, corrupted the simplicity of his life, and disturbed his peace with anxieties and regrets.” Pip wonders if staying home in the marshes and becoming a blacksmith with Joe would have made him happier, but he also realizes that Estella would have haunted him. Pip’s unhappiness is confounded when he realizes that his material obsessions are ruining Herbert. Herbert does not have the wealth Pip does, but he tries to keep up with Pip, so interwoven into Pip’s unhappiness is his guilt for what he is doing to Herbert. It seems that the farther away from Joe Pip gets, the more unhappy he becomes. The death of his sister brings Pip back to earth for a while and makes him stop and consider his life now and in the past. The funeral is almost like a mockery of death as Mr. Trabb and Co. hand out mourning clothes for the family and choreograph the funeral procession. Humor is portrayed when Mr. Trabb even decides when the mourners should mourn. “‘Pocket-handkerchiefs out, all!’ cried Mr. Trabb at this point, in a depressed businesslike voice. ‘Pocket-handkerchiefs out! We are ready!’” Joe is probably the only true mourner in the procession. Biddy, with her simple wisdom, knows that Pip will not return to visit Joe.

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Part 2, Chapter 36 and 37 Summary and Analysis New Characters Miss Skiffins: a lady friend of Mr. Wemmick Skiffins: Miss Skiffins’ brother who is an accountant and agent; he arranges Herbert’s partnership with Clarriker Clarriker: a young merchant that Herbert goes to work for Summary Pip’s and Herbert’s finances go from bad to worse. Finally, in November Pip “comes of age.” On his twenty-first birthday, Mr. Jaggers sends for him. Mr. Jaggers inquires how much Pip is spending, and Pip replies that he does not really know. Mr. Jaggers is not surprised and asks Pip if he has any questions for him. Pip asks if his benefactor is to be made known to him today. Mr. Jaggers answers negatively and reminds Pip of the stipulations given to him when he was a young man living at the forge as a blacksmith. Mr. Jaggers gives Pip a bank note for 500 pounds and tells him that from now on he is to handle his money affairs entirely by himself. Pip “will draw from Wemmick one hundred and twenty-five pounds per quarter” until the benefactor makes himself or herself known. Pip wonders if Miss Havisham has confided to Mr. Jaggers the plans for Estella and Pip. Mr. Jaggers makes no mention of Estella or of having any knowledge that Pip and Estella are being prepared for one another. Mr. Jaggers goes to wash his hands, and Pip asks Wemmick about helping a friend get started in business. Wemmick tells Pip that he might as well throw his money off a bridge as loan it to a friend. Pip asks Wemmick if that would be his opinion at Walworth, and Wemmick replies that “Walworth is one place, and this office is another.” As Pip leaves the office he asks Mr. Jaggers to dine with him only out of courtesy. Mr. Jaggers accepts, and Pip thinks how much he would rather dine with Wemmick than with Jaggers. After the dinner, Herbert remarks “that he thought he must have committed a felony and forgotten the details of it, he felt so dejected and guilty.” Mr. Jaggers makes people feel very uncomfortable. The next Sunday Pip goes to Walworth and visits with Wemmick. Wemmick is out walking with Miss Skiffins, and Pip visits with the Aged Parent while waiting. Mr. Wemmick and Miss Skiffins return and cross the drawbridge. Pip and Wemmick go outside to talk in private. Pip asks Wemmick to help him give Herbert a certain amount of money each year and possibly get him a partnership in some business. Mr. Wemmick, impressed that Pip is so generous, tells Pip that Miss Skiffins’ brother is an accountant and agent who will help them in this endeavor. They return to the house, have refreshments, and listen to the Aged Parent read the newspaper aloud “for he isn’t capable of many pleasures.” Before the week is out, Pip receives a note from Wemmick that a young merchant by the name of Clarriker is looking for intelligent help and, in time, a partner in his business. Herbert is set up to be that help. Clarriker will take Herbert into his business and eventually make him a partner in exchange for 250 pounds and other regular payments from Pip. The transaction between Clarriker and Pip is to be done through Mr. Wemmick and to remain a secret. Excited and happy, Herbert returns to Barnard’s Inn and tells Pip all that has transpired. Pip is happy for the first time in a long time knowing that his “expectations had done some good to somebody.” Discussion and Analysis Pip anticipates his twenty-first birthday with the hope that his benefactor will make herself or himself known. Instead, Pip is given a set amount of money and will be given a set amount each year until the benefactor sees Part 2, Chapter 36 and 37 Summary and Analysis

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fit to disclose his identity. Pip decides secretly to set Herbert up in business and seeks the help of Mr. Wemmick. The practical Wemmick who works for Mr. Jaggers will not help Pip in this foolish endeavor; however, the Mr. Wemmick who lives at Walworth patiently listens to Pip’s plan and commends him for his generosity. The reader is more aware of the two personalities of Mr. Wemmick after learning of his responses to Pip’s request. Pip’s visit to Walworth offers the peacefulness and caring atmosphere that is the opposite extreme from Newgate Prison and Mr. Jaggers. Here Dickens gives the reader a release from unhappiness and hardships and presents a humorous and lighthearted look into Mr. Wemmick’s personal life. The reader is introduced to Mr. Wemmick’s ungainly lady-friend and watches as he flirts with her. There is contentment and a feeling of well-being in the house. It is almost as if the little drawbridge that spans the small ditch indeed keeps the cares of the world and its realities away from Mr. Wemmick and his family. It should also be noticed that the only pleasure that Pip has felt in quite a long time is when he successfully and secretly sets Herbert up in business. This act on Pip’s part enables him to feel good about himself and shows that Pip’s inner goodness has not disappeared entirely.

Part 2, Chapter 38 and 39 Summary and Analysis New Character Mrs. Brandley: a widow and the lady Estella is living with in Richmond Summary Pip visits Richmond often to see Estella. He is continually hurt by her and states, “I suffered every kind and degree of torture that Estella could cause me.” She uses Pip to tease other admirers so he is never happy in her presence, yet he is more miserable when he is not near her. Miss Havisham sends for Estella and instructs Pip to bring her. They arrive at Satis House and Pip notices that nothing has changed. Miss Havisham dotes upon Estella. “She hung upon Estella’s beauty, hung upon her words, hung upon her gestures, and sat mumbling her own trembling fingers while she looked at her, as though she were devouring the beautiful creature she had reared.” It is on this visit that Miss Havisham and Estella have their first argument. Miss Havisham is horrified that Estella treats her coldly and without feeling. Estella reminds her that that is how she was reared and replies, “I am what you have made me.” Pip walks in the garden while they argue. When he returns, everything seems to be back to normal, and he and Estella play games as in the past. That night Pip stays at Satis House. It is the first time he has spent the night there, and he is unable to sleep. He gets up and sees Miss Havisham roaming about the house like a ghost. Pip and Estella return to Richmond, and Pip goes to his club. While at the club, Drummle toasts Estella and Pip is angry. Pip claims that Drummle cannot know Estella and challenges him to bring proof of the acquaintance. The following day Drummle brings a note from Estella proving that they know one another. Pip is devastated. As soon as he can, Pip tries to talk to Estella and warn her that Drummle is not worthy of her attentions. Pip tells her, “I have seen you give him looks and smiles this very night, such as you never give to me.” Estella asks Pip if he wants her “to deceive and entrap” him. She tells Pip that she deceives and entraps all the others except him. Pip is now 23 years of age and is renting rooms at the Temple in Garden Court. It is eleven o’clock and there is a raging storm outside. He is preparing to put out the light and go to bed when he hears someone on the stairs. Pip goes to the stairs and shines a light for the person coming up the stairs. Part 2, Chapter 38 and 39 Summary and Analysis

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The man ascending is about 60 years old and dressed like a voyager from the sea. The man keeps trying to take Pip’s hands, but Pip tries to keep a distance between them. All of a sudden, Pip recognizes the man as the first convict on the marshes. Pip thinks the man has come to thank him for what he did for him as a child and tells the convict that it is not necessary. The convict tells Pip that he has worked as a sheep farmer, stock breeder, and other trades in order to make money. The convict asks Pip if his guardian’s name starts with a “J” and if he received money when he turned 21. He hints and then tells Pip outright that it was he who has made Pip a gentleman. The convict says, “I’m your second father. You’re my son—more to me nor any son. I’ve put away money, only for you to spend.” To this Pip braces himself on the back of a chair and feels that he is suffocating. The convict tells Pip that he has risked his life to come back to London and reveal himself as Pip’s benefactor. Pip reels in shock as he realizes that Miss Havisham is not his benefactor and Estella is not destined to be his. He gives the convict Herbert’s room to sleep in and closes all the curtains and shutters tightly. Discussion and Analysis This concludes the second stage of Pip’s life. The first stage introduces the characters and exposes the central conflicts, and the second stage contains the rising action and adds the complications to the plot. The first stage is referred to as the stage of childhood or innocence. The second stage might be referred to as Pip’s adolescence or his sinful state. Pip has left the safety and security of the forge and moved to the sinfulness of the city. The move takes place not only as a physical move for Pip, but also as an inward move within himself. His concerns are now turned toward self-gratification. He seeks to become a different person. He is no longer satisfied with his station in life or his class. This dissatisfaction extends also to his family, and he becomes ashamed of them and of the poor or working class that they represent. Pip is torn between his love for himself and others and his longing for material success. Pip lives in the hopes of Miss Havisham’s being his benefactor and the ultimate relationship planned between Estella and himself. It also might be significant that his childhood is spent living within a natural environment—the marshes, the sea, and the wholesomeness of honest working people that bring a simplicity to Pip’s life. The next stage of Pip’s life is in an environment built and polluted by mankind. It reflects the physical and social complexities of his life. The squalor of London almost rubs off on Pip, and he becomes more and more obsessed with money. He acquires superior feelings towards others. The convict element has haunted Pip ever since the first chapter of the novel. The recurring theme is presented through coincidences, and Pip is never allowed to forget entirely his first convict. In trying to become upper class, Pip actually associates with lower class characters, which include convicts and the people he sees in Newgate Prison. And now, much to Pip’s dismay, he owes his wealth and station in life to a convict. Miss Havisham, considered upper class by Pip, has met with her first heartbreak since being stood up at the altar. Estella turns from her with proud coldness. The young woman has learned her lessons well. She uses others and intentionally torments Pip with her many admirers. When Pip warns her concerning Drummle, she replies, “Moths, and all sorts of ugly creatures … hover about a lighted candle. Can the candle help it?” It might be considered ironic that a candle represents light and warmth, yet Estella is a cold and dark character. The stormy night on which the convict returns to see Pip and reveal his identity is a foreshadowing of the information to come. A storm is raging, and the wind has blown out the street lamps and seems to push the smoke back down the chimney. The news that Pip hears is as devastating as the storm outside. It destroys any hopes of his getting Estella. Thoughts of Pip had kept the convict working hard, yet the convict destroys Pip’s dreams and crashes him back into reality. Pip states, “But, sharpest and deepest pain of all … was that I had deserted Joe.” The convict further complicates Pip’s life by staying at his house. Pip realizes that this lower-class citizen is responsible for his good fortune and has spent his life in this endeavor. Estella would never understand or accept this situation.

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Part 3, Chapter 40 and 41 Summary and Analysis New Character Provis, Abel Magwitch: the assumed name and the real name of the first convict Summary Because Pip has to concentrate on hiding the convict, he pushes his other worries aside for the moment. He decides that he will tell people that his Uncle Provis has come to visit. On the way downstairs to talk to the watchman, Pip trips on a mysterious stranger hiding in the shadows of the stairway who runs immediately. Pip questions the watchman and finds that there were indeed two men who came last night, and the watchman thought they were together. The following morning Pip finds that the convict’s real name is Abel Magwitch, and he also finds out the reason why he has come to London jeopardizing his life. Magwitch states, “I’ve come to the old country fur to see my gentleman spend his money like a gentleman. That’ll be my pleasure.… If the danger had been fifty times as great, I should ha’ come to see you, mind you, just the same.” So Pip learns that Provis plans to disguise himself and stay in London. Pip finds Provis a lodging house in Essex Street at the back of the Temple and rents him a room. Then Pip goes to Mr. Jaggers office to confirm what he has learned from Provis. Mr. Jaggers keeps referring to Provis as “the man in New South Wales.” He insists that Pip did not communicate with him but was “informed” of his whereabouts. Pip tells Mr. Jaggers that he thought his benefactor was Miss Havisham. To this, Mr. Jaggers says that Pip never had any evidence to think that. Pip purchases new clothes for Provis, but the more Provis tries on, the more he still looks like a convict. Herbert returns, and Provis makes him swear on the Bible that he will not divulge any information about his whereabouts. Pip is relieved to share the burden with someone and tells Herbert all he knows. Herbert and Pip decide on a plan. First, they must get Provis out of England, and Pip is to go with him in order that he will go agreeably. After they are out of England, Pip is to leave him and have nothing more to do with him. Discussion and Analysis Pip feels responsible for the convict even though he experiences a tremendous aversion to him. He realizes that he cannot accept any more money from the convict, and he is heavily in his debt. The goodness that has been buried inside Pip ever since he moved to London resurfaces as he plots with Herbert to get Provis safely out of London. Pip also realizes that he is professionally prepared for nothing and discusses becoming a sailor. Dickens uses a mysterious stranger again to gain the reader’s interest. The dark stranger hiding on the stairs is a source of worry for Pip and for the reader. He does not know if Provis has been followed or if there is another reason for the stranger to be hiding in the dark. Herbert, Pip’s beloved friend, helps him devise a plan to get Provis out of London safely. The two young men are afraid of Provis because of his background; however, they both realize that they know very little of it. It is ironic that the convict carries a Bible with him and makes Herbert swear on it. Good and evil are again blended. Magwitch takes great pleasure in making a gentleman of Pip. It is probably his only worthwhile accomplishment. The reader does not know what crime the convict has committed, but assumes it must have been a terrible crime to have merited a life sentence. As Pip helps the convict try on new clothes that will disguise him as a wealthy farmer, Pip states, “To my thinking there was something in him that made it hopeless to attempt to disguise him. The more I dressed him, and the better I dressed him, the more he looked like the slouching fugitive on the marshes.” It might be said here that one cannot cover up the past with new appearances. While Pip cannot really change the convict, the reader knows that new clothes and material possessions have not really changed Pip either. Pip’s past is always a part of him, and it is his past that has formed him into the young man he is at this time. Part 3, Chapter 40 and 41 Summary and Analysis

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Part 3, Chapter 42 and 43 Summary and Analysis New Characters Compeyson: the name of the second convict introduced in Chapter 3; he was Miss Havisham’s fiancee who jilted her at the altar Arthur: the name of Miss Havisham’s half brother Sally: Compeyson’s wife Summary Provis relates his life story to Herbert and Pip. It seems that he has spent all his life in and out of jails. Provis states, “I’ve been locked up as much as silver tea-kittle, I’ve been carted here and carted there, and put out of this town and put out of that town, and stuck in the stocks, and whipped and worried and drove.” Misfortune has followed him as long as he can remember. He had to rob in order to eat even as a youngster. A soldier taught him to read, and a traveling giant taught him to write. About twenty years ago he was introduced to Compeyson who was “set up fur a gentleman … and had learning. He was a smooth one to talk … and was good-looking too.” Provis and Compeyson went into business together. “Compeyson’s business was the swindling, handwriting forging, stolen bank-note passing, and such-like. All sorts of traps as Compeyson could set with his head, and keep his own legs out of and get the profits from and let another man in for, was Compeyson’s business.” While in the association with Compeyson, Provis met another accomplice—a man called Arthur. Compeyson and Arthur had done a “bad thing with a rich lady some years afore, and they’d made a pot of money by it; but Compeyson betted and gamed.” Compeyson had lost all the money, and Arthur was dying “poor and with the horrors on him.” Arthur was living at Compeyson’s house and kept hallucinating that he saw a lady dressed all in white standing in the corner holding a shroud for him. Arthur died and Compeyson considered it good riddance. Compeyson and Provis were captured and tried for committing a felony—“on a charge of putting stolen notes in circulation—and there was other charges behind.” Both men were tried for the same offense; however, Compeyson was given only seven years because he appeared to be a gentleman who had gotten into the wrong crowd. On the other hand, Provis, because of his appearance and his past convictions, received 14 years. Both men were sent to the Hulks where Provis sought an opportunity to kill Compeyson. At one point, he struck Compeyson on the cheek, but he was apprehended before he could do any more damage to him. After the two convicts were captured on the marshes and returned to the Hulks, Provis was put in irons, brought to trial again, and given life. Herbert and Pip put the pieces together as the convict tells his story, and they realize that Miss Havisham’s half brother’s name was Arthur. Compeyson must be the man who jilted her. With this new information, Herbert and Pip realize the danger that Provis is in if Compeyson turns informer to permanently get rid of Provis. The need to help Provis get out of the country is more pressing than any of their other problems. Realizing that he must leave London as soon as possible, Pip goes to see Estella in Richmond and finds that she has gone to Satis House. Pip wonders why he was not asked to accompany her. He decides to go back to the village to see her. When he arrives in the village, he goes to the Blue Boar for breakfast and finds Bentley Drummle there. Drummle makes it clear to Pip that he is to dine with a young lady later, and Pip has no doubt who that might be. Drummle goes horseback riding, and the man who helps him light his cigar looks a lot like Orlick from the back. Discussion and Analysis The convict’s story reveals a life of grim struggle. Given little chance for survival, Provis achieves a worthwhile goal in spite of the crimes he has committed and the harshness of his experiences. This gives new Part 3, Chapter 42 and 43 Summary and Analysis

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insight into the theme of good and evil, for what appears evil (Provis) has certainly produced what appears to be good (Pip’s elevation to the rank of gentleman). Pip is again threatened by the appearance of Bentley Drummle. Pip feels that Drummle is spending too much time with Estella and does not understand their relationship. Dickens tones down their intense and disagreeable meeting at the Blue Boar with humor. Both try to out wait one another in front of the fireplace. There is no doubt that Drummle has the upper hand on Pip and ridicules his village with sarcasm.

Part 3, Chapter 44 and 45 Summary and Analysis New Character Mary Anne: a young servant working for Mr. Wemmick Summary Pip goes to Satis House to confront Miss Havisham and Estella. He wants to tell them that he knows who the benefactor is and to let Miss Havisham know that it was unkind of her to allow him to think it was she. He states, “I am as unhappy as you can ever have meant me to be.” Pip tells her that not all of her relatives are greedy self-seekers. Two of them, Herbert and his father, are honorable and do not deserve to be included with the other Pockets. They have always been honest with Pip and a friend to him. Pip realizes that he will be unable to continue his financial obligations where Herbert is concerned and asks Miss Havisham if she will help Herbert financially without his knowing it. Pip turns to Estella and admits that he has loved her ever since he first entered Satis House. She does not respond; she just keeps knitting. Pip goes on to tell her of his love and notices Miss Havisham’s look of pity for him. Estella answers Pip by saying, “I know what you mean as a form of words, but nothing more. You address nothing in my breast, you touch nothing there. I don’t care for what you say at all. I have tried to warn you of this, now, have I not?” Pip now knows for certain that he was not meant for Estella, but he cannot help warning her to beware of Drummle. To Pip’s great dismay, Estella confesses that she is going to be married to him. This news crushes Pip, and he tries to make her see that if he himself cannot have her, she should at least marry someone more worthy than Drummle. Pip leaves Satis House and walks all the way back to London. As he arrives at the Temple, the watchmen gives him a note. In Wemmick’s handwriting is the message, “Don’t go home!” Pip finds other lodging for the night, but cannot sleep for worrying about the meaning of the message. The next morning Pip goes to Walworth to talk with Wemmick. Wemmick tells Pip that Provis’ disappearance in New South Wales caused quite a stir. Compeyson is now in London, and Pip’s house is probably being watched. When Wemmick heard the news, Pip was at Satis House, so Wemmick went to Herbert, who found another lodging place for Provis. He rents Provis a room in the house where his fiancee lives. There are three reasons why this arrangement is a good one. One, the house is off the beaten path and not a place where Pip usually goes. Two, the house is near the river, thus providing access to foreign-bound ships when the time comes to get Provis out of the country. Three, Herbert can keep Pip informed about the welfare of Provis since he will be visiting his fiancee in the same house. Discussion and Analysis The confrontation with Estella and Miss Havisham has left Pip feeling desolate and without hope. The news Part 3, Chapter 44 and 45 Summary and Analysis

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of Estella’s impending marriage to someone as unworthy as Drummle devastates Pip. Estella reminds Pip that she never led him on. The identity of his benefactor has completely changed Pip’s life and his expectations. He is now unable to continue his good intentions concerning Herbert and must ask for Miss Havisham’s help. Pip is humbled and broken hearted. When he returns and finds the note, all his fears tumble in around him. He worries about Provis, which indicates that there is still good left in Pip. Wemmick’s sincere friendship is demonstrated clearly. He not only warns Pip about not returning home, but also with Herbert’s help, safely moved Provis to new lodging. Dickens’ characters may be divided into three groups. There are those who harm others, such as Orlick and Drummle, and there are those who are harmed or hurt, such as Herbert and Pip. The third group consists of those who help others which includes Wemmick, Biddy, and Joe. Wemmick exemplifies the simple honesty and gentleness that pulls Pip to him for help and advice. The plot begins to become intense as the reader learns that Compeyson is in London, and Provis might be in great danger. Even though he has committed many crimes, the reader feels a sympathy for him because of what he has done for Pip.

Part 3, Chapter 46 and 47 Summary and Analysis New Characters Mrs. Whimple: the landlady to the Barleys Bill Barley: Clara’s father Mr. Campbell: the name that Provis has taken when he moves into Mrs. Whimple’s boarding house Summary Pip goes to Mill Pond Bank to locate the boarding house where Provis is now living. He is greeted at the door by Herbert and meets Clara for the first time. Clara’s father lives upstairs; because he is an invalid, he never comes down. Clara’s father gets her attention by banging on the floor and yelling. Pip decides not to tell Provis that Compeyson is in London. He only relates the plan that Wemmick has given him. Provis is to stay hidden for awhile, and Pip is not to come see him for fear of being followed. Pip also tells Provis that he must leave the country and that he will go with him. Herbert comes up with the idea that since the boarding house is right on the river, they take up rowing again. They can go rowing every day so as not to arouse suspicion. Then, when the right time comes, they can row Provis out to sea to board a steamer. As they row past the boarding house Provis is to lower his shade if everything is all right. Pip’s entire being is consumed with the fear that he is being watched or followed. He goes to the theater one night where Mr. Wopsle is performing. Pip notices that Mr. Wopsle keeps looking at him from the stage. After the play ends, Pip and Mr. Wopsle meet, and Wopsle says, “I had a ridiculous fancy that he must be with you, Mr. Pip, till I saw that you were quite unconscious of him, sitting behind you there like a ghost.” A chill creeps over Pip, and he is afraid to ask who it was that Mr. Wopsle saw. Mr. Wopsle asks if Pip remembers one Christmas long ago when two convicts had escaped and were found fighting. Pip admits that he does remember, and Mr. Wopsle says, “One of those two prisoners sat behind you to-night. I saw him over your shoulder.” Pip realizes it had to be Compeyson, and he immediately sends a written note to Wemmick telling him of the occurrence. Part 3, Chapter 46 and 47 Summary and Analysis

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Discussion and Analysis Pip’s fear that Provis will be found consumes his every move. His concern for Provis reveals the inner character of Pip. He feels responsible for the convict and does not want anything to happen to him. Pip also does not spend any more of Provis’ money. He returns Provis’ unopened pocketbook and waits as bills and debts begin to pile up. When Pip goes to visit Provis in his new quarters, Provis appears “softer.” The reader might wonder if the convict is softer in appearance, or if it is Pip’s heart that is becoming softer. Without realizing it, Pip is again changing. He is realizing that goodness comes from within a person, not from external sources like wealth. The boarding house offers safety for Provis for a time, and Pip and Herbert make it a habit to be seen rowing on the river until the time is right to escape with Provis.

Part 3, Chapter 48 and 49 Summary and Analysis Summary Pip dines with Mr. Jaggers and Mr. Wemmick. As they dine, Mr. Jaggers tells Pip that Miss Havisham has sent a note requesting that Pip come see her concerning a little matter of business. Mr. Jaggers brings up the fact that Estella is now married to Drummle and hints that Drummle may be beating her. Mr. Jaggers says, “A fellow like our friend the Spider, either beats, or cringes.” Molly, Jaggers’ housekeeper, waits on the table and a movement of her fingers reminds Pip of the way Estella’s fingers looked as she sat knitting. Pip notices that “her hands were Estella’s hands, and her eyes were Estella’s eyes, and if she had reappeared a hundred times I could have been neither more sure nor less sure that my conviction was the truth.” Pip is certain that Molly is Estella’s mother. As Pip and Wemmick walk home together, Pip asks Wemmick to relate Molly’s story. It seems that she was tried for murder, and Mr. Jaggers got her acquitted. Molly, a married woman with a three year old daughter, had murdered a woman who was much stronger than she in a fit of jealousy. As soon as she was acquitted, Molly went to work for Mr. Jaggers. She became a different person when she started working for Mr. Jaggers, quite tame compared to her previous wildness. Feeling confident that Estella is Molly’s daughter, Pip goes to see Miss Havisham concerning their business arrangement. As Pip enters the room, he feels pity for the woman who shut away the world and who has lost the only person she ever came close to loving—Estella. Miss Havisham says, “I want to pursue that subject you mentioned to me when you were last here, and to show you that I am not all stone. But perhaps you can never believe, now, that there is anything human in my heart?” Pip explains to her his secret history of helping Herbert in Clarriker’s business and tells her that it will take 900 pounds to complete the business transaction. Miss Havisham agrees to have Mr. Jaggers give him the money. Then Miss Havisham tells Pip, “If you can ever write under my name, ‘I forgive her,’ though ever so long after my broken heart is dust, pray do it!” Miss Havisham kneels at Pip’s feet and weeps. Pip assures her that he does forgive her, and she cries, “Oh, what have I done! What have I done.” Pip asks her how Estella came to be her adopted daughter, and Miss Havisham tells her side of the story. Miss Havisham tells Pip that she wanted a little girl to love and bring up and save from experiencing the same fate that she had. She asked Mr. Jaggers to find her a daughter, and one night he arrived with the sleeping child. Miss Havisham named her Estella. Because Pip feels that he will never return to Satis House, he walks through the brewery and the gardens one last time. While in the brewery, he again imagines he sees Miss Havisham hanging by her neck from a beam. The scene in his mind startles him, and he returns to the house to see Miss Havisham for the last time. As he Part 3, Chapter 48 and 49 Summary and Analysis

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enters her door, he sees her seated by the fire in her faded and ancient wedding dress. All of a sudden, a coal rolls from the fireplace and catches her dress on fire. She begins shrieking, and Pip throws his coat over her trying to put out the fire that has engulfed her. He pulls the great table cloth from the table and rolls her in it. A doctor is called, and she is laid on the great bridal table. After it is all over, Pip realizes that both his hands are badly burned. Miss Havisham keeps repeating, “Take the pencil and write under my name, ‘I forgive her.’” Discussion and Analysis A great change has taken place in the characters of both Pip and Miss Havisham. Both characters regret their previous lives and what they have done to others, for whom they cared very deeply. Pip realizes that his life has been thoughtless and self-seeking. Miss Havisham realizes that she has taken the natural heart from Estella and replaced it with a heart that is cold and unfeeling even towards her. Miss Havisham acknowledges that she has hurt Pip deeply, and the only way she is now able to help Pip is to help his friend Herbert. Pip feels pity for Miss Havisham because she, too, has lost Estella. The pathetic old woman no longer appears as the rich fairy godmother that Pip once saw; she is now only an old woman who shut out the world and allowed herself to be consumed by revenge. Pip feels no hate towards her; rather, he displays a sincere compassion for her safety by risking his own life to save hers. Dickens uses Pip’s knowledge of the criminal histories of Provis and Molly to begin bringing his complicated plots together. Unanswered questions are answered, and the reader discovers that the characters are linked in ways previously unimagined. In this, the third stage of Pip’s life, conflicts are resolved, and Pip reaches adulthood. Fire has played a symbolic part in the novel. There is the fire at Joe’s hearth which is a service to mankind. It is warm and inviting and might be said to represent the character of Joe. It is in that fire that Pip saw Estella’s face haunting him when he was a blacksmith working for Joe. On the other hand, there is the small, barely visible fire that burned in Miss Havisham’s hearth. It shed no warmth and was of little use. It is this smallness that is seen in the character of Miss Havisham. Even though the fire was small and pitiful, it jumped from its place and destroyed Miss Havisham and badly burned Pip. Dickens is perhaps saying that the small evils in one’s life become larger as one grows older and ultimately destroy the person. Dickens uses repetition for emphasis. Miss Havisham repeats, “What have I done?” over and over. She realizes that her life has been wasted. She keeps repeating, “Take the pencil and write under my name, ‘I forgive her.’” It is also ironic that her prophecy comes true. In order for the doctor to treat her, she is laid on the bridal table. The doctor says that her burns are not life-threatening, but the emotional shock is. The doctor has no way of knowing that there is nothing but a shell left of Miss Havisham. The exterior is all that is left, because revenge and hate have eaten away all the inside.

Part 3, Chapter 50 and 51 Summary and Analysis New Characters Mike: a client of Mr. Jaggers Gruffandgrim: name Herbert uses for Clara’s father Summary Herbert takes care of Pip, changing his bandages, and nursing him back to health. Herbert confides to Pip that he cannot marry Clara until her father passes away, because the father requires her constant care.

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After two hours of talking, Provis tells Herbert about his marriage. It seems that his wife was a jealous woman and took revenge upon an older and stronger woman because of her interest in him (Provis). She murdered the stronger woman and Mr. Jaggers was her lawyer. On the night that she killed the other woman, she came to Provis and told him that she was going to destroy their child, a little girl. During the trial, Provis did not appear anywhere near the courts for fear that he would be pulled into the proceedings. The lawyer got his wife acquitted for the offense, and he never saw the child again. When Pip helped Provis, Pip was about the same age as his daughter would have been. Pip’s kindness touched his heart and reminded the convict of his lost child. Pip recognizes the story and realizes that Provis is Estella’s father. The old convict has no idea that his child lives. Pip goes to Mr. Jaggers to confirm the story and the parentage of Estella. Mr. Jaggers does not want to confirm Pip’s hypothesis; however, he puts it to Pip in the form of a nameless case. Mr. Jaggers tells Pip that at one time a client had a child. By pleading that the woman killed her child, and the scratch marks on her hands were that of the child’s and not the murdered victims, he was able to get her acquitted. At the same time, a rich woman wanted a child to adopt. The child was a beautiful little girl, and Mr. Jaggers did what he thought best for the girl. Mr. Jaggers states, “Put the case that he lived in an atmosphere of evil, and that all he saw of children was their being generated in great numbers for certain destruction. Put the case that he often saw children solemnly tried at a criminal bar, where they were held up to be seen; put the case that he habitually knew of their being imprisoned, whipped, transported, neglected, cast out, qualified in all ways for the hangman, and growing up to be hanged.” Mr. Jaggers realized that he could altar this child’s future for the better and did so. Mr. Jaggers also tells Pip that it might be far better if this information were not shared with the people involved. Discussion and Analysis The discovery of the identity of Estella’s parents places more of the puzzle pieces together. One sees the brilliance of Dickens who weaves his master plot through the lives of many characters, connecting them in ingenious ways. Although Mr. Jaggers did not know the identity of Estella’s father, he seems to take the information in stride and cautions Pip that it would do no good to tell any of this information to any one of the three people directly involved. The fact that Pip does not want Estella told says a lot for his character. He knows that this information would destroy a woman who has lived in luxury and who believes it to be her total existence. It would also put a darkening cloud over her marriage with Drummle, who is very conscious of appearance and wealth. These chapters also reveal an insight into London during the nineteenth century. There were no laws or rights for children. Children were at the mercy of the courts or the people in charge. Because Dickens was a newspaper reporter at one time in his career, he was familiar with the extreme punishments handed down by criminal courts. By putting this account of the child and the courts in his novel, he was able to criticize the system.

Part 3, Chapter 52 and 53 Summary and Analysis Summary With the money supplied by Miss Havisham, Pip takes the check from Mr. Jaggers and goes directly to Miss Skiffins’ brother, who in turn takes it to Clarriker. Then the transaction is finished. Clarriker tells Pip that a branch office is needed in the East, and Herbert, in his new partnership capacity, will be in charge of it. Pip says, “I had the great satisfaction of concluding that arrangement. It was the only good thing I had done, and the only completed thing I had done, since I was first apprised of my great expectations.”

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On Monday Pip receives a letter from Wemmick stating that Wednesday would be the day to do what has been planned for Provis. After reading the letter, Pip is to burn it. Pip discusses the message with Herbert, and they decide that it would be better and safer to ask Startop to help them than to risk hiring a stranger. Pip and Herbert investigate the ships that will be leaving on Wednesday and decide on a steamer headed for Hamburg as the best choice. Because of Pip’s burns, he will steer and the other two young men will row. Provis will just sit and watch. Upon Pip’s return from the shipyards, he discovers another letter. This one is dirty and unsigned. It states that Pip is to come tomorrow night at nine to the sluice house by the limekilm located in the marshes. The information that caught Pip’s attention was the part that read, “You had better come. If you want information regarding your Uncle Provis, you had much better come and tell no one and lose no time.” Pip knows that he would never have gone except for the reference to his Uncle Provis and the fact that the get-away is planned for Wednesday. Nothing must go wrong, so Pip returns to the marsh on the next stage and stops briefly at the inn. The landlord entertains Pip with Pip’s own story. The landlord tells how Mr. Pumblechook had been his earliest benefactor and the founder of Pip’s fortunes. Pip travels by foot to the sluice house. Upon entering the small abandoned house, Pip notices a lighted candle on a table, but he sees no one. All of a sudden Pip finds himself encircled with a rope drawing his arms to his sides, causing great pain in his badly burned arm. Then Orlick steps into the light. Orlick reveals his long-standing hatred for Pip whom he holds responsible for getting him fired from his job at Miss Havisham’s house. He felt that Pip had come between him and Biddy. When Pip asks Orlick what he is going to do with him, Orlick tells him that he is going to take Pip’s life. As Orlick sits drinking, he tells Pip how he killed Pip’s sister with the abandoned leg iron. Orlick also confesses that he has been watching Pip for some time in order to apprehend him at just the right time. (It was Orlick who was hiding on Pip’s stairs that dark and stormy night.) Orlick also knows that Provis is really Magwitch and that he is not Pip’s uncle. As Orlick comes toward Pip with a stone-hammer, Pip begins to struggle and shout. Pip is knocked unconscious as Trabb’s boy, Startop, and Herbert rush in. It seems that Pip had accidentally dropped Orlick’s letter at the Temple, and Herbert had found it and become worried. Herbert and Startop traveled to the village and asked Trabb’s boy to be their guide to the sluice house. Pip becomes ill after the ordeal with Orlick and is worried that he will not be able to help get Provis out of the country. Wednesday finally arrives, Pip feels better, and at nine o’clock they intend to carry out their plan. Discussion and Analysis Pip has grown to be a self-reliant young man. He has refused further financial assistance from Miss Havisham or from Magwitch. His refusal does not come from a sense of false pride, but from a realization that he has been wrong in the past and needs to mend the mistakes in his life. Even Pip understands that the only good thing he has done since getting his great expectations is to set Herbert up in business. It was easy to help Herbert when he had great amounts of money; however, it was even more noble when Pip was not receiving any more of Provis’ money. It is Pip who refuses to take any more from his benefactor. When Pip goes to his village and stops at the inn before going to the sluice house, it pulls at his conscience to realize that Uncle Pumblechook has taken all the credit for Pip’s good fortune. He remembers that Joe has never said a word. He remarks, “Long-suffering and loving Joe, you never complain. Nor you, sweet-tempered Biddy! I had never been struck at so keenly for my thanklessness to Joe, as through the brazen impostor Pumblechook. The falser he, the truer Joe; the meaner he, the nobler Joe.” Maturity has made Pip see Joe as the innocent, humble man that he is. Part 3, Chapter 52 and 53 Summary and Analysis

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The conflict between Pip and Orlick is brought to a head when Orlick tries to kill Pip. Orlick is one of the villains of the story who seeks revenge upon the innocent. His vengeance is so planned that he has been watching Pip for a long time. Orlick tells Pip that he is going to put his body into the kiln. Lime dissolves bone as well as flesh, so there will be no trace of Pip’s body to be found. Dickens’ use of coincidence helps save Pip from a sure death. Because Pip just happened to drop Orlick’s note, Herbert is able to follow him to the marshes and rescue him from certain death. Pip’s illness is partly because of worry and concern over Provis. This concern is genuine; Provis is no longer repugnant to Pip, and Pip recognizes the man as one whose life has dealt him many harsh blows.

Part 3, Chapter 54 and 55 Summary and Analysis New Character Jack: man at the public house where Pip, Provis, Startop, and Herbert stay the night before they try to board the steamer Summary The day has finally come when Pip will try to get Provis out of London to safety. Pip packs only what is necessary because his thoughts are not upon himself but on the welfare of Provis. There are two steamers leaving London on Thursday morning. It is decided that if they miss the first one, they will catch the second. Pip, Startop, and Herbert begin rowing on Wednesday morning. As they row near Mill Pond Bank, Provis joins them in the boat. The little band of rescuers travel all day and into the night. As night approaches, they find an out-of-the-way public house where they stop for the night. Jack, a dirty and ill-dressed patron of the public house comments that he has seen a four-oared galley going up and down with the tide. This alerts Pip that someone may be following them. The next morning Provis and Pip walk to another area of the beach, and Herbert and Startop pick them up there. They row out to sea, spot the steamer, and begin to position their small boat so as to hail the larger vessel into stopping for the new passengers—Pip and Provis. As the steamer approaches, the four-oared galley also approaches. There are two sitters in the galley, and one man is heavily wrapped up with his face hidden. The mysterious man points to Provis and says that he is the man. The other sitter in the galley tells Provis that he is under arrest. Provis recognizes the mysterious man as Compeyson, and they lunge for one another, both falling overboard and capsizing Pip’s boat. Provis and Compeyson go under water. Pip, Startop, and Herbert are pulled aboard; Provis comes to the surface and is rescued. Compeyson drowns. Provis is injured in his chest and suffers a deep cut on the head. Pip tells Provis that “I will never stir from your side.… I will be as true to you as you have been to me!” If convicted, all of Provis’ possessions will be forfeited to the Crown. Pip goes directly to Mr. Jaggers who does not offer much hope for Magwitch. Mr. Jaggers tells Pip that since he is not related to Magwitch and Magwitch has no will, Pip will not inherit nor receive any of Magwitch’s money or possessions. All that Magwitch has will go to the Crown. Pip decides not to tell Magwitch any of this information, but instead lets him believe that all his money will go to him (Pip). Herbert tells Pip that he must go to Cairo to run the branch office. He offers Pip a job as clerk in the branch office and invites Pip to live with him and Clara. Pip tells Herbert that he cannot make a decision at the moment because of the situation with Magwitch.

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Wemmick comes to see Pip and asks him to come take a walk with him the following Monday. He (Wemmick) has decided to take a holiday on that day. Because of all that Wemmick has done for him, Pip decides to accept the invitation. Pip arrives on Monday, and as he and Wemmick begin their walk towards Camberwell Green, Wemmick picks up a fishing rod. They come upon a church, and Wemmick suggests that they go in. Pip is surprised to find that he is suddenly the best man for Wemmick in his marriage to Miss Skiffins. Aged Parent gives the bride away. As the wedding party leaves to have breakfast together, Wemmick tells Pip that, “This is altogether a Walworth sentiment, please.” Pip replies that he understands not to say anything in the vicinity of Jaggers’ office. Discussion and Analysis The escape is foiled by Compeyson whose grudge against Magwitch costs him his life. He informed the authorities of the whereabouts of Magwitch and helped identify and apprehend him. This terrible hate has lasted for years and years on both sides. There is a great change in Pip’s feelings for Magwitch. After the capture, Pip takes his place by Magwitch’s side and pledges to remain there as long as he lives. “For now my repugnance to him had all melted away, and in the hunted, wounded, shackled creature who held my hand in his, I only saw a man who had meant to be my benefactor, and who had felt affectionately, gratefully, and generously towards me with great constancy through a series of years. I only saw in him a much better man than I had been to Joe.” Pip realizes that this crude old man is a warm, loving, and unlucky individual. He realizes that this convict has treated him far better than Pip himself has treated Joe. Pip is turning from his adolescence, his self-serving quest for his own gain, towards a more mature relationship with others. Pip realizes that he has been shallow and superficial. He begins to renounce some of the values of his London life, returning to deeper and more basic values. Right after the tense recapture of Magwitch, Dickens lightens the novel with the humorous marriage of Wemmick to Miss Skiffins. Only Dickens can have a character invite another character for a walk and end up with a marriage. Pip becomes a best man without even being asked to attend a wedding. The fact that Wemmick carries a fishing pole is also quite out of the ordinary and humorous. The entire wedding is so nonchalantly planned and accomplished, it helps to relieve the tension built by the escape, capture, and injury of Magwitch. Again, Wemmick makes sure that Pip understands the separation between work and home when he tells Pip that this is “a Walworth sentiment.”

Part 3, Chapter 56 and 57 Summary and Analysis Summary Magwitch lies in prison with two broken ribs which have injured one of his lungs. He breathes with a great deal of pain. Pip sits with him at every opportunity he is given. Pip talks with him, reads to him, and tries to comfort him. “The kind of submission or resignation that he (Magwitch) showed was that of a man who was tired out.” Magwitch’s trial comes, and he and 32 other men and women are sentenced together by the judge. They are judged guilty and sentenced to death. Pip begins to write petitions to anyone who might help Magwitch. Appeal after appeal is written and sent on Magwitch’s behalf. Pip has become obsessed with trying to find a way to save his benefactor from hanging. For 10 days, Pip sits with his hand in Magwitch’s hand as the convict becomes weaker and weaker. Magwitch says, “You’ve never deserted me, dear boy.” Pip presses his hand and remembers that at one time he had wanted to desert him, but not now. Pip realizes that Magwitch is dying, leans down, and tells him that Part 3, Chapter 56 and 57 Summary and Analysis

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his daughter is alive, has powerful friends, is very beautiful, and that he (Pip) loves her. Magwitch lifts Pip’s hand to his lips, lets it gently sink down upon his breast, and passes away. Pip returns to the Temple where he becomes extremely ill. He passes in and out of consciousness, but seems to remember someone’s coming to arrest him for lack of payment for a jeweler’s debt. He also thinks he sees Joe’s face in everyone else’s face. Finally, Pip asks the person in his room for a drink, and it is really Joe! Pip says, “Oh, Joe, you break my heart! Look angry at me, Joe. Strike me, Joe. Tell me of my ingratitude. Don’t be so good to me!” Joe comforts Pip and tells him that it is the end of May, and the first of June is tomorrow. Pip has been ill about a month. As Pip begins to recover, he asks about Miss Havisham. Joe tells him that she is no longer living and has left most of her wealth to Estella. Upon Pip’s request, she left Matthew Pocket 4,000 pounds and the rest of her relatives very small amounts of money. Joe tells Pip that Orlick is in jail for breaking into Mr. Pumblechook’s house. Finally, Pip is able to go for a ride. Joe carries him downstairs. As they ride, Pip and Joe are both deep in thought. Pip is trying to decide how to tell Joe how he feels about him, because as Pip became stronger, Joe began to become more distant. One morning Pip gets up earlier than usual because he has decided that today he will tell Joe how he feels. Upon going to his room, he finds that Joe has left and gone back to the marshes. Biddy has taught Joe how to write, and he leaves Pip a note telling him of his return. Enclosed in the letter is a receipt for all of Pip’s debts, paid for by Joe. Pip decides to go to the marshes, tell Joe how he feels, and asks Biddy to forgive him and to marry him. Discussion and Analysis Magwitch is resigned to his fate and does not struggle against it. Even the guilty verdict does not seem to upset him. As Pip watches the verdict being given to 32 people, he is incredulous that so many face the same fate. Dickens takes this opportunity to show briefly how different people accept or fight their impending death. Some weep, some sob, some simply walk out of the courtroom as if in a trance. Dickens is giving his readers an insight into the court system of London in the nineteenth century. Dickens felt that society was guilty for the criminals that it made. It is almost as if Dickens is putting society on trial, rather than Magwitch the criminal. Because Magwitch is so ill, he is allowed to sit during the sentencing. The judge directly addresses Magwitch and singles him out for a special reprimand. The judge lets everyone in the court know that Magwitch is a repeat offender who had been sentenced to life. He tells the public of Magwitch’s repeated imprisonments and punishments. Pip sits close to him, holding his hand through all the trial and sentencing. This act on Pip’s part illustrates his humility and concern for Magwitch. The convict is responsible for all the changes within Pip. He is the one who first made Pip feel guilt for stealing. This guilt was the beginning of Pip’s loss of innocence. The fact that the convict is Pip’s benefactor also bears impressive weight. Because of the new wealth, Pip drastically changes into a self-serving individual who withdraws from those characters who are considered honest, loyal, and true—Joe and Biddy. Then, in the last phase of Pip’s life, the convict reverses Pip’s downhill decline and causes him to return again to the original goodness within himself. It is interesting to note that “as I (Pip) became stronger and better, Joe became a little less easy with me. In my weakness and entire dependence on him, the dear fellow had fallen into the old tone, and called me by the old names, the dear ‘old Pip, old chap.’” As Pip becomes better, Joe reverts into calling him “Sir.” Joe has no idea that Pip is wanting to return to the old relationship with him. Pip has matured. Although Pip feels guilt about the way he has treated Joe, he wants the goodness and innocence to return to their relationship. Part 3, Chapter 56 and 57 Summary and Analysis

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Part 3, Chapter 58 and 59 Summary and Analysis New Characters William: a waiter at the Blue Boar Georgiana M’ria: Mrs. Joe’s given name Squires: the landlord of the Blue Boar Summary Pip returns to his village and goes to the Blue Boar where he finds that the people treat him more coolly now that he has no fortunes. He takes a walk to Satis House and finds that it is being sold as old building material, the furniture to be auctioned off. When he returns to the Blue Boar, he encounters Mr. Pumblechook who instructs him to tell Joe that he (Pip) has seen his original benefactor. Pip is incredulous, telling Pumblechook that he does not see his benefactor here at all. Pumblechook calls everyone’s attention to Pip’s ingratitude and elevates himself by making it known that he would do “it” all again though Pip continues to prove ungrateful. Pip goes to the school house hoping to see Biddy at her work, but the school is closed. He proceeds to the forge expecting to see the fires of the forge and Joe hard at work. The forge is also closed. As Pip draws nearer his childhood home, he sees Biddy and Joe standing outside the cottage. When they see Pip approaching, Biddy weeps and runs into Pip’s arms. Bursting with happiness at seeing Pip, Biddy tells him that she and Joe were married that day. Pip is glad that he did not disclose his plans concerning Biddy to Joe when he was ill in London. Pip tells Joe and Biddy that he owes them so much more than just money. He promises to repay Joe for the money that he spent paying his debts in London. He begs their forgiveness for the way he has acted and says, “Pray tell me, both, that you forgive me. Pray let me hear you say the words, that I may carry the sound of them away with me, and then I shall be able to believe that you can trust me, and think better of me, in the time to come!” Pip sells all that he has and goes to Cairo to become a clerk for Clarriker. He repays his debts, lives with Herbert and Clara who are now married, and eventually becomes a partner in the business. Clarriker reveals Pip’s secret concerning Herbert’s partnership. The business does well, and Pip stays in contact with Joe and Biddy. Pip stays away from London for 11 years. Then one day he returns to the forge to find the same graying Joe seated by the fireplace and a little boy who looks just like Pip sitting beside Joe. The little boy has been named “Pip,” and Joe and Biddy also have a little girl. Biddy asks Pip if he is over Estella. He answers that he is, but deep within him, he wonders. He has heard that Drummle was cruel to her and that they separated. Drummle was also cruel to his horses, and it was that cruelty that cost him his life. Pip returns to the site of Satis House and finds Estella there, walking in what was once the garden. Abuse and heartache have softened Estella, and she says, “I have been bent and broken—I hope—into a better shape.” The original ending states that after Drummle was killed, Estella married a Shropshire doctor, and they lived modestly on her wealth. In the original ending, Estella and Pip do not regain their relationship; whereas, in the more popular version, it is implied that they will never part from one another again. Discussion and Analysis The novel has two endings, the original unpopular one and the second one that proved more acceptable to Part 3, Chapter 58 and 59 Summary and Analysis

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Dickens’ readers. Probably the original ending was more realistic, but the public wanted the relationship of Pip and Estella to have another chance after both had changed so drastically. All the mysteries have been solved at the close of the novel. Pip, whose beginnings were humble and noble on the marshes, becomes at the end of the story, the same decent person he was at the beginning. The first stage of the novel, Pip’s childhood, is filled with satisfaction, loyalty to Joe, and contentment with his social class position. In the second phase of the novel, he becomes dissatisfied and sets high goals for himself after being affected by the appearance of Estella and Miss Havisham in his life. The internal conflict begins at this stage of Pip’s life. The first stage represents the down-to-earth simplicity of Pip’s childhood, and the second stage reflects the sinful era of his life when he turns away from all that he knows is good and honorable. The busy industrial life in London reflects the emotional turmoil within Pip’s life. The serenity of the marshes is replaced with crowded streets, Newgate Prison, and complexities brought about by indebtedness, overspending, and the identity of his real benefactor. Pip suffers socially and physically. The third part of the novel represents the redemption. Pip turns from his sinful and thoughtless ways and returns to his beginnings. In the last chapters of the book, as Pip draws closer and closer to Biddy and Joe, he has “a sense of increasing relief as I (Pip) drew nearer to them, and a sense of leaving arrogance and untruthfulness further and further behind.” Pip realizes that wealth and happiness do not necessarily go hand in hand. He learns that life is made up of unexpected turns and events all of which form the individual into the person he will become. Guilt for doing wrong has affected Pip’s life from the very beginning of the novel. Good and evil and their effects upon his life have helped shape his life and have caused him to return to his humble beginnings. While he does not return to the marshes to become a blacksmith, he does return spiritually and emotionally to the values he learned there. Also, the effects of wealth are closely associated with goodness and evil. It might be noted that while Magwitch was a criminal and considered to be evil, the money that he gave to Pip was gained through honest work and the unselfish desire to make Pip into something that Magwitch could never be. Miss Havisham, on the other hand, had wealth, but never had happiness. She too tried to reshape another individual. While changes take place within several of the characters, Pip is the one who changes the most. The novel has been labeled as a bildungsroman, which means a “novel of changing or education.” Pip’s changing comes about as a result of education or spiritual growth. How Pip resolves the conflicts within his life is the central focus of the novel.

Great Expectations: Quizzes Part 1, Chapter 1 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. The novel is written in what point of view? 2. Where does the opening scene take place? 3. What is Pip’s full name? 4. Where are Pip’s parents? 5. With whom does Pip live?

Great Expectations: Quizzes

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6. What does Joe Gargery do for a living? 7. How is the first convict dressed? What is his appearance? 8. What does the first convict ask Pip to bring him? 9. Why did the first convict ask for a file? 10. Where is Pip to bring the food and the file the next morning? Answers 1. The novel is written in first person point of view. 2. The opening scene takes place in a churchyard (cemetery). 3. Pip’s full name is Philip Pirrip. 4. Pip’s parents are buried in the cemetery. 5. Pip lives with his sister and her husband. 6. Joe Gargery is a blacksmith. 7. The first convict is dressed in gray with an iron around his leg, no hat, broken shoes, and an old rag tied around his head. He is soaked with water and covered with mud. 8. The first convict asks Pip to bring him food and a file. 9. The convict plans to file off his leg iron. 10. Pip is to bring the food and the file to the old battery which is a deserted military fortification that used to be equipped with guns.

Part 1, Chapters 2 and 3 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. When Pip returns from the churchyard, where is Mrs. Joe? 2. How many times has Mrs. Joe been out looking for Pip? 3. What does Pip mean when he says he was “brought up by hand”? 4. What is the Tickler? 5. Where does Pip hide his bread? 6. What does Mrs. Joe give Pip when she thinks he has eaten his bread too fast? 7. How are the people on shore warned when a convict has escaped from the Hulks?

Part 1, Chapter 1 Questions and Answers

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8. What are the Hulks? 9. What is unusual about the second convict’s face? 10. Who does Pip think the second convict is? Answers 1. Mrs. Joe is out looking for Pip. 2. She has been out 13 times looking for him. 3. This phrase is an example of a pun, a play on words. The phrase could mean that he is being brought up in the watchful care of his sister. It could also mean that Pip is being brought up with many slaps and spankings from Mrs. Joe. 4. Tickler is a cane used by Mrs. Joe to discipline Pip. 5. Pip hides his bread down his pants leg. 6. Mrs. Joe makes Pip drink a pint of tar-water. 7. When a convict escapes from the Hulks, people on shore are warned by a cannon firing. 8. The Hulks are old ships used as a prison for convicts. 9. The second convict has a badly bruised left cheek. 10. Pip thinks that the second convict is the mysterious companion of the first convict.

Part 1, Chapters 4 and 5 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. What is the occasion for having dinner guests at the Gargery’s? 2. What makes Pip uncomfortable during the Christmas dinner? 3. Who comes to the door just as Mrs. Joe is inviting the guests to taste her pork pie? 4. Why does Pip think the soldiers have come to his house? 5. Why have the soldiers actually come to the Gargery house? 6. When the two convicts are found, what are they doing? 7. What does the second convict claim the first convict tried to do to him? 8. How does Joe feel toward the first convict? 9. Who takes the blame for stealing the food from Mrs. Joe?

Part 1, Chapters 2 and 3 Questions and Answers

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10. Where are the convicts taken? Answers 1. The occasion is Christmas Day. 2. The dinner guests make references to Pip that he is not grateful for what his sister has done for him. Pip also is fearful about the discovery of the missing food. 3. The sergeant and his solders arrive at the door just as Mrs. Joe goes to get her pork pie. 4. Pip thinks the soldiers have come to arrest him for stealing. 5. The soldiers need some handcuffs repaired and have come to ask the blacksmith to do the job. 6. The two convicts are fighting one another in a ditch. 7. The second convict claims that the first convict tried to murder him. 8. He feels that he should not starve no matter what he has done. 9. The first convict takes the blame for stealing the food. 10. The two convicts are taken back to the Hulks.

Part 1, Chapters 6 and 7 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. Why didn’t Pip tell Joe the truth concerning the convict and the theft? 2. What is probably the reason that Joe married Pip’s sister? 3. What does Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt run in the evenings? 4. Even though Pip attends the evening school, who actually teaches Pip how to read and write? 5. What does Pip find out about Joe’s education? 6. What is the only word that Joe can read? 7. Pip agrees to help Joe learn to read and write. Why must they keep it a secret from Mrs. Joe? 8. What news do Uncle Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe bring home to Pip? 9. What does Miss Havisham ask Pip to come there to do? 10. Who first takes Pip to Miss Havisham’s house? Answers 1. Pip did not tell Joe the truth because he was afraid of losing Joe’s confidence and friendship.

Part 1, Chapters 4 and 5 Questions and Answers

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2. Joe probably married Pip’s sister because he felt sympathy for Pip and how he was being treated. 3. Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt runs an evening school. 4. Biddy is the one who teaches Pip how to read and write. 5. Pip, after writing a crude letter to Joe, realizes that Joe cannot read or write. 6. “JO” is the only word that Joe can read. 7. Joe’s education must be kept a secret from Mrs. Joe because she resents anyone being better than she is. 8. The news is that Pip is to go to Miss Havisham’s house the next morning. 9. Miss Havisham wants Pip to come there and play. 10. Uncle Pumblechook is the one who first takes Pip to Miss Havisham’s house.

Part 1, Chapters 8 and 9 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. What is the meaning of Satis? 2. At what time have all the clocks in Miss Havisham’s house stopped? 3. Who opens the gate to let Pip in at Miss Havisham’s? 4. What game does Pip play with Estella? 5. How is Miss Havisham dressed? 6. How does Estella hurt Pip’s feelings? 7. Who does Pip imagine he sees hanging from a beam in the brewery? 8. Why does Pip lie to Mrs. Joe and Uncle Pumblechook about his day at Miss Havisham’s? 9. Pip cannot lie to whom? 10. On what subject does Joe lecture Pip? Answers 1. “Satis” in Satis House means enough. 2. All the clocks in Miss Havisham’s house have stopped at twenty minutes to nine. 3. Estella opens the gate for Pip. 4. Estella and Pip play a card game called “Beggar my Neighbor.”

Part 1, Chapters 6 and 7 Questions and Answers

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5. Miss Havisham is dressed in a faded and yellowed wedding dress. 6. Estella calls Pip “boy” and brings attention to his thick boots and coarse hands. 7. Pip imagines he sees Miss Havisham hanging by her neck from a beam in the brewery. 8. He lies because he is afraid of being misunderstood. He also feels that he cannot relate the private lives of Miss Havisham and Estella to Mrs. Joe and Uncle Pumblechook. 9. Pip cannot lie to Joe. 10. Joe gently lectures Pip about honesty and not telling lies.

Part 1, Chapters 10 and 11 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. What does the mysterious stranger at the Three Jolly Bargemen stir his drink with? 2. What does the stranger give to Pip? 3. How does Estella treat Pip in these two chapters? 4. What is the Three Jolly Bargemen? 5. Who are the people waiting with Pip in the large room at Miss Havisham’s? 6. On what occasion are these people visiting Miss Havisham? 7. Describe what Pip sees on the bridal table. 8. Where does Miss Havisham want to be laid when she is dead? 9. What does Miss Havisham ask Pip to do on this visit? 10. What do Pip and the pale young gentleman do? Answers 1. The mysterious stranger stirs his drink with Joe’s file. 2. The stranger gives Pip a new shilling wrapped in two one-pound notes. 3. Going up the stairs to see Miss Havisham, Estella slaps Pip and calls him a “little coarse monster.” As she is escorting him out after his visit, she allows him to kiss her on the cheek. 4. Located in the village, the Three Jolly Bargemen is a public-house with a bar. 5. The people waiting with Pip are relatives by the name of Pocket. 6. They are visiting Miss Havisham because it is her birthday.

Part 1, Chapters 8 and 9 Questions and Answers

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7. Pip sees a yellowed and decayed wedding cake infested and overrun with spiders, beetles, and mice. 8. When Miss Havisham dies she wants to be laid on the long reception table where the cake is. 9. Miss Havisham asks Pip to help her walk around and around the bridal table. 10. Pip and the pale young gentleman have a humorous fight with Pip being the victor.

Part 1, Chapters 12 and 13 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. What does Pip worry about before he returns to Miss Havisham’s? 2. What do Miss Havisham and Pip do every visit? 3. Why does Miss Havisham ask Pip to bring Joe to her house? 4. What does apprenticeship mean? 5. What does Miss Havisham pay Joe for Pip’s apprenticeship? 6. How does Joe embarrass Pip at Miss Havisham’s? 7. Who does Pip confide in? 8. What does Miss Havisham instruct Estella to do? 9. Who takes the credit for Pip’s apprenticeship? 10. How does Pip feel about his apprenticeship to Joe? Answers 1. Pip worries that he will get punished for fighting with the pale young gentleman. 2. Miss Havisham and Pip walk, sometimes as long as three hours. 3. Miss Havisham wants Joe to come to her house because she wants to pay for Pip’s apprenticeship. 4. An apprentice is someone who is bound by law to work for a master in order to learn his trade. 5. Miss Havisham pays Joe 25 guineas. 6. Pip is embarrassed because of the way Joe is dressed and because Joe will not talk directly to Miss Havisham. 7. Pip confides in Biddy. 8. Miss Havisham instructs Estella to “break their hearts and have no mercy.” 9. Uncle Pumblechook takes the credit for Pip’s apprenticeship. Part 1, Chapters 10 and 11 Questions and Answers

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10. Pip is extremely unhappy about his apprenticeship to Joe.

Part 1, Chapters 14 and 15 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. Why does Pip want to educate Joe? 2. What is the reason Pip gives Joe for wanting to return to Miss Havisham’s? 3. What is the real reason he wants to return to Miss Havisham’s? 4. Who meets Pip at Miss Havisham’s gate? 5. Where is Estella? 6. When does Miss Havisham invite Pip to return? 7. What is the name of Joe’s journeyman at the forge? 8. Who causes the fight between Orlick and Joe? 9. Who joins Pip and Mr. Wopsle on their walk home? 10. What happens at home while Pip is in the village? Answers 1. Pip wants to educate Joe to make him less ignorant and common. Pip is also afraid of what Estella would think of Joe. 2. Pip tells Joe that he wants to thank Miss Havisham for his apprenticeship. 3. Pip really wants to see Estella again. 4. Miss Sarah Pocket meets Pip at Miss Havisham’s gate. 5. Estella has been sent abroad to become a lady. 6. Miss Havisham tells Pip that he may return on his birthday. 7. Joe’s journeyman’s name is Orlick. 8. Mrs. Joe causes the fight between Orlick and Joe. She demands that Joe defend her honor. 9. Orlick joins Pip and Mr. Wopsle on their walk home. 10. Mrs. Joe is struck on the head and left unconscious on the floor.

Part 1, Chapters 12 and 13 Questions and Answers

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Part 1, Chapters 16 and 17 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. What important piece of evidence was left beside Mrs. Joe’s body? 2. Mrs. Joe lives, but how is she afflicted? 3. What does Mrs. Joe repeatedly draw on her slate? 4. When Mrs. Joe draws this figure, who does she want to see? 5. What does the “T” represent? 6. Who are the two people Pip suspects could be Mrs. Joe’s attacker? 7. Who comes to live at the forge and cares for Mrs. Joe? 8. When Pip returns to see Miss Havisham on his birthday, what does she give him? 9. Who does Pip confide in that he wants to be a gentleman? 10. What is the reason that Pip wants to be a gentleman? Answers 1. A convict’s filed off leg-iron was found next to her body. 2. Her sight, hearing, memory, and speech are impaired. 3. Mrs. Joe repeatedly draws a figure that looks like a “T.” 4. When Mrs. Joe draws a “T,” she wants to see Orlick. 5. The “T” represents a hammer. 6. Pip suspects Orlick or the stranger who stirred his rum with a file at the Three Jolly Bargeman. 7. Biddy comes to live at the forge and cares for Mrs. Joe. 8. Miss Havisham gives Pip a guinea on his birthday. 9. Pip confides to Biddy that he wants to be a gentleman. 10. Estella is the reason Pip wants to be a gentleman.

Part 1, Chapter 18 and 19 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. Who informs Pip that he has great expectations? 2. What are the three stipulations of the inheritance? Part 1, Chapters 16 and 17 Questions and Answers

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3. Who is to be Pip’s guardian while he is in London? 4. Who is to be Pip’s tutor while he is in London? 5. When Mr. Jaggers offers Joe money to compensate for the loss of Pip’s services, what does the blacksmith do? 6. Who does Pip believe is his benefactor? 7. Why does Pip visit Mr. Trabb, the tailor? 8. How does the reader know that Biddy understands Joe better than Pip does? 9. How has the behavior of Mr. Pumblechook and Mr. Trabb changed toward Pip? 10. Where is Pip going at the end of Chapter 19? Answers 1. Mr. Jaggers, a lawyer from London, informs Pip of his great expectations. 2. The three conditions of the inheritance are as follows: He must always keep the name of Pip. The name of the benefactor will remain a secret until that person decides to reveal it to him. Pip is never to inquire or question anyone concerning the identity of the benefactor. 3. Mr. Jaggers is to be Pip’s guardian. 4. Matthew Pocket is to be Pip’s tutor in London. 5. Joe refuses the money and replies that money cannot compensate “for the loss of the little child.” 6. Pip believes Miss Havisham to be his benefactor. 7. Pip asks Mr. Trabb to make him new clothes for his journey to London. 8. Pip is forgetting about Joe’s pride. Biddy understands Joe’s worth as he is. 9. Both men now call him “Sir.” They offer the best they have and treat him with new respect—a respect brought about by money. 10. Pip is on his way to London to become more educated and to become a gentleman.

Part 2, Chapters 20 and 21 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. What is the name of Mr. Jaggers’ clerk? 2. What is the name of the “pale young gentleman”? 3. What is Pip’s impression of London? Part 1, Chapter 18 and 19 Questions and Answers

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4. What is the name of the inn where Pip is to live? 5. What does Mr. Jaggers give to Pip? 6. Who walks Pip to Barnard’s Inn? 7. What kind of lawyer is Mr. Jaggers? 8. Where have Pip and Herbert Pocket met before now? 9. What is Pip’s impression of Mr. Jaggers? 10. What is the name of the prison located near Mr. Jaggers’ office? Answers 1. Mr. Wemmick is the name of Mr. Jaggers’ clerk. 2. Herbert Pocket is the name of the “pale young gentleman.” 3. Pip is disappointed in London. It appears to be crowded, dirty, and dismal. 4. Pip is to stay at Barnard’s Inn. 5. Mr. Jaggers gives Pip an allowance and cards of tradesmen with whom he is to deal with for clothes and other things that he should be in need of. 6. Mr. Wemmick walks Pip to Barnard’s Inn. 7. Mr. Jaggers is a powerful criminal lawyer. 8. Pip and Herbert Pocket have met in Miss Havisham’s garden. They engaged in a humorous fight. 9. Pip realizes, by comments overheard on the street and by observing how Mr. Jaggers treats people, that he is a powerful lawyer. He has a great deal of influence. 10. The prison located near Mr. Jaggers’ office is called Newgate Prison.

Part 2, Chapters 22 and 23 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. How does Herbert feel about Estella? 2. What name does Herbert give to Pip? 3. Why is Pip named Handel? 4. What is one of the first lessons Herbert teaches Pip? 5. What relation is Estella to Miss Havisham?

Part 2, Chapters 20 and 21 Questions and Answers

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6. Does Miss Havisham have any brothers or sisters? 7. Who did Mr. Havisham leave his vast fortune to after his death? 8. What two men conspired to swindle Miss Havisham out of her money? 9. Which character is obsessed with peerage, titles, and nobility? 10. Who are the other two students living at Matthew Pocket’s home? Answers 1. Herbert thinks she is a “Tartar,” trained to break the hearts of young men. 2. Herbert gives Pip the name of Handel. 3. Pip is named Handel after a piece of music called “The Harmonious Blacksmith” written by Handel. 4. Herbert instructs Pip on his table manners—not putting his knife into his mouth and using his spoon underhanded. 5. Estella is adopted and therefore no direct relation to Miss Havisham. 6. Miss Havisham only has a half brother. 7. Mr. Havisham left the majority of his wealth to Miss Havisham, but he also left some to his son, Miss Havisham’s half brother. 8. Miss Havisham’s half brother and her fiancee conspired to swindle her out of her money. 9. Mrs. Belinda Pocket is obsessed with peerage, titles, and nobility. 10. Startop and Bentley Drummle are the other students at Mr. Pocket’s home.

Part 2, Chapters 24 and 25 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. When Pip is invited to Mr. Jaggers’ home, who does Wemmick want Pip to notice? 2. Where does Mr. Wemmick live? 3. What does Mr. Wemmick call his home? 4. What does Mr. Wemmick call his father? 5. What does Mr. Wemmick do every night at nine o’clock? 6. What is wrong with Mr. Wemmick’s father? 7. What does Mr. Wemmick call his cannon?

Part 2, Chapters 22 and 23 Questions and Answers

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8. How is Pip instructed to acknowledge the Aged Parent? 9. Who is the delicate young man being tutored by Mr. Pocket? 10. Who is the sulky young man being tutored by Mr. Pocket? Answers 1. Wemmick tells Pip to pay particular attention to Mr. Jaggers’ housekeeper. 2. Mr. Wemmick lives at Walworth. 3. Mr. Wemmick calls his home “the Castle.” 4. Mr. Wemmick calls his father Aged Parent. 5. Mr. Wemmick fires a cannon every night at nine. 6. Mr. Wemmick’s father is almost totally deaf. 7. Mr. Wemmick calls his cannon the Stinger. 8. Pip is instructed to keep nodding to the Aged Parent. 9. Startop is the delicate young man being tutored by Mr. Pocket. 10. Bentley Drummle is the sulky young man who is tutored by Mr. Pocket.

Part 2, Chapters 26 and 27 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. What name does Mr. Jaggers give Bentley Drummle? 2. Who is Molly? 3. What is unusual about Molly? 4. Who writes Pip a letter? 5. Who is coming to see Pip in London? 6. What keeps falling off the mantle during Pip and Joe’s visit? 7. What news does Joe bring Pip? 8. Mr. Jaggers warns Pip not to have much to do with one of his roommates. Who is it? 9. Is Pip glad to see Joe in London? 10. Who travels with Joe to London?

Part 2, Chapters 24 and 25 Questions and Answers

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Answers 1. Mr. Jaggers calls Bentley Drummle “the Spider.” 2. Molly is Mr. Jaggers’ housekeeper. 3. Molly has unusual strength in her wrists. 4. It is Biddy who writes Pip a letter. 5. Joe will be coming to London to visit with Pip. 6. Joe’s hat keeps falling off the mantle. 7. Mr. Wopsle has left the church and become an actor, and Estella is home and would like to see him. 8. Mr. Jaggers warns Pip of Bentley Drummle. 9. Pip is embarrassed by Joe’s visit and would have done almost anything to keep him from coming. 10. Mr. Wopsle travels with Joe to London.

Part 2, Chapters 28 and 29 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. Where does Pip stay when he reaches his village? 2. Does Pip go to see Joe, Biddy, and his sister while he is in town? 3. Who rides on the coach with Pip? 4. What does Pip overhear the convicts discussing? 5. When Pip arrives in his village, who does he find has taken all the credit for his good fortune? 6. Who admits Pip into Miss Havisham’s gate and is now working for her? 7. How has Estella changed since the last time Pip saw her? 8. What does Miss Havisham tell Pip to do to Estella? 9. How does Pip recognize Estella when he first arrives? 10. Who does Pip envision restoring Satis House to its former glory? Answers 1. Pip decides to stay at the Blue Boar. 2. No, Pip feels guilty because he does not go see them, but not enough to go.

Part 2, Chapters 26 and 27 Questions and Answers

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3. Two convicts ride with Pip on the coach. One of them is the stranger who stirred his drink with Joe’s file at the Three Jolly Bargemen. 4. Pip overhears the convict tell the other how he was instructed to give two one-pound notes to a young boy. 5. Pip learns that Mr. Pumblechook has taken all the credit for helping Pip acquire his good fortune. 6. Orlick is now working for Miss Havisham and is the one who admits Pip in the gate. 7. She has become a young woman, even more beautiful than before. However, she is still distant and cool to Pip, but not hateful as before. 8. She tells him to “love her, love her, love her.” 9. Pip recognizes Estella’s eyes. 10. Pip envisions himself as being the hero who restores the house and marries Estella.

Part 2, Chapters 30 and 31 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. How does Orlick lose his job at Miss Havisham’s house? 2. How is Pip treated by the townspeople? 3. How is Pip treated by Trabb’s boy? 4. Why does Pip send Joe a gift? 5. What does Pip send Joe? 6. Who does Pip confide in? 7. What does Herbert confide to Pip? 8. What is the name of Herbert’s fiancee? 9. When does Herbert plan to marry his fiancee? 10. What play is being performed by Mr. Wopsle? Answers 1. Pip tells Mr. Jaggers that he does not believe that Orlick should be in a position of trust, and Mr. Jaggers tells Pip that he will fire him. 2. The townspeople want to see Pip, and they treat him with the respect that money brings. 3. Trabb’s boy mocks Pip and humiliates him. 4. Pip sends Joe a gift to relieve his guilt for not going to see him. Part 2, Chapters 28 and 29 Questions and Answers

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5. Pip sends Joe codfish and a barrel of oysters. 6. Pip is able to confide in Herbert. 7. Herbert confides to Pip that he is engaged. 8. Herbert’s fiancee’s name is Clara. 9. Because of their poverty, Herbert and Clara cannot marry until Herbert acquires some money. 10. Mr. Wopsle is acting as Hamlet in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Part 2, Chapters 32 and 33 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. Pip receives a note. Who is it from? 2. Who is coming to London? 3. Where does Mr. Wemmick take Pip? 4. What is Pip’s impression of Newgate Prison? 5. What is Mr. Wemmick’s relationship with the prisoners? 6. A simile is used to compare Mr. Wemmick in Newgate Prison to something else. What is it? 7. Where is Estella to live? 8. Why is Estella moving to Richmond? 9. How do Miss Havisham’s relatives feel about Pip? 10. Mr. Pocket is a lecturer on “domestic economy.” Why is this ironic? Answers 1. The note Pip receives is from Estella. 2. Estella is coming to London the day after tomorrow. 3. Mr. Wemmick takes Pip to Newgate Prison. 4. Pip finds Newgate Prison to be a dirty, dismal, and depressing place. 5. Mr. Wemmick is popular with the prisoners. He speaks with them but maintains an aloofness from them. 6. Mr. Wemmick, walking among the prisoners, is compared to a gardener walking among his plants. 7. Estella is to live in Richmond.

Part 2, Chapters 30 and 31 Questions and Answers

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8. Estella is moving to Richmond to live with a lady of high position in order that she may be introduced into society. 9. Miss Havisham’s relatives dislike Pip. Estella tells Pip that they “watch you, misrepresent you, write letters about you (anonymous sometimes), and you are the torment and occupation of their lives. You can scarcely realize to yourself the hatred those people feel for you.” 10. Mr. Pocket’s lectures on “domestic economy” are ironic because he cannot manage his own children or servants.

Part 2, Chapters 34 and 35 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. Does Pip’s fortune bring him happiness? 2. Pip feels guilty for his part in getting someone in debt. Who is it? 3. Why doesn’t Pip pay Herbert’s debts? 4. When Herbert and Pip try to straighten out their affairs, what is accomplished? 5. Pip receives a letter from Trabb and Co. What does it say? 6. Why is Biddy going to leave the forge now? 7. What is Biddy going to do to earn a living? 8. Who is still lurking around the forge spying on Biddy? 9. What does Pip promise Biddy? 10. What is Biddy’s response to Pip’s promise? Answers 1. Pip’s fortune has only brought unhappiness and guilt. 2. Pip feels guilty for getting Herbert in debt. 3. Pip is getting into debt himself, and Herbert would never allow Pip to pay for any of his debts because of pride. 4. Pip and Herbert make a big show of sorting out their bills; however, not much is actually accomplished. 5. The letter from Trabb and Co. states that Mrs. Joe Gargery has died, and the funeral will be the following Monday at three o’clock in the afternoon. 6. Biddy must leave the forge now because it would not be proper for her to stay there with only Joe. 7. Biddy is going to try to get the place of mistress in the new school and teach.

Part 2, Chapters 32 and 33 Questions and Answers

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8. Orlick is still lurking around the forge spying on Biddy. 9. Pip promises Biddy that he will return often to see Joe. 10. Biddy does not say anything to Pip’s promise. She knows that Pip is only feeling guilt for Joe and that he will not return.

Part 2, Chapters 36 and 37 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. Why does Mr. Jaggers send for Pip? 2. What new financial arrangements are initiated when Pip comes of age? 3. What information does Pip want from Mr. Jaggers? 4. What does Pip want Mr. Wemmick to help him do? 5. Who is going to help with the arrangements for Herbert’s future? 6. What does the Aged Parent like to read each night? 7. Who is the shipping merchant who agrees to help Pip with his plan? 8. What device separates Mr. Wemmick from the rest of the world? 9. Who is Mr. Wemmick’s lady-friend? 10. How much money did Pip receive on his birthday? Answers 1. Mr. Jaggers sends for Pip to give him a bank note for 500 pounds. 2. Mr. Jaggers tells Pip that he will receive 500 pounds each year, and he will manage his own business affairs now that he is 21 years of age. 3. Pip is hoping to find out the identity of his benefactor. 4. Pip wants Mr. Wemmick to help him secretly set Herbert up in business. 5. Miss Skiffin’s brother is going to help with the arrangements regarding Herbert’s future. 6. The Aged Parent likes to read the newspaper aloud each night. 7. The shipping merchant who agrees to help Pip with his plan to help Herbert is Clarriker. 8. A small ditch called a moat separates Mr. Wemmick from the rest of the world. To get over to the Castle, one must cross over the drawbridge. 9. Miss Skiffins is Mr. Wemmick’s lady-friend. Part 2, Chapters 34 and 35 Questions and Answers

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10. Pip receives a bank note for 500 pounds.

Part 2, Chapters 38 and 39 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. Whom does Pip accompany back to Satis House? 2. When Pip cannot sleep at night, who does he see in the hallways carrying a candle like a ghost? 3. Someone is courting Estella that Pip does not approve of. Who is it? 4. Estella admits that she deceives and entraps every suitor except one. Who is that one? 5. What is the weather like when Pip is visited by his benefactor? 6. Where has the convict been working all this time? What has he been doing? 7. Who is Pip’s benefactor? 8. Where does the convict stay for the night? 9. How does Pip feel about the convict staying with him? 10. What will happen to the convict if he is found in London? Answers 1. Pip accompanies Estella back to Satis House. 2. When Pip awakens at night, he sees Miss Havisham roaming the halls carrying a candle. 3. Pip does not approve of Drummle courting Estella. 4. Estella admits that she does not try to trap or ensnare Pip. She is quite candid with him. 5. When the convict comes to reveal that he is Pip’s benefactor, there is a raging storm outside. 6. The convict has been working in Australia as a sheep farmer. 7. The first convict on the marshes is Pip’s benefactor. 8. The convict stays in Herbert’s room for the night. 9. Pip is frightened of the convict and locks the door leading to his room. 10. The convict had been given a life sentence with the stipulation that he was never to return to London. If he returned, he would be hanged.

Part 2, Chapters 36 and 37 Questions and Answers

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Part 3, Chapters 40 and 41 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. What is the real name of Pip’s convict? 2. What name is the convict traveling under? 3. What is Pip going to tell his acquaintances concerning the convict? 4. Why does the convict return to London? 5. What will happen to the convict if he is found in London? 6. Why does Mr. Jaggers keep referring to Magwitch in New South Wales and Provis who will probably come to London to see Pip? 7. Why is Pip afraid of the convict? 8. Who helps Pip decide what to do with the convict? 9. Who is hiding on the stairs in the dark? 10. Will Pip continue taking money from the convict? Answers 1. The convict’s real name is Abel Magwitch. 2. The convict is traveling under the name of Provis. 3. Pip is going to tell his acquaintances that his Uncle Provis, a wealthy farmer, has come to visit him. 4. The convict has returned to London to lavish more money on Pip and to watch him spend it. The convict wants to enjoy the only worthy accomplishment he has done in his life. 5. Because the convict had been convicted for life and exiled from London, he must never return. If he is ever found in London, he will be hanged. 6. Mr. Jaggers really knows that Provis is Abel Magwitch; however, if he acknowledges that fact he would have to act on the knowledge that the man is back in London. Being a criminal lawyer, Jaggers would have to have him arrested. In order to sidestep the issue, he refers to Abel Magwitch, the convict, as still residing in New South Wales. The man by the name of Provis is not wanted by the authorities and is free to visit London and Pip. 7. Pip is afraid of the convict because he really does not know anything about the convict’s past. He only knows that he must have committed terrible crimes to have been sentenced to life in exile. 8. Herbert helps Pip devise a plan as to what to do with the convict. 9. The mysterious stranger is a mystery for the moment. The unknown stranger adds suspense and intrigue to the plot. Part 3, Chapters 40 and 41 Questions and Answers

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10. Pip tells Herbert that he can no longer accept money from the convict, and he feels that he must repay him for all he has done.

Part 3, Chapters 42 and 43 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. Who is Compeyson? 2. Who was Arthur? 3. What happened to Arthur? 4. Who did Arthur see shaking a shroud at him? 5. Who was the real mastermind of the crimes committed by Compeyson and Provis? 6. Why does Pip fear Compeyson? 7. Who accompanies Estella back to Satis House? 8. Why does Pip return to the village to see Estella? 9. Who does the man who helps Drummle light his cigar resemble? 10. Why were Compeyson and Provis sentenced differently? Answers 1. Compeyson is the man who jilted Miss Havisham. He, Arthur, and Provis were partners at one time. 2. Arthur is Miss Havisham’s half brother. He and Compeyson swindled her out of all that they could. 3. Guilt has driven Arthur crazy, and he dies at Compeyson’s house. 4. Arthur imagines that he sees a woman dressed in white shaking a shroud at him. He knows that when she puts the shroud on him he will die. The woman is Miss Havisham. 5. The real mastermind of the evil plots to swindle and go against the law was the schemer Compeyson. 6. Pip is afraid that Compeyson will turn Provis in to the law. This would free Compeyson from worrying about Provis, because Provis would still kill him if he got the chance. 7. Bentley Drummle accompanies Estella back to Satis House. 8. Pip realizes the danger that Provis is in and knows that he and Provis must leave the country as soon as possible. Before he leaves, he wants to see Estella. 9. The man helping Drummle resembles Orlick. 10. Compeyson requested that they be tried separately. Compeyson shows up for the trial smartly dressed holding a white handkerchief to his nose. He is an eloquent speaker and blames his erring ways on the Part 3, Chapters 42 and 43 Questions and Answers

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influence of Provis. Provis, on the other hand, appears before the court looking ragged and illiterate with a long string of offenses to his name.

Part 3, Chapters 44 and 45 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. What favor does Pip ask of Miss Havisham? 2. What confession does Pip make to Estella? 3. Who does Estella plan to marry? 4. Who are the two relatives that Pip ask Miss Havisham not to include with the self-seekers? 5. How does Pip get back to London? 6. What does the night watchman give to Pip, and what does it say? 7. Who has written a warning note to Pip? 8. What two characters are responsible for relocating Provis? 9. Where is Provis now living? 10. What character is in London and threatens the safety of Provis? Answers 1. Pip asks Miss Havisham if she would secretly supply money for Herbert to remain in Clarriker’s employment. 2. Pip confesses that he has loved her since he first went to Satis House. 3. Estella plans to marry Bentley Drummle. 4. Pip asks Miss Havisham not to include Herbert and his father in the group of relatives who are greedy self-seekers. 5. Pip is so unhappy that he walks back to London. 6. The night watchman at the Temple gives Pip a note that says, “Don’t go home!” 7. Mr. Wemmick is the one who has written the note. 8. Mr. Wemmick and Herbert are responsible for relocating Provis. 9. Provis is now living in the house where Clara, Herbert’s fiancee, lives. 10. Compeyson is in London and threatens Provis’ safety.

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Part 3, Chapters 46 and 47 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. In whose boarding house if Provis now living? 2. Where is the boarding house located? 3. What is wrong with Clara’s father? 4. How often is Pip to go see Provis? 5. How are Pip and Herbert preparing to help Provis escape from London? 6. How is Provis to signal Pip that everything is all right? 7. What name is Provis now going by? 8. Because Pip has no more money, what does he have to do to raise some money? 9. Whom does Pip see at the theater? 10. Who is sitting behind Pip in the theater? Answers 1. Provis is now staying at Mrs. Whimple’s boarding house—the same one as Clara, Herbert’s fiancee. 2. The boarding house is located on the river front on Mill Pond Bank. 3. Clara’s father is an invalid suffering from gout and too much rum. 4. Pip is not to return to see Provis. 5. Pip and Herbert start rowing every day so that when the day comes to help Provis escape, they will not arouse suspicion. 6. Provis’ signal that everything is all right is to lower his shade when Pip rows by the house. 7. Provis is now going by the name of Mr. Campbell. 8. Pip would not take Provis’ pocketbook filled with money, so now he must sell some of his jewelry in order to pay some of his debts. 9. While at the theater, Pip sees Mr. Wopsle performing. 10. Mr. Wopsle tells Pip that the convict from the marshes was sitting behind him in the theater. That convict was Compeyson.

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Part 3, Chapters 48 and 49 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. Who does Pip believe is Estella’s mother? How does he come to this conclusion? 2. How did Mr. Jaggers first meet Molly? 3. What does Miss Havisham agree to do for Pip? 4. How much money will Pip need to complete setting Herbert up in business? 5. When Pip returns to visit Miss Havisham, how has she changed? 6. What three words does she want Pip to write under her name? 7. What happens to Miss Havisham? 8. How is Pip injured? 9. Where is Miss Havisham placed after the fire? 10. Who brought Estella to Miss Havisham? Answers 1. While dining with Mr. Jaggers, Pip recognizes Molly’s hands and eyes to be exactly like Estella’s. Therefore, after hearing Molly’s past, he believes that she is Estella’s mother. 2. Mr. Jaggers was Molly’s lawyer. He got her acquitted from a murder case. 3. Out of remorse, Miss Havisham agrees to help Pip by aiding Herbert in his business. 4. Nine hundred pounds will make Herbert a partner in Clarriker’s business. 5. Miss Havisham has changed in many ways. She appears almost pitiful sitting in her grave-like house. She begs Pip’s forgiveness and realizes that she has destroyed not only her own life, but the lives of Estella and Pip. 6. Miss Havisham wants the words “I forgive her” written under her name. 7. Miss Havisham’s dress catches on fire and she is badly injured. 8. Pip’s hands are burned while trying to save Miss Havisham. 9. Miss Havisham is placed on the long bridal table. 10. Mr. Jaggers brought Estella to Miss Havisham when she was about two or three years of age.

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Part 3, Chapters 50 and 51 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. Who takes care of Pip’s injuries? 2. What name does Herbert call Clara’s father? 3. What did Provis’ wife tell him that she was going to do with their child? 4. Who is Estella’s father? 5. Where does Pip go to confirm Provis’ story? 6. Does Provis know that his daughter is alive? 7. How is the relationship between Pip and Mr. Jaggers different? 8. Will the knowledge of Estella’s parents be kept a secret? 9. Why will Pip not tell Estella of the identity of her parents? 10. Who is the client who interrupts the confrontation between Pip and Mr. Jaggers? Answers 1. Herbert takes care of Pip’s injuries. 2. Gruffandgrim is the name Herbert gives to Clara’s father. 3. She tells him that she is going to destroy the child. 4. Provis is Estella’s father. 5. Pip goes to Mr. Jaggers to confirm the story about Provis, Molly, and Estella. 6. Provis has no idea that his daughter is alive. 7. Pip is no longer afraid or intimidated by Mr. Jaggers. Pip actually knows more about Estella than Mr. Jaggers. Pip has matured, and he is no longer under Mr. Jaggers’ rule. 8. Pip and Mr. Jaggers agree that it would do no good to anyone to release any of this information concerning Provis, Estella, and Molly. 9. Estella has married for money, and Drummle is from a wealthy family. The knowledge of Estella’s convict father and murdering mother would not be a welcomed fact for the Drummle family. It would destroy her marriage and her life. Pip would never do anything to hurt Estella. 10. Mike is the name of the client who interrupts Pip and Mr. Jaggers.

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Part 3, Chapters 52 and 53 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. What two people write Pip a letter in these chapters, and what do they say? 2. What day is Pip planning to help Provis escape? 3. Who is going to help row the boat to the steamer? 4. Where is the steamer going that Pip and Provis are planning to board? 5. At what time was Pip to be at the marshes? 6. Who is taking all the credit for Pip’s great expectations? 7. What does Orlick plan to do to Pip? 8. Why does Orlick consider Pip his enemy? 9. Who killed Mrs. Joe? 10. Who rescues Pip from Orlick? Answers 1. Wemmick writes Pip a letter telling him that Wednesday would be a good day to try to get Provis out of the country. Orlick writes Pip an anonymous letter telling him to come to an old sluice house in the marshes, and he better come in order to get some information about his Uncle Provis. 2. Pip is planning to help Provis escape on Wednesday. 3. Because of Pip’s burns, Herbert and Startop will do the rowing. 4. Pip and Provis are planning to board a steamer bound for Hamburg, Germany. 5. The anonymous letter from Orlick instructed Pip to be at the marshes at nine o’clock at night. 6. Uncle Pumblechook is taking all the credit for Pip’s great expectations. 7. Orlick is planning to murder Pip. 8. Orlick believes that Pip had him fired from his job at Miss Havisham’s house. He also believes that Pip came between him and Biddy. 9. Orlick confesses that he killed Mrs. Joe. 10. Led by Trabb’s boy, Herbert and Startop rescue Pip from Orlick.

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Part 3, Chapters 54 and 55 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. On what day does Pip, Herbert, and Startop begin their planned escape for Provis? 2. Who alerts the four that a four-oared galley is traveling up and down in front of the public house? 3. On what day do the four meet the steamer? 4. What happens as the steamer approaches? 5. Who is the man in the other galley who is wrapped up in a great coat? 6. What happens to Magwitch? 7. What happens to Compeyson? 8. What will happen to all of Magwitch’s money and possessions? 9. Where is Herbert going to work? 10. What position does Herbert offer Pip? Answers 1. The four young men begin their escape by rowing all day on Wednesday. 2. A man named Jack alerts Pip that he has seen another galley going up and down with the tides in front of the public house. 3. The four young men see the steamer approaching on Thursday. 4. As the steamer approaches, the four-oared galley pulls along side of Pip and his friends. 5. Compeyson is the other man in the galley. He identifies Magwitch, and they lunge for one another. 6. Magwitch and Compeyson fall overboard together, and Magwitch sustains an injury to his chest and a deep cut on his head. 7. Compeyson drowns during the struggle. 8. Because Magwitch has no will and Pip is not related to him in any way, all of his money and possessions will go to the Crown. 9. Herbert will run the branch office in Cairo. 10. Herbert wants Pip to come to Cairo with him and Clara, and he offers him the job of clerk.

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Part 3, Chapters 56 and 57 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. What injuries did Magwitch sustain when he fell out of the boat? 2. What verdict does the judge pass down to Magwitch? 3. What does Pip do after the judge sentences Magwitch? 4. What does Pip tell Magwitch before he dies? 5. What happens to Pip after the death of Magwitch? 6. Who comes to care for Pip? 7. What has happened to Miss Havisham? 8. What has happened to Orlick? 9. What does Joe leave in his farewell letter to Pip? 10. Who does Pip decide to ask to marry him? Answers 1. Magwitch broke two ribs and injured his lung, making breathing very painful and difficult. 2. The judge finds Magwitch guilty and sentences him to death along with 32 others. 3. After the judge sentences Magwitch to death, Pip begins to write petitions on behalf of Magwitch. 4. Before Magwitch dies, Pip tells him that his daughter is alive and that she is beautiful, and he loves her. 5. Because Pip has been spending every spare moment either writing petitions or sitting with Magwitch, he has allowed himself to become run down. He becomes very ill. 6. Joe comes to care for Pip. 7. Joe tells Pip that Miss Havisham has died. 8. Joe tells Pip that Orlick is in the county jail for breaking into Mr. Pumblechook’s house and assaulting him. 9. Joe has paid all of Pip’s debts and left the receipt in his farewell letter. 10. Pip has decided to ask Biddy to forgive him for his past actions and to marry him.

Part 3, Chapters 58 and 59 Questions and Answers Study Questions 1. When Pip returns to his village and the Blue Boar, how do the townspeople treat him? Part 3, Chapters 56 and 57 Questions and Answers

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2. What is happening to Satis House? 3. Who still believes that he is the original benefactor for Pip’s fortunes? 4. Pip returns on a very special day in the lives of Biddy and Joe. What is it? 5. What does Pip beg Joe and Biddy to do? 6. Where does Pip go after leaving Joe and Biddy? 7. How many years did Pip stay away from London before returning again? 8. When Pip returns to see Joe and Biddy, what new additions have occurred in their family? 9. What has happened to Estella? 10. Pip goes to look at the place where Satis House once was, and who does he find walking there? Answers 1. The people in Pip’s village have heard of his loss of fortune and treat him coolly. 2. Satis House is being torn down for building materials, and the contents are being sold at auction. 3. Mr. Pumblechook still believes that he is the original benefactor. 4. Pip returns on Biddy and Joe’s wedding day. 5. Pip begs Joe and Biddy to forgive him. 6. After leaving Joe and Biddy, Pip goes to Cairo to join Herbert and Clara and work there as a clerk. 7. Pip remains in Cairo for 11 years before returning to his village. 8. Joe and Biddy have a daughter and a son named Pip. 9. Estella has been treated cruelly by Drummle, and they have separated. Drummle has been killed by his horse as a result of his cruelty to it. 10. Pip returns to the site of Satis House and finds Estella walking in what once was the garden.

Great Expectations: Essential Passages Essential Passages by Character: Pip Essential Passage 1: Chapter 8 My sister’s bringing up had made me sensitive. In the little world in which children have their existence whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice. It may be only small injustice that the child can be exposed to; but the child is small, and its world is small, and its rocking-horse stands as many hands high, according to Part 3, Chapters 58 and 59 Questions and Answers

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scale, as a big-boned Irish hunter. Within myself, I had sustained, from my babyhood, a perpetual conflict with injustice. I had known, from the time when I could speak, that my sister, in her capacious and violent coercion, was unjust to me. I had cherished a profound conviction that her bringing me up by hand, gave her no right to bring me up by jerks. Through all my punishments, disgraces, fasts and vigils, and other penitential performances, I had nursed this assurance: and to my communing so much with it, in a solitary and unprotected way, I had in great part refer the fact that I was morally timid and very sensitive. Summary Pip's parents died when he was a baby and Pip has been reared by his older sister. Mrs. Joe, as she is called, has little patience with childish ways and whims, and has treated Pip with contempt, abusing him physically and verbally. Pip has only known love through his brother-in-law, Joe Gargery. The two of them together form a “mutual protection” partnership against the blows of Mrs. Joe. Pip develops into an extremely sensitive and humiliated child, who strongly feels the injustice of his upbringing. When he is taken to Miss Havisham’s home to “play” with her adopted daughter Estella, Pip is once again treated like common, low-life boy. When Estella shows disdain for his rough manners and ignorance of “social graces,” Pip is humiliated. Still, Estella’s beauty and high social position enthralls him. More than anything, he wants to be her equal, but Estella makes it clear that he is not. This humiliation causes him to reflect on the great injustices he suffers at the hands of his sister and Estella. Essential Passage 2: Chapter 49 “You are still on friendly terms with Mr. Jaggers?” “Quite. I dined with him yesterday." “This is an authority to him to pay you that money, to lay out at your irresponsible discretion for your friend. I keep no money here; but if you would rather Mr. Jaggers knew nothing of the matter, I will send it to you.” “Thank you, Miss Havisham; I have not the least objection to receiving it from him.” She read me what she had written, and it was direct and clear, and evidently intended to absolve me from any suspicion of profiting by the receipt of the money. I took the tablets from her hand, and it trembled again, and it trembled more as took off the chain to which the pencil was attached, and put it in mine. All this she did, without looking at me. “My name is on the first leaf. If you can ever write under my name, ‘I forgive her,’ though ever so long after my broken heart is dust—pray to it.” “O Miss Havisham,” said I, “I can do it now. There have been sore mistakes; and my life has been a blind and thankless one; and I want forgiveness and direction far too much, to be bitter with you.” Summary Pip has learned that Miss Havisham is not his benefactor. He goes to visit her one last time. Estella is married. Pip is alone. His “great expectations” have come to naught. He can no longer accept money from someone he has feared since childhood. His benefactor is a criminal. Humbled, he visits Miss Havisham in order to get money for Herbert Pocket (Miss Havisham’s relative). Pip has helped to finance Pocket's business from Magwitch's money. Miss Havisham agrees to provide Herbert money he needs since Pip is no longer able to do so. As she does so, she asks Pip to forgive her for her toying with his future and his innocence, provoking Essential Passages by Character: Pip

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Estella to break his heart and leading him to believe that it was she who was his benefactor. Stripped of his pride, Pip readily forgives her. He has lived an ungrateful life and has no cause to be bitter toward someone who has taught him so much about life. Essential Passage 3: Chapter 54 We remained at the public-house until the tide turned, and then Magwitch was carried down to the galley and put on board. Herbert and Startop were to get to London by land, as soon as they could. We had a doleful parting, and when I took my place by Magwitch’s side, I felt that that was my place henceforth while he lived. For now, my repugnance to him had all melted away, and in the hunted wounded shackled creature who held my hand in his, I only saw a man who had meant to be my benefactor, and who had felt affectionately, gratefully, and generously, towards me with great constancy through a series of years. I only saw in him a much better man than I had been to Joe. Summary Pip and Herbert have at last instigated their plan to sneak Magwitch out of England. Having been transported to Australia, Magwitch is under the penalty of death should he return. Rowing him down the Thames, Pip and Herbert reach the ship that will take Magwitch to Germany. However, on board is Compeyson, the “second convict” of Pip’s childhood, who was responsible for Magwitch’s capture and transportation. Compeyson now identifies Magwitch, who grabs him as he climbs aboard the ship. The two fall into the water, where Magwitch is injured and Compeyson is drowned. Magwitch is arrested and is to be taken off to prison. Pip, seeing the extent of Magwitch’s injuries, knows that it is likely that his benefactor will not survive long enough to face execution. After all his humiliating and humbling experiences, Pip feels nothing but gratitude for the man towards whom he had once felt fear and loathing. Pip refuses to leave Magwitch's side as he is being taken off to prison. Analysis of Essential Passages Pip, as the hero of his own story (to quote David Copperfield), is in search of the life of a gentleman, which is handed to him by an unlikely benefactor’s bequest, fulfilling his “great expectations.” Yet Pip, in his search, is oblivious to the true quest of his life: the meaning of “gentleman.” As the archetypal questing hero, Pip comes from humble beginnings—poor, misunderstood, without promise or opportunity. As a “Cinderella” figure, Pip is subject to the abuse of his sister, Mrs. Joe. The unknown “fairy godmother,” in the guise of an escaped convict, opens the door to a new world, a world that has been his dream since he first encountered to odd Miss Havisham and her adopted daughter, the beautiful Estella. His goal of being a gentleman is sure to be fulfilled through the financial gifts from a stranger. Escaping from his domestic troubles, Pip is brought to London to begin his training as a gentleman. His focus is on the surface trappings of the comfortable life. Through the advice and counsel of his friend Herbert Pocket, Pip goes far in obtaining the fulfillment of the image he believes constitutes that of a gentleman. This definition of what it is to be “genteel,” however, leads him into debt. He believes that class can be bought and put on. However, on discovering the true identity of his benefactor, Pip’s dreams are destroyed. He can no longer accept the money that he has believed to be his; it comes from the convict that has been his nightmare since his childhood. In debt, alone, and disillusioned, Pip believes that his “great expectations” have been destroyed and will never come to fruition.

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Yet Pip soon learns the true definition of what it means to be a gentleman. His kindness to Abe Magwitch, displayed in his dedication to the convict even in the face of death, shows that his heart is noble, though his social status may not be. His forgiveness of Miss Havisham, whom he believed to be his benefactor only discover that she purposely misled him, proves that a higher standard of behavior cannot be bought with money. Pip’s quest to become a gentleman ultimately fails, yet his true quest is achieved in the end. His moral choices come full circle, garnering the respect of those who know and love him, even those who at one time may have sought him harm (such as Miss Havisham). Going along the path of innocence to a tragic fall, Pip ultimately achieves redemption through living a life of true Nobility of Heart.

Essential Passages by Theme: False Expectations Essential Passage 1: Chapter 14 It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home. There may be black ingratitude in the thing, and the punishment may be retributive and well deserved; but that it is a miserable thing, I can testify. Home had never been a very pleasant place to me, because of my sister’s temper. But Joe had sanctified it, and I believed in it. I had believed in the best parlour as a most elegant saloon; I had believed in the front door as a mysterious portal of the Temple of State, whose solemn opening was attended with a sacrifice of roast fowls; I had believed in the kitchen as a chaste though not magnificent apartment; I had believed in the forge as the flowing road to manhood and independence. Within a single year all this was changed. Now it was all coarse and common, and I would not have had Miss Havisham and Estella see it on any account. How much of my ungracious condition of mind may have been my own fault how much Miss Havisham’s how much my sister’s, is now of no moment to me or to any one. The change was made in me; the thing was done. Well or ill done, excusably or inexcusably, it was done. Summary After a year of visiting Miss Havisham’s home, being exposed to the higher class life, and especially to the snobbery of Estella, Pip has come to have different expectations of what his life should be like. He feels he is born for greater things than being a poor, “common” boy. Estella’s contempt for his laboring class lifestyle had colored his vision. When Miss Havisham provides the funding for his apprenticeship to Joe in the blacksmithing trade, Pip inwardly views it with the same contempt that Estella does. As much as he loves Joe, he decides that he no longer wants to be like him. His home, subject to the moods of his tyrannical and violent sister, has always been an unpleasant place. Now, it is contemptible. Pip feels the contempt, though he is unsure whether it has its source in Miss Havisham’s influence or his sister’s. Regardless, Pip is beginning to turn his back on his home and expect better for himself, even if it means turning his back on Joe. Essential Passage 2: Chapter 34 As I had grown accustomed to my expectations, I had insensibly begun to notice their effect upon myself and those around me. Their influence on my own character, I disguised from my recognition as much as possible, but I knew very well that it was not all good. I lived in a state of chronic uneasiness respecting my behaviour to Joe. My conscience was not by any means comfortable about Biddy. When I woke up in the night—like Camilla—I used to think, with a weariness on my spirits, that I should have been happier and better if I had never seen Essential Passages by Theme: False Expectations

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Miss Havisham’s face, and had risen to manhood content to be partners with Joe in the honest old forge. May a time of an evening, when I sat alone looking at the fire, I thought, after all there was no fire like the forge fire and the kitchen fire at home. Summary Pip is living the life he has long wanted—the life of a gentleman. He resides in London, with his good friend Herbert Pocket, under the tutelage of Mr. Pocket, the father of Herbert, for no particular purpose but to fit into society. However, it is not quite as enjoyable (or as cheap) as he thought. He and Herbert run into substantial debt through their high living. Estella, though living in Richmond near London, seems as unreachable as ever. Pip begins to notice that his new lifestyle has begun to affect those around him, not just Herbert. He knows that influence is negative. He knows that he has abandoned Joe and Biddy, despite their love and support for him. He begins to realize that his life would have been better and happier if he had remained at home with Joe, continuing his apprenticeship to become a blacksmith. This realization will come too late, as his sister will soon die from the injuries that she sustained in the attack. Essential Passage 3: Chapter 41 “My poor dear Handel,” Herbert repeated. “Then,” said I, “after all, stopping short here, never taking another penny from him, think what I owe him already! Then again: I am heavenly in debt—very heavily for me, who have now no expectations—and I have been bred to no calling, and I am fit for nothing.” “Well, well, well1” Herbert remonstrated. “Don’t say fit for nothing.” “What am I fit for? I know only one thing that I am fit for, and that is, to go for a soldier. And I might have gone, my dear Herbert, but for the prospect of taking counsel with your friendship and affection.” Summary For years Pip has believed that his benefactor has been Miss Havisham and that she has been grooming him to be an acceptable suitor for Estella. However, he discovers the truth when his true benefactor arrives—Abel Magwitch, the convict he encountered when he was a small child, and the man whom he has feared for years. Overcome with the shock, Pip struggles with the next steps he should take. His life as a gentleman is over. Confessing the change in occurrences to Herbert, Pip states that he can no longer take any money from Magwitch. All his tutoring from Mr. Pocket has been to no purpose. He is not trained for anything except to live a life of leisure, which is now closed to him. Not only that, but he is forever attached to the convict. He can never pay Magwitch back, as the debt is so high (and he is already significantly in debt for his expensive lifestyle). His “great expectations” have been false all along. Analysis of Essential Passages Pip lives in a home that is a paradox of great love from his brother-in-love Joe and the abuse from his sister, Mrs. Joe. He is aware of the loss he has suffered in the deaths of his father and mother, along with five brothers who died young. Yet he has not thought of a better life until he is sent to Miss Havisham to provide a playmate for Estella, her adopted daughter. Though Miss Havisham’s home is nothing less than a haunted house, (haunted by the expectations she had to marry a man she loved), Pip nevertheless catches a glimpse of the better life of the higher classes in British society. Miss Havisham provides the funds for his apprenticeship as a blacksmith to his beloved Joe, yet Pip no longer wants what home represents. He wants more. After several years, Pip is provided with an unexpected bequest from an unknown benefactor, allowing him to go to London, the capital of all that Pip hopes for, to learn to become a gentleman. Believing that it is the Essential Passages by Theme: False Expectations

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work of Miss Havisham to prepare him to enter society as the suitor of Estella, Pip is overjoyed at his “great expectations.” However, this false reality leads him to excessive financial debt as he tries to live up to the expectations that he has of himself, and that he believes are his due. After a few years, Pip begins to question his expectations. He wonders whether his true self was found in his humble home and in the blacksmith shop. He begins to feel the guiltly for deserting Joe, who remains at home caring for his crippled wife. Joe has fit in with his new life and Pip has turned his back on him in shame. Now Pip begins to feel the shame reflect back on him. He begins to see that being a gentleman means more than just spending money and living in London. It involves honor and love, respect and gratitude. These have eluded Pip in London, and thus he has failed in his quest to be a true gentleman. It is only when Pip discovers how false his expectations truly are that he begins to understand. Rather than continuing to accept the money, thus enabling to pay off his debt, Pip refuses it despite the hardship. Though not outwardly seeing the nature of a gentleman in his actions, Pip still raises his standards of his own behavior. He begins to see that true nobility derives not from birth but from the choices one makes. His choice to stand by Magwitch, despite his past fear and the threat of the death penalty that hangs over the convict should he be discovered in England, represents his rejection of his false expectations. His forgiveness of Miss Havisham shows a noble heart. In the end, Pip discovers that he has been a gentleman all along. Location and money have nothing to do with it. It is only when he goes from rags to riches and then back to rags again, does he finally comprehend his real self. He has become what he longed to be and what he was called to be—a gentleman.

Great Expectations: Characters Arthur Arthur, Miss Havisham's suitor who once jilted her, has fallen in with the villainous Compeyson and his schemes. However, unlike Compeyson, Arthur has a conscience; he dreams of Miss Havisham dressed in white at his bedside and dies of fright. He and Compeyson had once schemed to get Miss Havisham's fortune, but at the last moment, with the wedding cake on the table and Miss Havisham dressed in her bridal finery, Arthur jilted her, presumably on an attempt at her fortune that he could not carry through. Biddy The gentle, loving, soft-spoken, wise, and efficient Biddy is Pip's tutor before Mrs. Joe is injured and Biddy moves into the Gargery home to take care of the house. After Mrs. Joe dies, she and Joe Gargery marry. Pip, who at one point tells Biddy that he might be interested in marrying her if it weren't for her lowly social status, later comes to realize that Biddy's true worth as a person far outshines any artificial class distinctions. Compeyson Compeyson is the scoundrel who arranges Miss Havisham's affair with Arthur. He also testifies in court against Magwitch in an earlier scheme that failed, after which Magwitch is banished from England and exiled to Australia. A coward, he breaks the old rule of "honor among thieves." Compeyson is the second escaped convict that is out on the marsh the night that Pip first meets Magwitch, and he eventually dies fighting with Magwitch during their second capture. Bentley Drummle Pip's fellow member of the Finches of the Grove in London, Bentley Drummle is no gentleman but a rude and lazy man who teases Pip about Estella's apparent preference for Drummle. Jaggers recognizes a ruthless streak in Drummle and refers to him as the Spider (presumably because he catches all the flies, i.e. anything he wants). A parallel character to Arthur, Drummle becomes engaged to and then marries Estella, whom he Great Expectations: Characters

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barely knows but whose fortune he stands to gain. However, he does not survive her.

Still from the 1946 film Great Expectations, starring Anthony Wager (right) as Pip and Finlay Currie (left) as Magwitch. Estella Adopted by Miss Havisham at the age of "two or three," Estella is taught from then on to reject all who love her. This is Miss Havisham's vengeance in reaction to her romantic disappointment by Arthur. About the same age as Pip, Estella acts much older than he does and snubs or insults him more often than merely ignoring his attempts at friendship or love. In this, she is quite honest with Pip, for she has been raised to be cruel, to tolerate or to brush off love, and to reject it later in order to watch the man suffer. Miss Havisham's success in raising a cold-hearted beauty is too much for her, however, for Estella can feel no love for the old woman either. Thus, Estella cannot help but to refuse to give Pip any hope of marriage whenever he confesses his love. Instead, she tells him that she will ruin the man she does marry—and why not, when she cares for no one? When she becomes engaged to Bentley Drummle, Pip cannot talk her out of marrying such a brutal man. In the novel's revised ending, when Estella meets Pip years later she has had a daughter (also named Estella) by Drummle, who has died. Estella has survived, but she has been "bent and broken" by the doomed marriage. She has never found out who her biological parents were because Miss Havisham has led her to assume that they were dead. More tragically, Estella has never learned to care about anyone's happiness, not even her own. Joe Gargery Joe is Pip's uncle and surrogate father, but also a fellow-sufferer from his wife's nasty temper and violent behavior. He is a rough, strong working man who generally keeps his emotions to himself. According to Joe, whenever he had tried to protect young Pip from his sister's abuse, she not only hit Joe too but hurt Pip the "heavier for it." Joe gladly takes Pip on as his apprentice at the forge and misses him terribly when Pip leaves for London; however, he will not stand in the way of Pip's good fortune. After Mrs. Joe is attacked, he nurses her with the help of Biddy, whom he marries after Mrs. Joe dies. He also gently and lovingly nurses Pip back to health in London. An uneducated man, he learns enough about writing from Biddy to leave Pip a letter to say goodbye, misspelling his own name "Jo" as Pip had done as a child. Of all of the characters in the novel, Joe is one who does not change, remaining tough yet childlike in love. If he has a weakness, it is a tendency to look on the bright side when there isn't one, which seemed a bit foolish to Pip as a teenager. Yet in spite of Joe's hard life, he remains "good-natured," "easy-going," and unfailingly devoted to Pip and Biddy. Mrs. Joe Gargery A large, menacing woman, Mrs. Joe prides herself on raising Pip "by hand," which is a sorry pun on the way she is hitting the child and her husband whenever she is not verbally attacking them. Her favorite instrument, "The Tickler," is a stick that is "worn smooth" from caning Pip, regardless of his behavior. The bodice of her Great Expectations: Characters

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apron is stuck through with pins and needles, a true metaphor for her character. Only one man stands up to her, the evil Orlick, and she never completely recovers from his savage attack. She spends her last days in the tender care of Joe and Biddy, no longer physically or verbally vicious but in a state of childlike happiness. Handel See Pip Miss Havisham Always dressed in the wedding gown in which she had once planned to be married, Miss Havisham is colorless, from her hair to her faded white shoes, of which she wears only one. She wants Pip to play with Estella to act out her love-turned-hatred for the man who jilted her on their wedding day. She has left the house as it was then, even the items on her dressing table. The great room across from her chamber is likewise untouched; the cake, now eerily covered with spiders and dusty cobwebs, is in the middle of the long dining table. It is her wish that this table be cleared only when she is dead so that she maybe laid on it for her wake. By arranging for repeated contact between the children, Miss Havisham intends that Pip will fall in love with the frosty Estella, and she constantly reminds Pip to "love her, love her, love her!" She rewards Pip's visits with coins and does not contradict him when Pip is sure that she is his anonymous benefactor. When Pip continues to visit them from London, Miss Havisham is still anxious for him to admire Estella. However, when Estella makes plans to marry Bentley Drummle, Miss Havisham finds that she has done too well in teaching Estella to be a cold, cruel lover. Estella plans to leave her and will not, and probably cannot, express any love for Miss Havisham. When the old lady's clothing accidentally catches on fire, she is saved by Pip who rolls her in the tablecloth from the great room. Her doctor orders her bed to be brought in and arranged on the table, fulfilling her wish to be laid in state where her wedding feast had once been. Before she dies, she honors Pip's request for money for his friend, Herbert Pocket, amazed that Pip wants nothing for himself. She also suffers from nightmares of dying without forgiveness, as well as from her burns. Even so, she dies with Pip's kiss of forgiveness on her wrinkled forehead. Mr. Jaggers All of the Londoners on the wrong side of the law know Mr. Jaggers is the lawyer with the best chance of keeping them out of Newgate Prison. Jaggers is never wrong. His reputation is so great that his clients know that Jaggers won't take a case he can't win and will tell them so. They also know that they will be refused if they cannot pay his fee. His reputation for courtroom drama is equally well-known, for he has moved many a judge and jury to tears. Outside of court, his speech is guarded so that he cannot be misinterpreted. It seems barely human that he never lets down that guard. Since he is Miss Havisham's lawyer and he is also bound by Pip's mysterious benefactor's desire to remain unknown, Jaggers bolsters Pip's belief that Miss Havisham is his benefactor. However, Jaggers has many clients, all with secrets to be kept. A cold calculator of his own financial gain, Jaggers is the sort of person one can respect but can never call "friend." Even so, he invites Pip to dinner occasionally and once tells Pip to bring his classmates. While Jaggers might seem to favor Pip this way at times, he is more appreciative of Pip's schoolmate, Bentley Drummle, whom Jaggers nicknames "The Spider." He sees in Drummle the shrewd and ruthless qualities that he believes are necessary for getting ahead in the world. Mrs. Joe See Mrs. Joe Gargery Abel Magwitch In trouble from the day he was born, Abel Magwitch is an orphan like Pip but without Joe or any loving family member to befriend him. All he can recall of his early days is his name. In and out of trouble with the law all his life, he is banished to Australia, where he tends sheep and saves his money to one day make "an English gentleman" out of the little boy named Pip who once was kind to him while he was running from the police on the marshes. When he reenters Pip's life in London, Magwitch holds the key to many mysteries, but Great Expectations: Characters

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if he is recaptured he will not be sent back to Australia but sentenced to death. He calls himself "Provis" to avoid recognition and spends many happy hours with Pip, in spite of Pip's discomfort at learning that his benefactor has not been Miss Havisham but a criminal. However, Pip learns a great deal more from Magwitch than his identity, for Magwitch is the link between more characters in the novel than anyone but Pip himself. In spite of their caution, Magwitch is recaptured, injured, and sentenced to death. However, he is already dying of his wounds. Even so, he has lived out his dream of creating in Pip the respectable man that Magwitch himself could never be, as well as assuring that his former crime partner and arch-enemy Compeyson drowns. In his last days, Magwitch reveals to Pip the confidence scheme that he was drawn into with Arthur and Compeyson. However, it is only after Magwitch's death that Pip discovers that Magwitch was also Estella's father. Molly Jaggers' maid who serves dinner to Pip has strange scars on her wrists, as though she were once shackled. Indeed, she has known hard times before Jaggers has "tamed her," and Jaggers openly refers to her "gypsy blood." As her lawyer, Jaggers once saved her from being sent to Newgate Prison, and he shames her in front of Pip to remind her of her old life, her reform, and her alternative to serving in his house. At another dinner with Mr. Jaggers, Pip is fascinated by Molly's hands for another reason. He has seen them somewhere before. Eventually, Pip notices other resemblances between Molly and Estella and forces a stilted admission out of Jaggers that Molly was once married to a convict and that their child, a little girl, was adopted by a rich woman with no children of her own, and that Jaggers arranged such an adoption. Put together with Magwitch's story and Jaggers' hypothetical sketch, it is obvious that Molly was Magwitch's wife and Estella's mother. With Magwitch in jail, Molly had no other means of support and had been caught thieving. Jaggers had arranged for her release on her promise to serve at his table and to stay out of trouble or else he would turn her back over to the police. Molly does not know Estella or Miss Havisham, only that her child has been cared for by someone with great wealth. Orlick One of the characters in the novel with no apparent redeeming qualities, Orlick is a big, unhappy clod who works at Joe's forge until he insults Mrs. Joe and is fired. Orlick also bears a grudge against Pip for having Joe's favor and a benefactor. When Orlick first threatens Mrs. Joe, it is the one time that Joe stands up and tolerates no nonsense from Orlick. Years later, however, Orlick lures Pip to the limekiln out on the marshes and ties Pip up with the intention of killing him. Meanwhile, Orlick tells Pip of the scene of his attack on Mrs. Joe's skull with a convict's (Magwitch's) leg irons that he had found on the marsh. Since it is Pip who was responsible for getting a file to Magwitch to remove his shackles, Orlick's deed may be only the delayed result of Pip's childhood "crime" of having once helped a convict. However, right wins out when help arrives and Orlick is arrested before Pip is harmed. Philip Pirrip See Pip Pip Pip is someone who is shaped by his changing circumstances. He is an orphan who never knew his dead parents or brothers. He is raised by his sister and Joe Gargery at Joe's forge on the marshes near a country village at some distance from London. For a child who perpetually fears punishment, Pip learns to lie quite convincingly. A self-proclaimed "sensitive" boy, he is frequently beaten or starved and verbally abused by his sister, although he keeps only one secret from his gentle uncle, Joe Gargery. Threatened by an escaped convict Pip meets in the church cemetery, he steals food and a file, a "crime" he is certain will be his doom. Pip is equally intimidated by the hideous Miss Havisham and the lovely Estella. Even though Estella is his own age, Pip feels dominated by the girl and obeys Miss Havisham's order to "love her!" When Pip learns that he has an anonymous benefactor who will provide for his education in London, he eagerly leaves his apprenticeship with Joe behind, certain that his patron is Miss Havisham who is preparing him to become a gentleman Great Expectations: Characters

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worthy of marrying Estella. His hunch is supported by his long-standing belief that he is better than he has been treated and that he deserves more in life than becoming a blacksmith like Joe. Furthermore, the lawyer who pays Pip's allowance is also Miss Havisham's lawyer. However, in London, Pip's tutor, Mr. Herbert Pocket Sr., turns out to be ineffectual, and Pip finds himself without adequate training for any profession to fit his new social class. He further discovers that all of his old "expectations" have been wrong-headed. Even so, learning this seems to be his best education. For Pip, who spends much of his life either daydreaming or defending himself, such a change of heart seems heroic enough to set things right again. However, except for risking his own life to save Miss Havisham, Pip is less like a hero than like someone who expects to win the lottery any day now but has little idea what he will do with the money except to spend it. In the end, he redeems himself by realizing who his true friends are when all of his "expectations" and money are gone. He is reunited with Joe and Biddy, and his kindness to Herbert Pocket, Jr., is repaid. Pip's convict See Abel Magwitch Herbert Pocket Jr. Pip's roommate in London, Herbert Pocket, Jr., is also his best friend. Herbert nicknames Pip "Handel" because it is the name of a famous man (a compliment to Pip). Easygoing and not particularly bright, Herbert is nonetheless loyal and persevering. While they are students together, Herbert tries to help Pip figure out where all of their money is going. Later, he invites Pip to share in his sudden fortune, before finding out that Pip is the reason for it. Herbert is the receiver of Pip's only request of Miss Havisham for money. Tolerant and kind, even to the irritating alcoholic and gout-ridden Mr. Barley, Herbert falls in love with and marries the equally kind and patient daughter Clara Barley. Also, he is trusted with helping Pip try to get Magwitch out of England. Herbert's most heroic hour is finding Orlick's letter that Pip had dropped and rushing off to save Pip at the moment that Orlick would have surely killed him. At last, Herbert provides a job for Pip when all of his fortune is gone. In the original ending, Herbert names his son "Pip." Herbert Pocket Sr. Unable to control his own "tumbling" family, Mr. Pocket is also an inadequate tutor to the students in his house. Pip reads and makes friends there but learns little from Mr. Pocket, Sr., that is useful. Not surprisingly, Pocket only teaches in order to keep Mrs. Pocket, who feels that she has married beneath her class for him, and their brood of children fed. Also, it is doubtful that he can do anything else for a living. However, no one seems to complain, for the Pockets' house is a place for young gentlemen to gather to meet one another if not to learn. Provis See Abel Magwitch Uncle Pumblechook Uncle Pumblechook is held in high esteem by Mrs. Joe because he is from a slightly higher social rank in the village than she is on the marsh. However, he is little more than a stereotype of a snob who takes every opportunity to poke fun at Pip when he is poor or to befriend Pip when Pip has money. Spider See Bentley Drummle John Wemmick A true friend to Pip in London, Wemmick is a dual personality. In London, where he is a chief clerk at Jaggers's law office, Wemmick is as coldly business-minded as his employer is. However, he takes a liking to Pip and invites him to his house, a miniature castle complete with a tiny moat, drawbridge, and a cannon that Wemmick fires each evening because it delights his deaf father. In his own odd household, Wemmick Great Expectations: Characters

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becomes close friends with Pip, who grows to value their relationship tremendously. Wemmick keeps one ear open at all times at the office to determine the best time to get Magwitch out of the country, and Wemmick sends word to Pip when he thinks the London underworld is unaware. Also, Wemmick thinks so much of Pip that Pip is the only wedding guest at the marriage of Wemmick and Miss Skiffins. Even so, whenever Pip sees Wemmick at the office, Wemmick is curt and businesslike again. It is Wemmick's practice to keep both of his worlds separate from each other. Wemmick's Aged Parent Another stereotype, the Aged Parent is old and deaf, and he responds to almost all conversation by smiling and yelling, "All right, John!" Combined with the odd house and landscape, the Aged Parent is relaxation and comic relief for Pip, who enjoys visiting Wemmick's place as a world apart from the threats of London. Mr. Wopsle After accompanying Pip and Joe across the marsh the night the police first catch the escaped convicts, Wopsle has seen both Magwitch and Compeyson. This is important when, after Mr. Wopsle has left the country for London to act in the theater, he recognizes the second convict, Compeyson, sitting behind Pip in the audience. With that knowledge, Pip knows that Compeyson is still alive and that he must get Magwitch out of the country as soon as possible before Compeyson finds him again.

Great Expectations: Themes Alienation and Loneliness Beneath the Dickens' major theme of a great respect for wealth is an analysis of the fate of the outsider. At least four known orphans—Mrs. Joe, Magwitch, Estella, and Pip himself—have suffered loneliness, but each character reacts differently. Pip begins his story as a child standing in a gloomy cemetery at the grave site of his family, so pitifully alone that he can do no more than imagine his mother as the "wife of the above," which he can only interpret as directions to his mother's current address in heaven. Pip himself is often threatened with death by his sister and again by his convict, Magwitch. Even Orlick, the town lout, tries to kill an adult Pip. Joe Gargery is Pip's only friend on the marshes, and even after Pip is introduced to city life friends are few compared to the number of those who are coldly uncaring or dangerous. On the other hand, Estella's odd childhood, in the wrinkled hands of an old woman with a twisted mind, teaches her to reject all affection or friendships. Estella plays with Pip like a cat toys with a mouse, certainly not like an equal or playmate, for that is not Miss Havisham's intention. Likewise, as Magwitch confesses to Pip, his childhood on the streets of London was such a nightmare that he cannot even remember how he once learned his own name, and it is no wonder he has had to turn to a life of crime. Mrs. Joe is another character who is antisocial. She lives on the marshes among rough, working class men and has no friends but Joe and no female acquaintances whatever. Pip's guardian and Joe's wife, she is so rude, antagonistic, and violent that she drives away those who would otherwise love her. As Pip's sister, Mrs. Joe shares the same loss of their family, but her means of coping with loneliness is quite different from Pip's attempts to get along with people and to stay out of trouble. Indeed, Mrs. Joe causes most of the problems in her life and everyone else's at the forge. Aside from these obvious loners, each struggling to find his or her place in the world, Jaggers also stands alone, an upholder of the law but to an inhuman degree. He never lets down his guard, as though he were likely to be sued if he relaxed, misspoke, or reacted at all with emotion. No matter how openly Pip offers friendship, Jaggers maintains a distant attitude and instead admires the wealthy but evil Bentley Drummle for knowing what he wants and getting it. While Pip has the greatest number of friends of these alienated characters, even he is strangely hesitant to leave London to rejoin Joe and Biddy or to accept Herbert Pocket's offer of a position in his firm. Only when Pip has exhausted his expectations and has no other direction to turn does he realize that he is quite lucky to have two good friends who love him for himself and can forget about his social status. By doing this, Pip is the one character who works his way out of alienation and loneliness into a socially active life that is enriched by love shared with friends. Although this hard-earned knowledge was not one of his original Great Expectations: Themes

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"expectations," Pip finds that this is far greater wealth than any benefactor's inheritance. Identity: Search for Self As a child, Pip is small for his age and quite weak, physically and temperamentally. An orphan living with his sister in near poverty, he dreams of great wealth. Meanwhile, finding ways to avoid abuse from his sister becomes his daily lesson. He submits to the insults of Mrs. Joe, Uncle Pumblechook, Mr. Wopsle, Estella and Miss Havisham's relatives. Pip is terrified of Miss Havisham when she first orders him to play a game as she watches him and he realizes that he is too miserable to play at anything. Later, he is anxious and delighted to escape that life and go to the city where he can establish a new identity as a gentleman in his own right. Indeed, from his first day in London he is addressed as "Mr. Pip" and treated well. He finds, however, that he has little to back up that esteem except money that he has not earned and only squanders on expensive clothes, decorations for his apartment, and a servant boy he calls "The Avenger." What is Pip avenging but the poverty to which he was born? Yet when Joe comes to London, Pip is ashamed of him, embarrassed that Joe now calls him "Sir" yet distressed by Joe's lowbrow speech and country clothes. Pip is likewise mortified by Magwitch. Even after learning that the convict is responsible for Pip's rise in status and his great allowance, Pip does not want to be seen with the old man because Magwitch does not fit into Pip's new identity. That Magwitch has risked his life to come back to England to see Pip does not influence Pip's decision to get rid of Magwitch as soon as possible. Pip frequently returns to the village to visit Miss Havisham and Estella, and to enjoy a gentleman's treatment from the shopkeeper Trabb and Trabb's boy who once sneered at Pip. However, Pip neither returns to the humble forge to visit Joe nor sends any message to him. In time, Pip is ashamed of that and apologizes to both Magwitch and Joe. Also, he forgives Miss Havisham for her early cruelty with a kiss on her deathbed. But this cannot happen until he has endured greater suffering and pangs of conscience than he ever knew as a weakling boy on the marsh. Miss Havisham also rises above her reputation as a tight-fisted and heartless old woman by granting Pip's request for money to set up Herbert Pocket in a business, and by begging Pip's forgiveness before she dies. Once cruel, she ends by suffering from the realization that she has wasted her life on hatred and vengeance, yet it is too late for her to enjoy her change of heart. Pip adds this to his lessons on gaining respect and peace in his own life. Another good model comes from Wemmick, who adores his old father and shares care of the Aged Parent with Pip on at least one occasion when, ironically, Pip is avoiding contact with Magwitch. Nevertheless, Pip attends Magwitch in his last days as tenderly as Wemmick tends his own father and as lovingly as Joe nurses Pip back from death. When Pip finally returns to the marsh to propose marriage to Biddy and to thank Joe, he finds them already married. Pip asks Joe's forgiveness before he joins Herbert Pocket, Jr. to earn his way in the world and to repay Joe for covering some of his bills. Pip finally takes charge of his future and enjoys the love of his family and friends, realizing that they are his most precious wealth. Having been first a pauper, then a man of the leisure class, and finally a middle-class worker, Pip is finally certain of his place in the world by knowing true contentment and self-worth. Victim and Victimization In the endless struggle for power, the winners are the ruthless, thinks Jaggers. He has yet to learn that such power is not equal to the strength of being true to one's convictions, as Pip learns. Even though Jaggers deals with victims and victimizers daily, he is less informed than Pip is as a victim himself. Mrs. Joe Gargery prides herself on having brought up Pip "by hand," meaning with no help but also with the idea that sparing the rod spoils the child. Yet Pip has not been spared numerous encounters with "The Tickler," his sister's cane. But if one who lives by the cane dies by it, so does Mrs. Joe suffer a violent beating before her death. Similarly, other victimizers become victims before their final chance to repent Magwitch, once a thug on the streets of London, is stalked by his former accomplice. While his childhood in the underworld taught him to eat or be eaten, Magwitch risks all to return to England so that he can see for himself Pip's success and to settle his score with the villainous Compeyson. Also, Molly is "tamed" by Jaggers. A gypsy by birth, a criminal by necessity, and now bound to his household, she neither roams nor breaks the law anymore. But she is a powerless victim who never learns the fate of her daughter except that the child has been adopted into a wealthy household where she will receive the food and shelter Molly cannot provide. While Pip worries that Great Expectations: Themes

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Drummle will harm Estella, it is she who must endure a loveless marriage to outlive her cruel husband. A victim of Miss Havisham's icy character instead of enjoying the love of a mother, Estella is first the abused and then the abuser of both Pip and Miss Havisham. She then becomes the abused wife of the rotten Drummle. Yet, finally, at least in the original ending, Estella is a potentially better mother to her daughter than either her own mother or Miss Havisham ever were to her. Even in the revised ending, she breaks the abuse cycle by reconciling with Pip as his equal. And a lesser character, Trabb's boy, insults Pip and his first good suit of clothes. It is the only way that this poor fellow has of getting back at someone who has had better luck than he has had, for Trabb's boy was humiliated when his employer ordered him to be polite to the new young master Pip. In this way, Trabb's boy is both the victim of class distinction in his society and a victimizer of the upper class in the only way he can be. Through his unobserved and therefore unpunishable rudeness to Pip, he defends himself and strikes a blow at a social class that he has no hope of ever joining. Pip himself must realize that he has victimized people by treating them as lesser creatures. He realizes that he broke Joe's heart when he left the forge and again when he stayed out of contact for eleven years. He hurts Biddy by telling her that he could never love her, even though he returns intending to ask her to marry him after he has lost all of his money. Finding her already married to Joe is Pip's final lesson that power is not related to happiness and that one can only be a victim by permitting it. Trabb's boy is not Pip's only example. Jaggers is also feared by those who are not on his side. Yet Pip doubts that Jaggers has much to enjoy when he goes home at the end of the day. For all of these characters, the pleasure of power as victimizer is short-lived and/or unsatisfying. Guilt and Innocence With the law as a backdrop for much of the action, Pip finds that guilt and innocence are much more complex than he first thought. Having helped a convict to escape weighs heavily on his young mind, and he is sure that greater powers will catch up to punish him in time. When they do, they are much different than Pip first supposed, for he must first deal with his own conscience outside of the English courts. Underlying all of the characters' actions and outcomes is this theme: the guilty are punished by a power higher than any king's. Everyone who acts unjustly in the novel is made to either suffer and repent or to die without forgiveness. Likewise, those few who have nothing to regret are begged for mercy. While Pip is owed an apology by Mrs. Joe, her cruelty to him is avenged by her pitiful and helpless last days. The same could be said of Miss Havisham, who dies powerless, alone, and begging Pip's forgiveness. And while Pip owes Joe his life and feels great guilt for the times he wished not to know Joe, he has often abused their friendship. Pip pays for his carelessness by suffering and nearly dying, and by falling from great wealth back into poverty. His early innocence is the innocence to which he must return for forgiveness, a prodigal son who remembers the simple truth. Estella is too late to reconcile with Miss Havisham, but she finally treats Pip as an equal in both endings to the novel. Estella has also learned the truth about power. While the law is not kind to Magwitch, he accepts it. The fairness of that is left to the reader to decide since Magwitch has had few chances to be anything in life but a convict. That he is Pip's own convict is his redeeming quality, and in turn Magwitch has saved Pip's humility by revealing that a criminal, not a lady, is providing the money to fulfill Pip's grand expectations of joining the upper class. Magwitch has earned that money by the sweat of his brow, working as a common sheep rancher in Australia and not by any criminal activity. He could have easily spent the money on himself instead of Pip. These truths are Pip's salvation from a worthless, lazy, and arrogant life like Drummle. Less obvious are those who have never learned what Pip has found. Uncle Pumblechook and Miss Havisham's relatives will continue to curse others' luck and their own lack of fortune. Guilty of not listening to his heart, Jaggers will live out his days by guarding his words and emotions. While hopelessly self-involved characters such as Drummle and Compeyson are condemned to die without acknowledging their own guilt, others such as Magwitch, Molly, and Estella will be forgiven for misdeeds that are either justifiable or beyond their ability to avoid. Told through Pip's voice, the story shows that the power of forgiveness is great, for it is by mercy to others that one is forgiven. The law of the land that Pip once feared has little to do with real justice, for only by admitting his own guilt can he find happiness. As Pip concludes about himself by remembering Herbert Pocket, Jr., "I was one day enlightened by the reflection, that perhaps the inaptitude had never been in him at all, but had been in me." Or as Estella says to Pip upon meeting him again, "I am greatly changed. I wonder Great Expectations: Themes

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you know me." Ambition Pip is the “poster child” for Victorian ambition, a will to rise above his station in life and become a member of the elite. However, his goal of continual self-improvement, while itself an ambition, makes his road to riches that much more complicated. In the beginning, “improvement” is a general concept that Pip believes he can apply to all aspects of his life; he wants to believe that every improvement is a good thing. As he becomes wiser to the world, though, Pip realizes that one’s own improvement effects other people, and that those effects are often negative, even destructive. In the beginning of Great Expectations, Pip aspires to improved social status so he can be worthy of Estella, who he dearly loves. Mrs. Joe and Pumblechook encourage his fantasies of becoming a gentleman, allowing him to believe he can reach this goal. Dickens uses Pip’s exploration of the world of gentlemen and his climb to the top to satirize the class system of his era and to show how fickle the “upper crust” and its desires are. On becoming a gentleman Pip finds that this life is no more satisfying—and less moral—than his previous life. In order to rise to gentlemanly status, Pip must become educated. Education becomes another ambition in his journey to adulthood. Pip works hard as he learns to read at Mr. Wopsle's aunt's school and in his lessons from Matthew Pocket. Ultimately, characters like Joe, Biddy, and Magwitch teach Pip by example that social and educational improvement are only a small part of what it takes to be a truly “improved” person. Pip can’t eliminate his final ambition in order to achieve the superficial requirements of the British upper class. From the beginning of the novel, Pip is extremely hard on himself when he acts immorally; his ambition to be a moral and thoughtful individual is an undercurrent that runs through the novel. Pip feels guilty about the way he treats Joe and Biddy, and learns from Miss Havisham and Estella how ignoring the feelings of others leaves one hollow and cold. Pip’s desire to be a better person, indeed a better person than the “gentlemen” around him, allows him to see the bigger picture and get a little bit closer to the happiness he seeks. Dickens’ attitude toward ambition is clear—ambition with no moral center is a dangerous thing. He seems to suggest that his society is falling farther and farther into ruin as superficial desires take the place of feeling and caring for others. For Dickens, Pip is a true individual, far more so than the wealthy who care nothing for the beggars and “little people” who exist outside their carefully-sheltered worlds. In seeing the big picture, Pip is not only a part of the world, but a useful, valuable part of it. Class Stratification Dickens provides a cross-section of Victorian England’s class system, from the most despicable criminals (Magwitch) to the poor peasants of the marsh country (Joe and Biddy) to the middle class (Pumblechook) to the very rich (Miss Havisham). The theme of social class is central to the novel's plot, and to the overarching theme that includes all the themes listed here—Pip's realization that wealth and class are less important than love, dependability, and self-respect. Pip reaches this realization when he is finally able to understand that social status has nothing to do with character. Estella’s surrender to her own sadness and the nobility of Magwitch show him the polar opposites of the class system and the inaccuracy of the assumptions made in English society. Dickens’ treatment of class, which appears in many of his novels, was a fairly controversial idea in Victorian-era England, in which social status determined the direction of a person’s entire life. Perhaps the most important thing to remember about the novel's treatment of social class is that Dickens portrays the “movers and shakers” as simply those lucky enough to have inherited wealth, but who are left morally bankrupt. In contrast, those characters who work hard to get where they are in the hierarchy are portrayed as more enlightened. The message in Great Expectations in particular is that the notion that people in a higher class are somehow more deserving of their success is as much of a fiction as the novel itself. Great Expectations: Themes

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Crime and Responsibility Dickens explores the nature of crime in his world by exposing the guilt and innocence of those characters involved, and some who are victims. The imagery of crime—the handcuffs Joe repairs, repeated images of bars, the gallows of a London prison, even of Miss Havisham’s house as a sort of prison for Estella and later Pip—serves as a backdrop for the action. It seems as if everyone is guilty of something or a victim of someone else’s cruelty. A man we might assume would be a fine upstanding citizen—Jaggers, who as a lawyer knows the law and its consequences—is a heartless criminal. The images of crime also provide a symbol of Pip's struggle to resolve the conflict between his powerful conscience—his heart, his sense of morality—with the institutions of Victorian justice, which frequently fails in its stated goals. Just as social class is a meaningless, superficial measure of an individual’s worth, the institutions of England’s criminal justice system (police, courts, jails, even attitudes toward crime and punishment) are a superficial measure of morality. Pip finds that he must learn to look beyond both, trust in the conscience that continually nags him when he does something wrong to his fellow human being. This conscience must be developed over the course of the novel, however; Dickens shows us how Pip grows stronger as he considers the consequences of past and present actions. Early in the novel, for example, Magwitch terrifies Pip just because he is a convict; Pip feels guilty for helping him out of fear of the police. By the end of the book, Pip recognizes and appreciates Magwitch's simple dignity and worthiness, and sees him as more than a fugitive from the justice system and helps him elude his pursuers. By learning to trust his conscience and seeing beyond the definitions of crime, guilt and innocence he has been taught, Pip learns that a man’s character is much more about his internal worth than his value in a corrupt society. Parenthood/Childhood No one can accuse Charles Dickens of writing cheerful children’s stories; in many of his novels, the children are beset by illness or poverty, or they’re abused by the adults in their lives. Quite often all of these are the case. In Great Expectations, the parent/child (or in this case the surrogate parent/child) dynamic is imbalanced and guided by adults’ unrealistic views of the world and of the children they care for. Magwitch can be considered a “Father figure” to Pip from behind the scenes; he leaves a fortune to the boy to enable him to become the gentleman Magwitch himself can never be. All of Pip’s “role models”—Magwitch, Joe, even Jaggers in a way—are negative, either too weak to make themselves known to the world or too damaged to live normal, happy lives. They all seem to be living vicariously through Pip’s attempts at launching a good life, perhaps hoping to become part of his success at a later time. Everyone who tries to “parent” Pip ends up causing further damage until he comes dangerously close to resembling Estella and her cold, calculating, uncaring nature. Only the boy’s own sense of fairness and resistance of authority allow him to rise above his “fathers” and become his own man. Pip and Estella are parallels in the way they are “parented”; the difference lies in their response to the “parenting.” Dickens lets us know early on in the novel that Miss Havisham raises Estella to break men's hearts in revenge for her own heartbreak at the hands of Mr. Compeyson. She succeeds in a tragic way: Estella becomes so broken, so empty, so devoid of the spirit of life or love that in the end she is simply going through the motions. She could never love Pip, but so deep inside where even he can’t reach she loves him too much to ruin his life. She resigns herself to her loveless existence in exchange for isolating herself from other peoples’ feelings, protecting them from herself. Like Miss Havisham, who apologizes for her behavior on her deathbed, Estella will spend the rest of her life trying to make up for the hurt she has caused and to prevent any further hurt to anybody but herself. Dickens’ opinion of Victorian-era parenting is clear in Great Expectations, if just beneath the surface; in an age where child labor is still being practiced and children are still given up to orphanages because their parents don’t want or can’t afford them, Pip and Estella are examples of what can happen to children both as they grow up and after they have grown. In both cases, the lack of a stable, positive parental role model Great Expectations: Themes

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prevents the children from knowing right from wrong—in learning “the hard way,” they do a great deal of damage to themselves and to each other.

Great Expectations: Style Point of View The first-person narrator of Dickens' Great Expectations is an adult Pip who tells the story in his own voice and from his own memory. What is distinctive about that voice is that it can so intimately recall the many small details of a little boy's fear and misery, as well as the voices and dialects of others—from the rough country speech of Magwitch and Orlick to the deaf Aged Parent's loud repetitions or the mechanically predictable things Jaggers says. Yet other details seem to be forgotten. Pip tells almost nothing of his beatings from Mrs. Joe, but a great deal about his fear of them, using adult vocabulary and concepts in these reflections. The opening scene with little Pip in the cemetery recalls the tombstones as looking like "lozenges," soothing the throat of this mature narrator. This way, the adult Pip not only evaluates events as he remembers them but also adds a deeper insight than he would have had as a child. The story unfolds chronologically from Pip's earliest memories to his most recent experiences. And while some critics justify Dickens' revised ending, Pip's development is most believable for modern readers if he parts from Estella with the final realization that he could never have been happy with her and her man-hating legacy from Miss Havisham. Bildungsroman In Great Expectations, Pip must not only work out his problems but also sort out reality from his childhood dreams. Realistically, the only way that he can do this is by trial and error and learning from his mistakes. First comes his education, demonstrating that becoming a gentleman means more than having material wealth. Pip may read as many fine books as he can, but the most important lessons come not from them (he does not quote from them) but from his analysis of real people and events in his society. While Drummle is financially wealthier than Herbert Pocket or Startop, among Pip's London friends, Drummle has no redeeming qualities nor does he value his friends, which Pip learns is the most important thing in his own life. In his development, Pip discovers that Miss Havisham has not been his kindly benefactor as he had assumed. Even so, he is able to both save her life and help her to find a little left of her soul before she dies. By helping someone who only appears to be better off than he is, he finds honor in his own name, as humble as that may be. It is ironic that the criminal Magwitch had insisted, as a condition of Pip's allowance, that he keep his boyhood name "Pip" rather than "Phillip." He finds that the requirements of maturity are taking responsibility for one's actions, and this is what Pip must do by the end of the novel. He admits that he has at times been ashamed of his country life and friends. Pip also reveals that while he once enjoyed being treated royally by Uncle Pumblechook and Tragg in town, he sees now that this was a false honor. The true nobility is in his homecoming, which is similar to the biblical prodigal son's return. Pip confesses to Joe and Biddy that he has been too proud to appreciate their unfailing love until he finally comes back to them with his new knowledge. Comic Relief With so many serious things to think about and the ever-present dangers that appear, Pip is always glad to slip away to Wemmick's miniature castle, complete with a tiny moat and cannon, where all good things seem possible again in this stronghold against the evil of the outer world. One of the best features of the place is the stereotypical character of Wemmick's father, the laughable Aged Parent. Good-natured, deaf, dependent, and weakened by age, the old man is no threat to Pip or to anyone. Instead, he requires the protection of those who have power in the world, that is to say Wemmick and Pip. Wemmick's devotion to his old father seems to Pip to be a wonderful thing, especially in a society that constantly seeks out the weak to take advantage of them. However, the fragility of the situation makes Wemmick's house seem all the more magical. As close as it is to the unforgiving city life of London, it is a world apart—something about which Wemmick constantly cautions Pip. It is not to be mentioned to Jaggers or to anyone outside of this rare and delightfully protected Great Expectations: Style

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environment. Pip is rewarded for honoring Wemmick's trust and friendship by being allowed to cook and watch over the Aged Parent, as well as being honored as Wemmick's only wedding guest who is not kin. Pip soon becomes as fiercely protective as Wemmick is of this place where evil dare not enter. Setting The distinctions between the city, the town, and the country are the most apparent shifts in Pip's story. Although all of them harbor dangerous elements, all of them also carry the forces of good. The difference is that the marsh folk are more obvious in their desires. Orlick is the example of a man without a soul, and Pip recognizes this from the beginning. It is no surprise when it is revealed that he was Mrs. Joe's savage attacker. The fact that he would also kill Pip points out Orlick's lack of distinction between those who deserve his vengeance and those who do not. He readily attacks anyone who gets in his way. However, in town Tragg's boy makes Pip the laughingstock of all who have more in life than he will ever have, thus showing humor and a knowledge of the world that Orlick does not have. Even so, Orlick believes he has power over others who may be better off than he is, which he tries to prove. By contrast, along London's sooty streets are those who know Jaggers. They both fear and respect him as someone with the education and social power to help them. He is as impersonal as the buildings around him, but if he cannot save their lives they are certain that they could not have been saved by anyone. That kind of blind trust is not found in the village—where even Tragg's boy dares to mock Pip—or on the marshes where brute strength may mean survival. Of the three, the city is least likely to recognize individuality, which Pip indicates by noticing the overall dirtiness and decay of it as soon as he arrives there. A person may hide on the marshes or outside of the city, whereas the city has too many eyes to cover up anyone or any deed for long. Even Pip must escape to the suburbs (Wemmick's) for a time to avoid those eyes.

Great Expectations: Historical Context Industrialization Nineteenth century England had flourishing cities and emerging industries. Machines made it possible for those with money to invest to earn great profits, especially with an abundance of poor people who were willing to work long hours at hard or repetitive jobs for little pay. By contrast, the rural system included landlords, farmers, and common laborers who owned no land. In this rural system that had existed for centuries, those without land had no hope of bettering their lives: once in poverty, always in poverty. These hopeless poor moved to the city on the dream of making their own fortunes; it was usual for working class families to send young children off to the factories for twelve-to fourteen-hour shifts or longer. Child labor laws would not be enacted until the 1860s. Meanwhile, children and women were ideal workers because they did not form labor unions, and were easily intimidated, beaten, or fired if they protested against an employer's mistreatment. School attendance was a luxury reserved for the children of parents who could afford to pay private tutors in addition to the family's loss of income from a child's labor. The first publicly funded elementary schools were not established until the 1870s, when the demand for skilled laborers increased. The idea of high schools did not receive England's public support until the turn of the century, after Dickens' death. Meanwhile, the labor-saving machines that were to make a few people's fortunes earned many others little more than bad health or early graves. The new money caused new needs. Prior to the nineteenth century, banking had been left to businesses and was fairly informal, by reputation. Since there had been little money to exchange, except by a well-known few, there had been little need for that service. The Bank of England had been established in 1694, but it dealt mainly with government projects. Industrialization changed that, and banking houses became more numerous as a middle class emerged. New businesses needed to borrow money, and the rapid production of goods for a growing economy promised new wealth for both borrowers and lenders. That is how Pip found employment for his friend, Herbert Pocket, who later hired Pip. Great Expectations: Historical Context

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Obviously, not all who turned to the city for fortune found it. There were workhouses and debtors' prisons for those who failed to achieve their dreams of advancement. Those shut out from that promise lived in misery and often turned to crime. Since money was made in the city, the rise in criminal activity appeared there. As the number of jobless residents increased, so did the number of smugglers, pickpockets, thieves, and swindlers. Those with enough money to escape the soot and dangers of London, began to build up the towns, as we see in Wemmick's choice of address. Only the outlying country folk stayed much the same as they had for centuries, and we see Pip's travel is either by stagecoach or on foot. That was normal until the 1860s when the railroad finally connected the country to the city and the past to the new age of the machine.

Great Expectations: Critical Overview Charles Dickens was often faulted by his early critics for writing with more melodrama or realism than suited his readers' tastes. In 1861, E. S. Dallas suggested that this was part of Dickens' charm: "Faults there are in abundance, but who is going to find fault when the very essence of the fun is to commit faults?" Yet Lady Carlisle once delicately commented, "I know there are such unfortunate beings as pickpockets and streetwalkers … but I own I do not much wish to hear what they say to one another." Likewise, in 1862 Mrs. Margaret Oliphant found the novel "feeble, fatigued, and colorless," yet defended Miss Havisham as "a very harmless and rather amiable old woman," suggesting that among Dickens' readers were the Miss Havishams of that era. At the same time, other early critics viewed this book as a happy change of pace from Dickens' so-called "Dark Period" of writing due to the novel. According to John Moore Capes and J.E.E.D. Acton's 1862 review, "We should be puzzled to name Mr. Dickens' equal in the perception of the purely farcical, ludicrous, and preposterously funny."

Illustration by Frederic W Pailthorpe, from Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. As Humphrey House later reflected, "The whole [Victorian] class drift was upwards and there was no reason to suppose that it would ever stop being so," meaning that in any age or economy people believe in whatever they hope for themselves. Other modern critics, however, tend to look on the novel as an example of Dickens' "brilliant study of guilt." In any case, it is story-telling at its best. As Angus Calder comments in his introduction to the 1965 Penguin Books edition, "The densely detailed surroundings, the strange life of these creatures, make the dialogue tense and convincing." It is a hard book to put down because we believe in Pip and want to see him win out in the end. Yet even twentieth-century critics disagree with each other. While E. M. Forster faults Dickens for creating "two-dimensional" characters George Orwell praises him by pointing out that "Dickens' imagination overwhelms everything, like a weed," Dorothy Van Ghent notes Dickens' accuracy in describing "the complex inner life which we know men and women have." And Angus Calder notices that "Pip does not merely see Great Expectations: Critical Overview

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what has been there all the time; in the cases of Miss Havisham and Magwitch, he actively helps them to become better people near the end of their lives." This is the theme and ethic of redemption, but not only for Pip. As Calder concludes, "The book begins with a beast-like man so hungry that he thinks of eating a little boy …, haunted, like the rest of Dickens' fiction, by jails and images of prisons.… [while] what makes men grow is fellowship." Connecting and interacting with one another is Dickens' timeless purpose for telling this story with all of its humorous twists and heart-wrenching turns. Considering all of the new discussion about the novel each year, Dickens seems to continue to achieve his purpose—and amazingly well. By 1987, Bert G. Hornback had claimed the existence of "more than two hundred adaptations of his [Dickens'] novels for the stage, and more than fifty versions produced as films for television."

Great Expectations: Character Analysis Estella Estella is as beautiful and cultured as she is cold and brutal, and Pip immediately falls in love with her at a tender age. The daughter of Magwitch the convict, she is taken in by Miss Havisham from the age of three and taught to hate and mistreat men of all kinds, Pip among them. The more Pip loves her, the more Estella seems to enjoy torturing and manipulating him. She is from even lower stock in the class system than he is, and one might think she resents his intrusion into the life she has found among the wealthy. Dickens doesn’t leave Estella so one-dimensional—he shows us the inner life of this girl who has herself been so tortured and twisted by a desire to be more than her station at birth. We get a sense that Estella struggles against the cruelty and shame she is made to endure; as she and Pip get older, she continually tells him she has no heart to spare his feelings and keep him from being as dependent on her as she has been on the heartless Miss Havisham. In so doing, Estella proves that she does have a heart, albeit a damaged one. Her marriage to Drummle prolongs her own agony, but near the end of the novel she learns the same lesson as Pip: Feelings can’t be suppressed enough to prevent us from feeling, and holding emotions back cripples us, as evidenced by Miss Havisham and Magwitch, among others. At the novel’s end Estella experiences her own kind of evolution, bent into what she hopes is a better shape that will allow her to undo some of the damage she has caused. Estella’s gradual change over the course of the novel has caused some critics to call her Dickens’ first truly developed female character. Magwitch Abel Magwitch, also know simply as "The Convict" is a career criminal at the beginning of the novel, with what seem like no redeeming qualities. He stalks Pip in the cemetery after escaping from prison as the novel opens; Pip’s resulting kindness melts his icy heart, and he becomes determined to emulate the self-improvement that tiny boy has devoted his own life to. Magwitch makes his fortune, secretly using his money to finance Pip’s education and lifestyle through Jaggers, elevating the boy into increasingly higher social circles. At the end of the novel, however, his crimes catch up to him and he is caught; like his daughter Estella, Magwitch has to come to terms with the damage he has caused. Miss Havisham Miss Havisham begins and ends Great Expectations as a victim, but hardly the sympathetic kind. Externally, she is the wealthy, eccentric old woman who lives in a manor called Satis House near Pip's village, and who took in Estella as a toddler to raise as her own. Behind closed doors she is manic, if not insane—she wears an old tattered wedding dress, keeps a decomposing banquet on her table, and surrounds herself with clocks stopped at twenty minutes to nine. Miss Havisham was jilted by her fiancé, Compeyson, at twenty minutes to nine many years before, and she is determined to grieve forever. Estella is the tool for her revenge on all men, a beautiful, cultured monster. She trains Estella to be as cruel and heartless as she feels Compeyson was to her, ensuring that no man will ever be Great Expectations: Character Analysis

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happy if she has anything to say about it. Dickens uses Miss Havisham as an example of single-minded vengeance pursued purely for destruction: both Miss Havisham and the people in her life suffer greatly from her quest for vengeance. Miss Havisham is blind to the pain her obsessions cause Pip and Estella, being so focused on her own pain. A victim of a different sort, Miss Havisham is redeemed at the end of the novel when she realizes that she has broken Pip's heart in the same way her own was broken, just more slowly; rather than achieving any kind of revenge, she has only caused more pain. Miss Havisham immediately begs for Pip’s forgiveness, reinforcing the novel's theme that bad behavior can be redeemed by repentance and compassion. Pip Great Expectations is a bildungsroman—the story of an individual's growth and development within a strict social order. Philip Pirrip (who shortens his own name to “Pip” as a child) is the focus of this growth in the novel. Pip is really two characters at once—the protagonist going through the trials of one life, and the grown narrator relating the story of his life. At times, adult Pip offers lighthearted observations on his childish behavior while illustrating the stresses that lead child Pip to react to his world. One of Pip’s strongest characteristics (and, indeed, one of the central themes of the novel) is his desire for self-improvement. He analyzes the world around him for the best and worst examples of society and emulates the best. Unfortunately, the best examples of society aren’t always the best examples of humanity; Pip the narrator criticizes Pip the protagonist for his narrow-minded treatment of those around him. The young Pip’s desire for self-improvement infringes on the dignity of other characters like Joe and Biddy, although they are kind to him. Pip is capable of kindness to those he loves, but the influence of Miss Havisham and especially Estella brings out the worst in him as his craving for advancement grows stronger. In effect, the women become the role models for the unhappy “middle” section of the story; the deeper Pip explores his own social standing, and more miserable he becomes. He seems to rally when he inherits a mysterious fortune, but when he discovers the money came from Magwitch and not Miss Havisham, his narrow view of the world and its rules crumbles. Magwitch is hardly the refined gentleman Pip has come to expect as a benefactor, but it is he who appreciated Pip’s kindness early on and rewards it in the end. Pip matures into the realization that status is meaningless without humanity. His behavior as a “gentleman” has caused pain to those he loved the most, and the now-mature Pip uses the novel to pay tribute to their undeserved respect of him.

Great Expectations: Essays and Criticism Great Expectations: Overview The narrator of Great Expectations, Philip Pirrip or Pip, is one in a legion of orphans who inhabit the fictional world of Charles Dickens a standard sympathetic figure disadvantaged from childhood through no fault of his own. What little Pip knows of his parents is derived from their tombstones, and it is from these that Pip attempts to derive an image of them. Parenthood and above all, a search for paternity is plainly a prominent theme in the novel, and it is clearly interlaced with Pip's quest for his own identity. Dickens presents three male figures who might serve as a surrogate male parent to Pip and who are roughly analogous to the heart, the soul, and the mind of fatherhood. Pip's brother-in-law, Joe, functions as a stepfather of sorts to the child Pip, and because he is a good-hearted, uncomplicated individual, Joe possesses the qualification of genuine concern for the boy. But Joe's efforts to shield the much younger Pip from the "tickler" of his domineering wife, Mrs. Joe, are pathetically ineffective, for the unschooled smith lacks the Great Expectations: Essays and Criticism

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confidence required to serve as a self-assured father. At a fairly early juncture in the text, we learn from Pip that Joe is uncomfortable in the trappings of an adult social role, that, "nothing that he wore then, fitted him or seemed to belong to him; and everything that he wore then, grazed him" (p.23). Unlike Pip, Joe undergoes no character development whatsoever in the course of Great Expectations. He remains a child-like individual. Then there is Abel Magwitch, the deep soul of Pip's quest for a father. Initially frightened by the fugitive in chains, it is only under a felt duress that Pip agrees to assist him by stealing food and a file. But when Pip voluntarily expresses an interest in his well-being, saying that he hopes that Magwitch enjoys the "vittles" that he has brought him, the felon responds in kind, saying "thankee, my boy, I do" (p.19). A bond develops between Magwitch and Pip. A few chapters into the text, Pip begins to refer to this desperate character as "my convict." Magwitch is an orphan himself and so he can identify with the parentless Pip, and it is, of course, Magwitch (not Miss Havisham) who is Pip's actual benefactor. But Magwitch remains outside the ken of normal society, and, worse, he harbors a desire to take revenge against Compeyson. By virtue of this baggage, he cannot become the father for whom Pip is searching. Lastly, there is Mr. Jagger, the eminently skilled and taciturn attorney who administers Pip's affairs in London. In Jagger, Pip encounters a potential father figure who is fully able to provide him with the funds, the knowledge and a personal model for his transformation into a full-fledged gentleman. Jagger is the rational mind of Pip's prospective father. Yet that is all he is. Jagger has no personal feelings toward the youth or toward anyone else for that matter. After informing Pip that all of the necessary credit arrangements have been made on his behalf, Jagger abruptly terminates their conversation by remarking, "'Of course, you'll go wrong somehow, but that's no fault of mine'" (p.169). It is not Pip but the ruthless Bentley Drummle who Mr. Jagger is closest to in a paternal spirit. Ultimately, Pip fails in his quest to find a father and the fond relationship between the clerk Wemmick and his aged parent only underscore this failure. Social and emotional isolation is a natural thematic correlate of Pip's orphan status. When we first see the boy Pip, he is alone in the graveyard and while he has some connection to Joe, the depth of their contact with each other is constrained by Joe's menial vocation and, above all, by Mrs. Joe's view of her younger brother as an irredeemable delinquent. Many of the other major characters in Great Expectations are socially or emotionally alienated. Mrs. Joe is devoid of any companions, Mr. Jagger is without peers, Estella is raised by Miss Havisham to reject all romantic overtures. As for Miss Havisham herself, she exists in complete separation from society (and from reality), cultivating a vindictive scheme to avenge her perpetual role as a jilted spinster. Great Expectations is filled with irons, chains, and handcuffs which serve as external restraints, and, at the same time, as "self-forged" manacles. Characters are bound together by circumstance, but at the same time, they remain separated from each other. They are also bound by their prospects for the future, barred from realizing their dreams by their dismal situations in life. Indeed, Pip's life as a child is "dismal" (a descriptor that recurs throughout the novel), for his environment is raw with no glimmer of hope for escaping from work at Joe's forge or from the cane of Mrs. Joe. When he learns of his good fortune and makes his way to become a gentleman in London, instead of the bright future he had envisioned, he is once again enveloped by dismal surroundings. As the narrator recalls it, "Mr. Jagger's room was lighted by a skylight only, and was a most dismal place" (p.162). Blocked vistas are a constant aspect of Pip's life on the marsh and in the city. Throughout the novel, the windows in Pip's rooms never offer a view of the outside, and wherever he goes, Pip feels "caged and threatened." It is a sense of guilt and shame that Pip takes with him to London. In the opening chapters, Pip's guilt is explicitly associated with his having stolen food for Magwitch, but this sense of being ill at ease is entrenched in the character's conscience, a manifestation of the shame that he feels as an orphan dependent upon his sister. Establishing himself in London as a dandy, it is clear that Pip wants to turn his back on his old existence. Yet, at the same time, not only is he haunted by it, he actually re-produces it. Pip hires a boy Great Expectations: Overview

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servant by the name of Pepper, thereby creating a new Pip whom he can order about but whose presence continually reminds him of his own lowly origins and thereby haunts him. The main plot line of Great Expectations revolves around Pip's ascent to the higher rungs of the social hierarchy, and it is in this context that his character appears most deeply flawed. After learning of his windfall, Pip denigrates the darkness of his past in light of his seemingly bright prospects ahead, bidding "farewell" to "monotonous acquaintances of my childhood" (p.145). Flush with visions of greatness for himself, Pip indiscriminately dismisses both the positive and the negative figures of his boyhood, distancing himself from them on the grounds that he is meant to be a member of a higher class. Thus he tells his tutor, the admirable Biddy, that he considered asking her to marry him, but rejected the notion owing to her inferior social estate. The salient example of Pip's misguided airs emerges when he learns that Joe is planning to pay him a visit in London. Instead of joy at the prospect of renewing his association with his kindly brother-in law, Pip is preoccupied with the threat of Joe becoming a social embarrassment to him. The narrator recollects this incident in his youth by confiding that he met the news of Joe's coming "not with pleasure, though I was bound to him by so many ties; no; with considerable disturbance, some mortification, and a keen sense of incongruity. If I could have kept him away by paying money, I certainly would have paid money" (p.218). Pip's rejection of Joe (which his self-effacing brother-in-law validates) seems all the more cruel when he later takes ill and is nursed back to health by the very man whom he had looked down upon. Although he despises the Spider Drummle, under the perverse influence of his great social expectations, Pip acquires much of the same arrogance, snobbery, and self-centeredness that his rival displays. Here as in many of this works, Dickens portrays the class differences of mid-nineteenth century Britain is stark relief, and, as in his other novels, the author sympathies lie with the downtrodden. When Magwitch is arrested in Chapter V and charged with stealing food, he says to his captors, "a man can't starve; at least I can't. I took some wittles, up at the village over yonder" (p.40). By doing so, he covers for Pip, but at the same time expresses the dire hardships that afflict the lower classes of Dickens's England. Indeed, Magwitch was compelled to turn to a criminal career as an abandoned child of the streets. He has been reduced to a bestial status as a consequence of deprivation and we are reminded throughout that Pip could well have suffered a similar fate as his clandestine benefactor. Injustice is, in fact, rife in Great Expectations, with boy Pip suffering under Mrs. Joe for no particular reason. Upon entering into the "official world of London, Pip finds that it is filled with orruption. As he exits Smithfield for the street, for example, Pip is accosted by an "exceedingly dirty and partially drunk minister of justice" (p.164) who offers to show Pip the Lord Chief Justice for the price of half a crown. The criminal attorney Mr. Jagger has no interest in whether his clients are guilty or innocent, but only in whether they can pay his retainer. Since the machinery of official justice is so faulty, it is not surprising then that revenge is a salient motif of the novel. In addition to his desire to see the gentleman that Pip has become as a result of his anonymous largesse, Magwitch risks his life by returning the England because he wants to settle the score with his former confederate, Compeyson. Not only does Orlick exact his vengeance upon Mrs. Joe, Pip's feelings of guilty over the assault suggest that he also harbors a deep resentment toward the woman. For her part, Miss Havisham is intent on inflicting tortures upon all men through Estella. Then there is the question of Estella's marriage to Drummle, for while his motive is to gain her fortune, her motivation for agreeing to this mismatched union seems to be revenge against her stepmother. Nevertheless, a rough justice is at work in Great Expectations, and with it, a glimmer of moral order accompanied by the valorization of confession and forgiveness. Mrs. Joe's death is, to some extent, deserved. Better still, her death clears the way for her long-suffering husband to marry Biddy. Before his own demise, Magwitch is able to kill the betrayer Compeyson, and Spider Drummle dies before he is able to complete his scheme. On the other side of the coin, the loyal Herbert Pocket, Jr., benefits from Miss Havisham's fortune Great Expectations: Overview

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and marries Clara Barley, an appropriately happy outcome for a character who proves selfless in his desire to assist his erstwhile roommate. Both Miss Havisham and Pip plead for forgiveness from those whom they have wronged, and while it is too late for the old maid to enjoy the benefits of her change of heart, in the end Pip is redeemed. In the originally serialized version of Great Expectations, Dickens indicated that Pip and Estella would not see each other again. In a second version, however, the author altered the novel's conclusion, with Pip seeing "no shadow" that would prevent them from remaining together. At bottom, Great Expectations is a moral treatise on the superiority of human concern over social station, and having learned this lesson, Pip, with all his foibles, becomes worthy of an uplifting outcome.

Great Expectations: A Reflection of Serial Publication and Dickens' Social Concerns In the Victorian era, reading fiction was an extremely favorite pastime, and new novels were commonly published in serial format in periodicals. Many writers such as Charles Dickens became quite popular and developed huge followings that dutifully bought the periodicals in which they were published month after month, hooked by the entertaining and suspenseful stories. Dickens began Great Expectations in the fall of 1860, publishing it in weekly installments that began in December of that year in his popular periodical All the Year Round. Many of Dickens' earlier novels had been published serially as well, but usually in twenty installments in a periodical issued only once a month. Because a weekly serial was necessarily shorter than one that came out only once a month, the installments of Great Expectations needed to be much more concise, a publishing requirement that had a great effect on the ultimate structure of the novel, which is indeed more concise than many of Dickens' earlier novels. The fact that Victorian novels were published in installments had a great effect on the characteristics and style of those novels. For example, each installment characteristically ended with a "cliff-hanger" much like a soap opera on television; that is, a suspenseful ending designed to tease the reader into buying the next issue in order to find out what happens to the characters. Novelists also frequently created their characters with certain "character tags," peculiar and often comic aspects of their physical appearances or way of talking in order to help readers remember each character from month to month. This was especially important for the minor characters. Finally, such novels characteristically included fantastic and extremely complex plots, all of the many strands of which were miraculously tied together in the final installments, as is the case with Pip's gradual discovery not only of the identity of his benefactor, but also of Estella's real parents. In Great Expectations, all of the major characters have been introduced by the end of "The First Stage of Pip's Expectations," and all of the major strands of the plot have begun; Dickens continues to manipulate them throughout the next two thirds of the novel before tying them all together at the end. The serial format of the novel also allowed for the peculiar situation of the ending of Great Expectations. In Dickens' original ending, Pip meets Estella in London many years after the events in the main part of the narrative, and hears of her troubles with Bentley Drummle and of her plans to marry again. The two characters part, and there is no suggestion that they will ever marry, or even that they will ever meet again. But when Dickens' friend and fellow author Edward Bulwer-Lytton read the manuscript for this ending, he convinced Dickens to give the novel a happier ending, believing that the reading public would be much more satisfied if he at least hinted that Pip and Estella will be free to marry at the end of the story. In the case of installments in weekly periodicals as opposed to monthly ones, many publishers and readers felt that autobiographical stories were more appropriate for publication. Autobiographical stories, which were reputedly "true," generally managed to grip the reader emotionally much more quickly than a fictional story. Some scholars today, such as Janice Carlisle, believe that this may have contributed to Dickens' decision to write Great Expectations as if it were an autobiography, with a first person narrator, Pip, telling the story of his life. One of the most consistently praised aspects of the novel, and one of the things that makes it such an Great Expectations: A Reflection of Serial Publication and Dickens' Social Concerns

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extraordinary achievement, is Dickens' masterful depiction of Pip's personality. The entire story is presented to us through this main character's eyes, which allows the reader a great deal of insight into Pip's psychology. Because of this, readers through the years have tended to see Pip as a much more successful and more realistic characterization than many others of Dickens' major characters. Some scholars have attributed the success of Pip as a character to the relationship of many of the situations and events in the novel to Dickens' own life. Dickens himself came from a poor background, and he was forced to work in a shoe blacking company as a child. And, like Pip, he managed to improve his own "expectations" considerably with his phenomenal success years later as a novelist. The fact that Dickens so effectively invites his readers into the mind of his narrator and main character, Pip, also gives great impact to the development of the novel's themes. The main action of the novel involves Pip's expectations to improve his lot in life, and the three "stages" of his transformation from a poor boy living in a small town into a gentleman successful in the world of Victorian commerce. Initially believing his benefactor to be the wealthy Miss Havisham, Pip becomes a snob, and gradually becomes more and more embarrassed by his past, by his home, and particularly by his loyal and true friend, the humble blacksmith Joe. Upon learning the true identity of his benefactor, however, Pip's mistaken assumptions and his future expectations are dashed when he is forced to confront the fact that the man who has turned him into a gentleman is none other than an uneducated and uncouth criminal. The reader who becomes caught up in Pip's outlook, sharing his assumptions with him, experiences, like Pip, a surprise and an important lesson when those assumptions are shattered. The lesson that Pip learns comes in his gradually growing to see the goodness and humanity of Magwitch, truly a noble soul despite his past involvement in crime. Such a realization allows Pip, and the reader, to see the wrongness of a class structure that implies that wealth and a high station in life are equal to high moral virtue. After all, Magwitch is portrayed as having a gentle and noble spirit, while the more suave and gentlemanly Compeyson is a vicious and unfeeling criminal. Miss Havisham, too, who represents a wealthier class than that of Pip's family, is not his benefactor, but knowingly allows Pip to believe that she is as she involves him in her own schemes. Moreover, in looking back over the story line, the reader sees at the end that it was Pip's simple act of stealing food as a small boy to help the escaped Magwitch that led to his "great expectations," and not his appeal to Miss Havisham as a future mate for Estella, as he had convinced himself throughout the early part of the novel. Through the stages of his personal and psychological development, Pip experiences a change of heart, and learns the value of a true friend, finally seeing Joe and Biddy, the humble friends of his youth, as the loyal friends who have always stood by him despite his aspirations to rise above them in class. By charting Pip's gradual change throughout the novel, Dickens manages to illustrate an important aspect of the socio-ecomonic context of his times. As the Industrial Revolution continued to change the nature of commerce in England and beyond throughout the nineteenth century, a middle class gradually emerged where before there had been only the aristocrats who were born wealthy, and the lower classes. In many ways Pip represents the kind of middle class "gentleman" that was quite common during this time; that is, a gentleman who had established himself in a successful business and a comfortable lifestyle despite the fact that he had been born into poorer circumstances. If he had been born a century earlier, Pip would not have so easily found the means to rise out of his social station and enter a higher one through Magwitch's and his own success in business ventures. This kind of social commentary is common in Dickens' works. Often he took the opportunity to criticize aspects of contemporary British culture that troubled him, like Victorian standards of education, the legal system, or crime and British prisons, which indeed he takes the opportunity to examine even in Great Expectations when Pip visits the notorious Newgate Prison in London. Before Great Expectations, many readers had begun to feel that the novels that Dickens wrote in the 1850s, such as Bleak House and Hard Times, had become too dark, gloomy, and depressing, and they missed the humor and the appealing Great Expectations: A Reflection of Serial Publication and Dickens' Social Concerns

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characterizations of such popular earlier novels as Oliver Twist, The Old Curiosity Shop, and David Copperfield. Such readers were much pleased by Great Expectations, because, despite Dickens' occasional lapses into social criticism, they found such figures as the self-important Uncle Pumblechook, the would-be actor Mr. Wopsle, and the comic family of the Pockets worthy of comparison with the humorous caricatures that made the earlier novels so popular. In addition to the character of Pip, Great Expectations offers many characters that add a rich texture to any interpretation of the novel. Some critics have found an unusual opportunity for understanding the place of women in Victorian culture and their role in Victorian fiction by studying the women in this novel: the kind Biddy, who is able to guess the identity of Mrs. Joe's attacker, and who sees more clearly than anyone the painful effects of Pip's selfish aspirations, and Molly, the mysterious woman who had been unwilling to suffer the degradation of her husband Magwitch's infidelity without a fight. Of particular interest is the peculiar and memorable case of Miss Havisham and her adopted daughter Estella. Miss Havisham embodies the wrath of a woman who has been cheated and abandoned by a reputed lover, and as a result she is a woman who has refused to accept the passage of time. The clocks in her house were stopped forever when she learned of her lover's duplicity, and the shoe she was in the process of putting on when she heard the news remains off of her foot. Her rotting wedding dress and cake represent the spoiled hopes that are turned into hatred as she plots her revenge by raising a heartless child to break the hearts of men. Far from the generous benefactor she appears to be to Pip, she lures him into her plans to make Estella into a cold and condescending young lady. And the outcome of Miss Havisham's plans offer the reader a lesson as well; she comes to find that she herself can expect no affection from a child she has raised without affection, and the vindictive life that she raised Estella to live becomes a sham and a tragedy when Estella enters a bad marriage with the abusive Bentley Drummle. Other characters, such as the gentle blacksmith Joe, the lawyer Jaggers with his scores of grateful clients, and Jaggers' clerk Wemmick also contribute to the indelible impression of Great Expectations on the reader. Wemmick, particularly, is one of Dickens' most idiosyncratic and endearing characters, with his clearly delineated private side in which he serves Jaggers with the utmost professional discretion, and his diametrically opposed personal side in which he takes care of his stone deaf father, "the Aged P," in their impenetrable suburban cottage built to resemble a castle complete with cannon, moat and drawbridge. It is characters like Wemmick, and Joe, and Miss Havisham, in addition to the remarkably realistic characterization of Pip, that make Great Expectations one of Dickens' greatest works, and indeed one of the finest achievements of the Victorian novel. Like the Victorian readers who hurried to buy the latest issue of the magazine to read the latest in Pip's adventures, readers through the years have continued to find the experience of reading Great Expectations to be compelling and endlessly entertaining. Source: Arnold A. Markley, in an essay for Novels for Students, Gale, 1998. Markley is an assistant professor of English at Pennsylvania State University.

The Character of Estella in Great Expectations A close inspection of the speeches and gestures which Dickens gives to Estella can easily give credit to the notion that she has a great deal of respect and affection for Pip, but Dickens never actually has Pip put this forth as a revelation, simply because Pip continues to remain ignorant of it. He does not even give the retrospective "if-I-knew-then-what-I-know-now" analysis of this situation that he does in the cases of Joe and Magwitch. We are probably not accustomed to this much subtlety in Dickens; we are used to having him spell out his meanings for us very clearly. But the possibility of Estella' s sincere affection for Pip should not be dismissed simply because Dickens does not give it the heavy underlining he usually gives; for this is an area of emotion in which Dickens the man had a customary reticence.

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Although Estella has been trained by Miss Havisham to be instinctively proud and insulting, it can be seen that as a woman she is consistently gentle with Pip—in her own way, of course. She has a deep-rooted dislike of all the Pockets, from her awareness of their malicious envy of her, and Pip early wins her favor by being her champion against them. Even as a child, she rewards him with a kiss when he bests Herbert Pocket in their senseless (but very believable) fisticuffs. And as an adult, she states clearly and unequivocally that the Pockets' ill-opinion of him only strengthens her favorable opinion of Pip and that she derives bitter pleasure from the fact that he is above their petty meannesses. Even at the height of his unjustified snobbishness, Pip never comes close to the pretentiousness, intolerance, and avariciousness of the Pocket clan (Herbert and Matthew of course excepted). It is Pip's enduring decency and essential simplicity that cause Estella to regard him, albeit rather grudgingly at times, as her hero; he is undoubtedly a refreshing contrast to all she has been used to. But besides this rather abstract respect which Estella has for Pip, we can also infer that she is attracted to him as a man. The scene where Pip and Estella first meet as adults is handled with a restraint characteristic of Victorian fiction in general and Dickens in particular, but nevertheless it can give a remarkably clear impression, if attention is paid to it. "Is he changed?" Miss Havisham asked her. "Very much," said Estella, looking at me. "Less coarse and common?" said Miss Havisham, playing with Estella's hair. Estella laughed, and looked at the shoe in her hand, and laughed again, and looked at me, and put the shoe down She treated me as a boy still, but she lured me on. The shoe, of course, is a symbolic shoe (reminding us of Miss Havisham's bridal slippers), but it is also a very right detail in this scene. Dickens has intuitively been able to capture here the exact behavior of a young woman who is sexually attracted to a man and embarrassed by her feelings. Estella has long schooled herself in "perfect composure," but she is unable to conceal completely her physical awareness; Pip takes this reaction, in a quite typically male way, as an enticement. It is her unexpected womanliness that causes him to retreat to boyishness. Any post-Freudian reader should be able to discern that Estella's notorious pride is only a defense against her feelings of inadequacy. Even though she is not aware that she is in fact the daughter of such "low" characters as Magwitch and Molly, she knows all too well that she is only Miss Havisham's adopted daughter and that she has quite arbitrarily been placed in a position of gentility. It is probably this very defensiveness about the precariousness of her own genteel situation that makes her as a child chide Pip for his coarseness and commonness. She has been continually beset by Miss Havisham's relatives, who resent her as the heiress of fortunes that could be theirs; she has been made to feel like an usurper. And when the artificiality of her upbringing becomes contrasted with the naturalness of Pip's, she seems to become all the more resentful of this life that she has had forced on her without her consent. As a woman, she knows that Miss Havisham has warped her personality beyond repair, and she is ashamed of what she has become. But with an admirable matter-of-factness she accepts her own limitations, and quite unselfishly she refuses to burden Pip with them. Again and again she sincerely warns him away from her; there is nothing coy about her manner of doing so. "Oh! I have a heart to be stabbed in or shot in, I have no doubt," said Estella, "and, of course, if it ceased to beat I should cease to be. But you know what I mean I have no softness there, no—sympathy—sentiment—nonsense."

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She asserts that she cannot love, and in the conventional sense she is probably right. Just as with Pip, conventional notions do not apply to her. Pip's love is a strongly emotional and uncontrollable sensation; he knows it must appear absurd to other people, but he cannot help it. But Pip has repeatedly shown himself to be first a boy and then a young man given to extravagance and hyperbole. It is natural for him to behave as he does—for him to have an exaggerated love and to display it in an exaggerated way. It is equally natural for Estella, who from her babyhood on has had all her personality channeled into artificial restraints, to behave in the muted, subdued, tightly controlled way she does. She has been taught by Miss Havisham not to love, but then to Miss Havisham real love consists of "blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the whole world, giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter." It is small wonder that Estella is not able to recognize her feeling for Pip as love. Estella is only instinctively aware that Pip is different from all other people and that he somehow deserves a different and better treatment. Her rejection of Pip, which is almost universally condemned by critics as showing her pitilessness, is actually a very laudable sort of nobility and altruism. She knows that she cannot make Pip happy (Bernard Shaw is quite right in saying that Estella's character is not conducive to providing connubial happiness), and she has too much affection for him to link her unhappy life with his. When Pip reproaches her for flinging herself away on a brute like Bentley Drummle, her reply is incisive and illuminating. "On whom should I fling myself away?" she retorted with a smile. "Should 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 had very few charms for me, and I am willing enough to change it. Say no more. We shall never understand each other." "Such a mean brute, such a stupid brute!" I urged in despair. "Don't be afraid of my being a blessing to him," said Estella; "I shall not be that. Come! Here is my hand. Do we part on this, you visionary boy—or man?" Several things should become obvious upon inspection of this passage. One is that Estella is certainly not marrying Drummle for his money, as most critics blithely state in their summaries of the novel's plot. She is also not acting mechanically as an instrument of Miss Havisham; she is, in fact, defying Miss Havisham and seeking escape from the life her foster mother has subjected her to. But more importantly, she is surely marrying Drummle because she feels herself to be unworthy of Pip; she has chosen Drummle precisely because he has nothing to recommend him and she feels he is the only sort of husband to whom she can do no harm. And again her attraction to Pip should be clear just in a phrase like "you visionary boy—or man"; this is a charmingly revealing kind of thing that a woman would say to a man whose quixoticism she regards with affectionate humor. Up to the very end, Dickens has her maintain this reserve with Pip—and it is a reserve rather than an actual coldness. She has been willing through all these years not to see Pip, and even when they meet again she has not sought him out; she gave him up thoroughly, even though the passing of years has evidently made it harder rather than easier for her to forget him. The last dialogue she is given to say is a declaration that even though now they have forgiven each other old wrongs and agreed to be friends, they must continue apart. Even now, she does not trust herself with Pip's happiness. But of course the point is that Pip does not really want to be happy—again, in the conventional sense. He has said repeatedly that he is not happy with Estella, but even less happy without her. And the fact that all these people who condemn the "happy ending" miss is that it is not happy at all. Pip and Estella come together quite The Character of Estella in Great Expectations

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by accident; neither has determined to redeem his life by seeking out the other. Each has been shattered by many disillusioning and trying experiences. And Dickens leaves the actual conditions of their reunion quite ambiguous. "I saw no shadow of another parting from her." There is no reason, except maudlin sentimentality, to suppose that this means that they got married and lived happily ever after. It should simply mean that Pip no longer feels threatened by a separation from her, in his old desperate way. At any rate, it should be clear that if Pip and Estella do at last come together, it is only because now finally they can understand each other (as Estella supposed they never could) and admit their mutual need, which has grown more subtle but not less urgent with age. It is often dismissed as mere sloppiness on Dickens' part that he did not go back and revise Pip's early observations of Estella if, in fact, eventually he is to win and marry her, as the new ending seems to suggest. But Dickens was almost never a sloppy writer, and certainly not in Great Expectations. An author who would be careful enough to change a preposition in Biddy's letter would certainly not let something as crucial as a major inconsistency of tone slip by him. If he left the strain of melancholy in Pip's retrospective remarks about Estella, it was surely because he felt that this tone continued to be appropriate, even with the revised ending. Pip's and Estella's meeting is not a joyous reunion and a promise that now everything will be all right; it is the somber and solemn merger of two people who realize resignedly that each is the other's fate. The years and her harsh experiences have only rendered Estella more humble in her regard for Pip. Because now she has had ample time to think about her feelings for him and to realize consciously what she only sensed instinctively before—that he has always been for her, in his own bumbling way, a hero. A woman who can speak with quiet restraint of "the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth" shows no traces of Edwin Charles's wilful girl who finally triumphs by bringing Pip to her feet. The name Estella of course means "star," and much has been made of the symbolism of Estella both as a star and as a jewel. One of Pip's first remarks about Estella is that "her light came along the dark passage like a star." There are occasions when Pip regards the stars as being cold and distant and perhaps even hostile, and they provide a contrast to the heat and brightness of the light of Joe's forge. But even though a star may seem cold and distant, it is always accepted as a reliable beacon and guide; and Estella, for all her reserve, is never false to Pip—never, in fact, anything but perfectly candid and also sound in her assessments of human nature. She says to Pip in the end, "I have been bent and broken, but—I hope—into a better shape " She has passed through the homely blacksmith's fire, just as Pip has, and she no longer possesses the same sort of lofty removal from things as she had in her reflected, starry light. This is not a fairy-tale sort of happiness that Dickens is presenting us with. It is the very real sort of compromise that men and women make to each other, when life inexplicably but inevitably thrusts them together. Bulwer Lytton was probably reacting with basic human sympathy when he insisted that Pip and Estella should be reunited; there is nothing forced or contrived about such a circumstance. Dickens created in Estella a character who could not be denied her rights as an individual. If we react to what Dickens actually shows us of Estella's character, then we cannot make facile judgments of her as a heartless she-monster who will make Pip's life wretched and whose union with him is therefore inappropriate. Dickens has succeeded, almost in spite of himself, in portraying an honest and attractive woman who deserves the hero Pip proves himself to be. Source: Lucille P. Shores, "The Character of Estella in Great Expectations," in Massachusetts Studies in English, Fall, 1972, pp. 91-99.

Imagery and Theme in Great Expectations

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It becomes clear through a variety of subtle means in the early chapters of Great Expectations that the young Pip soaks up guilt like a sponge. From the moment he knows he has to rob the larder, everything around him takes on an accusatory or revengeful air. The very coals in the household fire seem to him "avenging," he dreams of pirates who summon him to be hanged, the boards on the staircase cry "Stop thief," the cattle (especially one with a clerical air) accuse him, and even the gates and dykes run at him as if they were pursuers. The whole picture of a guilty and terrified childish mind is remarkably vivid, so much so that the reader is never tempted to stop and ask himself whether the depravity Pip feels in himself is commensurate with the offense he has committed. He has deprived himself of a piece of bread and butter, and stolen random items of food from the family larder-no very enormous sins in the mind of the average child. Even granting the distorted vision of a terrified boy, it would seem that Pip is exaggerating his crime. But of course the guilt he feels on the score of this minor theft is only part of a larger guilt—congenital, as it were, since it seems to have been generally regarded as criminally stupid in him to allow himself to be born at all—fostered in him by his sister, his sister's friends, and his surroundings. To Mrs. Joe he is not just a burden; he is a delinquent, to be treated as such. As a suitable topic for conversation during that most appallingly unmerry Christmas dinner which follows the second meeting with the convict, she regales the company with a catalogue of "all the illnesses I had been guilty of, and all the acts of sleeplessness I had committed, and all the high places I had tumbled from, and all the low places I had tumbled into, and all the injuries I had done myself, and all the times she had wished me in my grave, and I had contumaciously refused to go there." When, after the convict-hunt, he is sleepy, she removes him as "a slumbrous offence to the company's eyesight." The very food she allows him is given "a mortifying and penitential character." The rest of the company follows suit. It is Pip's misfortune, both in childhood and in adulthood, to be brought into contact with overbearing characters whose most usual method of conducting a conversation is inquisitorial. His position vis-à-vis Pumblechook and Jaggers is at best that of a slippery witness, at worst that of a criminal in the dock. Whether it is Pumblechook sticking the point of the conversation into him as if he were "an unfortunate little bull in a Spanish arena," or Jaggers, gnawing his forefinger and throwing it at him, Pip's position is as abject as that of any nineteenth-century delinquent, before the court on a trivial but capital charge. The notion that Pip's fallen condition requires constant repentance and moral "touching up" is metaphorically expressed through the clothes he is forced into. They, like his diet, are of a "penitential" character: As to me, I think my sister must have had some general idea that I was a young offender whom an Accoucheur Policeman had taken up (on my birthday) and delivered over to her, to be dealt with according to the outraged majesty of the law. I was always treated as though I had insisted on being born in opposition to the dictates of reason, religion, and morality, and against the dissuading arguments of my best friends. Even when I was taken to have a new suit of clothes, the tailor had orders to make them like a kind of Reformatory, and on no account to let me have the free use of my limbs. The intensive concentration on Pip's feelings of guilt and delinquency culminate in the extraordinary suggestion that he himself is in some way responsible for the attack on his sister. Orlick, the real attacker, puts it bluntly during the scene in the sluice-house by the lime kiln: "It was you as did for your shrew sister." The more conventional Pip of those days replies: "It was you, villain." The younger Pip would have had a more ambiguous reaction. The attack occurs after two scenes in which the imaginary guilt is very obviously laid on Pip's shoulders. First we have the scene where he is "bound" to Joe, and treated as a criminal by court, family, and by-standers alike—especially by Pumblechook, who held him "as if we had looked in on our way to the scaffold." Then the reading of George Barnwell fixes on him, in his own eyes as well as Wopsle's and Pumblechook's, the role of ungrateful and murderous apprentice. The feeling that he had "had some hand in the attack upon my sister" is intensified when the weapon is found to be the convict's leg-iron, the symbol of Pip's "criminal" connection with the convict. Imagery and Theme in Great Expectations

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In all these ways, some with comic overtones, some completely serious, a degree of uncertainty is given to the question of guilt and innocence in this novel. With the exception of Joe, who is still in a paradisaic state of grace and innocence, the guilt of one character tinges the other characters, just as the moral regeneration of one character tinges the others. Thus all the characters participate in the fallen state of the others, and participate in their redemption too. Sin and crime are complex, both in their causes and in their consequences. In this novel the involved coincidences and connections, the gradual revelation of past wrongs which provide guilty links between disparate characters—in short the creaky machinery of a Dickens novel, so clumsily handled in Little Dorrit, for example—have an artistic purpose which totally justifies them. Magwitch, Miss Havisham, Pip, and Estella are connected by chains of guilt and corruption, and their roles as betrayers and betrayed, corruptors and corrupted, are deliberately allowed to become ambiguous. Miss Havisham, betrayed by Magwitch's associate, herself corrupts both Pip and Estella; Pip's childish pity for the convict starts a process of regeneration in him which itself contributes materially to the process of corruption in Pip. Guilt is infectious: Jaggers compulsively washes it off with scented soap; Pip feels contaminated by Newgate; when Magwitch is spied on after his return, it is Pip who gets the "haunting idea" of being watched, and who feels that, if the convict is caught, he, Pip, will in some way be his murderer. In this matter of guilt and crime the characters are members one of another. This fact, of course, explains why Newgate Prison has so often been felt by readers to have an importance in the novel quite incommensurate with the space devoted to it. Corruption spreads outwards from there, and almost all the major characters are affected by that corruption. In addition, a real prison is necessary to reinforce the many "images" of prison in the novel. Prison is no mere "overspill" theme from Dickens' previous novels; it is an inevitable concomitant of the main theme. Miss Havisham's crazy self-immolation is no mere repetition with variations of Mrs. Clennam's grim voluntary imprisonment in Little Dorrit; it is a still more powerful symbol of man's propensity to cherish his emotional wounds, distort them to mere theatricality, use them as an excuse to pervert others. In all the scenes involving Satis House, strong emphasis is placed on keys, bars, chains, and blocked windows. And throughout the novel the windows of rooms Pip is in give no view of the world outside: they are shuttered, dirty, damp, "patched like a broken head." One comes down "like a guillotine" and nearly beheads him as he tries to look through. Everywhere he goes Pip feels shut in, "caged and threatened" as he describes himself in the little causeway inn on the Thames. Innocence provides no escape from the prisons; indeed, the only way Wemmick can keep his innocence free from the contamination of Newgate is by shutting himself off from the world in his miniature castle at Walworth. Prisons, then, permeate the book, though not quite so completely as in Little Dorrit. And, unlike Little Dorrit, the novel is also saturated with other aspects of punishment and legal repression, used symbolically. For example, Pip's "guilty" connection with the convict leads to his metaphorically bearing his leg-iron as well. The bread and butter he secretes becomes a "load on my leg," and that "made me think … of the man with the load on his leg." The cold morning earth rivets itself to the young Pip's feet "as iron was riveted to the leg of the man " The convict, and his messenger at the Jolly Bargemen who "rubs his leg," never appear but that we are reminded again of the iron and the associations it has for Pip. Chains, too, pervade the novel: on a literal level, obviously enough, on the door of Satis House and attached to Jaggers' watch, sign of his mastery of the underworld characters he deals with. The symbolic use is more interesting. In a Dickens novel we usually have a symbol of "destiny," the complex interweaving of people, events, and past actions which provides the plot of the novel and makes the characters what they are. Often this symbol is quite a conventional one: in Little Dorrit it is a road; in this novel we have the river and the ships on it, which are several times identified with Miss Havisham and Pip's delusions concerning his expectations from her. But Pip's real destiny is connected with a chain. Think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.

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The significance of the symbol becomes more explicit when Magwitch returns. Now he is no longer a man, to be pitied, but an object, "what I was chained to." When Pip comes to contemplate the realities of his situation, as opposed to the rosy vision of a calm sea and prosperous voyage with which he had been deluding himself, he realizes that Magwitch has been "loading me with his wretched gold and silver chains." Similarly the "traps" which have sealed Magwitch's destiny catch Pip as well. The traps are set both by the law and Compeyson. Early in the novel the convicts are described as game "trapped in a circle," Compeyson's criminal activities involve the entrapping of others: "All sorts of traps as Compeyson could set with his hand and keep his legs out of … was Compeyson's business." Magwitch sees these traps as an occupational hazard of his kind: "I'm an old bird now, as had dared all manner of traps since he was fledged." Pip is less adept at keeping out of them; indeed, he makes his own. Jaggers is compared to a man who sets a trap—"Suddenly—click—you're caught"—and Pip is a victim of his legalistic equivocations. The sluice-house is described as a trap, which indeed it is, set by Orlick. But his delusions concerning Estella are at least partly of his own construction: "You made your own snares," says Miss Havisham. Perhaps the most subtle way Dickens suggests the transference of guilt from one character to another is by his use of the image of the dog. In chapter 3, while Pip, with the pity for his desolation which is to have such momentous consequences, is watching the convict eating the food he has brought him, a comparison occurs to his mind which is to reverberate through the novel: I had often watched a large dog of ours eating his food, and I now noticed a decided similarity betwen the dog's way of eating, and the man's. The man took strong sharp sudden bites, just like the dog. He swallowed, or rather snapped up, every mouthful, too soon and too fast; and he looked sideways here and there while he ate, as if he thought there was danger in every direction of somebody's coming to take the pie away. He was altogether too unsettled in his mind over it, to appreciate it comfortably, I thought, or to have anybody to dine with him, without making a chop with his jaws at the visitor. In all of which particulars he was very like the dog. It is a comparison which has been hinted at on the convict's first appearance in the churchyard—"a man … who limped and shivered, and glared and growled"—and which is maintained throughout the early chapters in which he appears. The soldiers growl at the captured parr "as if to dogs," as Pip is to remember when he travels home from London in the company of the two other convicts. It is, indeed, an identification which Magwitch himself accepts, using it as a description of himself only less frequently than his favorite "warmint." When he hears of the existence of the escaped convict Compeyson he vows to "pull him down like a bloodhound." When he reappears to reveal to Pip the source of his expectations, he refers to himself as "that there hunted dunghill dog wot you kep life in." At this time, in spite of his resolution to keep "a genteel muzzle on," he disgusts Pip not only by his low talk, but by his eating: He ate in a ravenous way that was very disagreeable, and all his actions were uncouth, noisy and greedy. Some of his teeth had failed him since I saw him eat on the marshes, and as he turned his food in his mouth, and turned his head sideways to bring his strongest fangs to bear upon it, he looked terribly like a hungry old dog. Though the novel is full of animal imagery, the identification of the convict with a dog, by implication a miserable, starved cur, is interesting because no other character, except perhaps Pumblechook, is so surely and continuously identified with any one species. The comparison is not a particularly surprising or unusual one, but what makes it especially significant is that it spills over onto the young Pip. The convict himself calls him "young dog" and "fierce young hound," and this last phrase is remembered with anguish by Pip when he fears that the convict will imagine it was he who betrayed him. But it is later in the book, when Pip himself is in the position of the despised outcast, that the comparison comes through most clearly. Curiously enough, it comes Imagery and Theme in Great Expectations

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in a scene in which he is being fed: She came back, with some bread and meat and a little mug of beer. She put the mug down on the stones of the yard, and gave me the bread and meat without looking at me, as insolently as if I were a dog in disgrace. I was so humiliated, hurt, spumed, offended, angry, sorry—I cannot hit the right name for the smart—God knows what its name was—that tears started to my eyes. It is through his treatment by Estella, so different from the spirit in which he himself watched the convict, that he comes to find himself in the position of the hunted convict whom he had feared and compassionated: a spurned outcast, despised, almost beneath contempt, his humanity degraded or denied, reduced to the level of a beast. It is through the use of this image that we see most clearly that, as Pip takes over the same metaphor as the convict, he assumes his share in his guilt and emotionally comprehends his position in society. The child can both pity the convict and put himself imaginatively in his position. The young man with "expectations" and a horror of crime can do neither, which makes doubly ironical Magwitch's part in bringing about this change in character. Source: Robert Barnard, "Imagery and Theme in Great Expectations," in Dickens Studies Annual, 1970, pp. 238-51.

Great Expectations: Suggested Essay Topics Chapter 1 1. Why is the first chapter so important? 2. Compare and contrast Pip and the first convict. 3. What examples of humor can be found in the first chapter? 4. Explain why the story is more interesting written in first person point of view. Chapters 2 and 3 1. Explain how guilt has affected Pip’s life. 2. Define pun, and how it is used in these chapters. 3. Discuss the theme of right and wrong or good and evil. 4. How is the relationship between Pip and his sister different from the relationship between Pip and Joe. Chapters 4 and 5 1. Describe the Christmas dinner from Pip’s point of view. 2. How are the attitudes of Pip and Joe toward the first convict similar? How does the convict’s behavior warrant some compassion? 3. What themes are beginning to emerge from these chapters?

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Chapters 6 and 7 1. How does Dickens build suspense in his novel? 2. Explain how the bond between Pip and Joe becomes even stronger. 3. Describe Joe’s relationship with Pip and his relationship with his wife. Chapters 8 and 9 1. How does Pip’s day at Miss Havisham’s change him forever? 2. Compare Miss Havisham and Satis House. 3. Describe Estella and her effect on Pip. 4. Relate examples of Joe’s goodness. Chapters 10 and 11 1. Explain how Pip’s visit to Miss Havisham has affected him. 2. What does Dickens use to create suspense and interest in his novel? 3. Discuss Pip’s encounter with Miss Havisham’s relatives, and what were his impressions? 4. Explain how humor is used concerning Pip and the pale young gentleman? Chapters 12 and 13 1. How has Pip changed? Give examples of his dissatisfaction concerning his life and his family. 2. Explain what being an apprentice means and how this affects Pip. 3. Write a character analysis of Uncle Pumblechook. 4. Describe the relationship between Joe and Mrs. Joe. Chapters 14 and 15 1. Write a character sketch of Orlick. 2. Describe Pip’s return visit to see Miss Havisham. 3. Describe Joe and Pip’s relationship. Chapters 16 and 17 1. Explain the relationship between Pip and Biddy. 2. Discuss the attack on Mrs. Joe and how it affected Pip. 3. Write a character sketch of Biddy. Chapters 18 and 19 1. Explain the circumstances or coincidences that help make Pip believe Miss Havisham is his benefactor.

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2. Discuss the first stage of Pip’s life. How can this stage be called one of innocence or childhood? 3. Discuss the two settings in the novel—that of Satis House and that of the forge with its marshes. What characters are associated with each, and how do they affect Pip? Chapters 20 and 21 1. Discuss Pip’s impressions of London and give examples. 2. Describe Mr. Jaggers’ office and how it is representative of the lawyer. Chapters 22 and 23 1. What does Pip find out about Miss Havisham’s past? Relate her story and its effects upon her life. 2. Discuss how Herbert’s new name for Pip is appropriate. 3. What is Pip’s impression of Belinda and Matthew Pocket’s home life. 4. Compare Belinda Pocket’s obsession with social status and nobility with that of Pip’s quest for social status and becoming a gentleman. Chapters 24 and 25 1. Discuss the dual personalities of Mr. John Wemmick. 2. Describe Mr. Wemmick’s life at Walworth. 3. Discuss the irony of Mr. Wemmick’s labors at the Castle being an acceptable source of pride, and Joe’s labors as a blacksmith being unacceptable to Pip. Chapters 26 and 27 1. Compare and contrast Pip’s dinner engagement at the home of Mr. Jaggers with that of Mr. Wemmick. 2. Discuss Joe’s visit with Pip. How has Pip changed? 3. What characteristics make a gentleman? Chapters 28 and 29 1. Discuss the different kinds of love presented in the novel. Give examples to support your essay. 2. Describe how Dickens uses coincidence to piece together his novel, and how do the coincidences affect Pip. 3. How has the relationship between Joe and Pip changed from the beginning of the novel? Explain the reasons for the changes. Chapters 30 and 31 1. Discuss the romantic involvements of Herbert and Pip. Which relationship is more realistic? 2. What is a farce, and how is Mr. Wopsle’s performance an example of this term? 3. Explain how Pip’s love for Joe has changed.

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Chapters 32 and 33 1. Discuss the influence of prisons, convicts, and criminal lawyers upon Pip’s life. 2. Explain why Mr. Wemmick is compared to a gardener in Newgate Prison. 3. Does wealth bring happiness to Pip? Explain this term in Pip’s and Estella’s relationship. 4. How have Miss Havisham’s relatives played a part in Estella’s and Pip’s lives? 5. Define and discuss the use of similes in these two chapters. Chapters 34 and 35 1. How has Pip’s fortune affected him and those around him? 2. Describe the funeral of Mrs. Joe. 3. Discuss Pip’s and Biddy’s relationship at this time. Chapters 36 and 37 1. Compare and contrast Mr. Wemmick’s life in London working for Mr. Jaggers and his life at the Castle in Walworth. 2. Explain the conditions of Pip’s financial situation. 3. Discuss the theme, “Does money bring happiness?” Chapters 38 and 39 1. Trace the references to convicts in Pip’s life. How have they influenced his life? 2. Discuss the second stage in Pip’s life and how it may be called one of sin or adolescence. 3. How does the realization that the convict and not Miss Havisham is his benefactor affect Pip and his expectations. 4. Dickens’ characterizations are well known. Describe the character of Estella and her impact upon the novel. 5. Discuss the character of the first convict. Describe his motivations and relate his story while in Australia. Chapters 40 and 41 1. Discuss the effect of the mysterious man on the stairs. 2. Mr. Jaggers tells Pip that he has no evidence that Miss Havisham was his benefactor. What evidence or indications did Pip have to believe that she was the author of his great expectations. 3. Is it possible to separate oneself from the past? Discuss this theme in relation to Pip and the convict. 4. Discuss the convict’s purpose in making Pip a gentleman. Chapters 42 and 43 1. How much influence does a person’s appearance have on others? Cite examples from the court trial of Great Expectations: Suggested Essay Topics

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Compeyson and Provis. 2. Relate Provis’ story concerning his background. Would this knowledge explain why Provis is so intent on making Pip a gentleman? 3. Describe the relationship between Provis and Compeyson. 4. Compare how guilt affects Arthur and how it affects Compeyson. Chapters 44 and 45 1. Describe the confrontation with Estella and Miss Havisham at Satis House. 2. Discuss the benefits of moving Provis to a room in the same rooming house as Herbert’s fiancee. 3. Discuss the friendship that exists between Wemmick and Pip. Chapters 46 and 47 1. Explain how Pip’s attitude toward the convict has changed from first meeting him at the Temple. 2. Discuss the plans for helping Provis escape from London. Chapters 48 and 49 1. Discuss the changes in Miss Havisham, and what has brought about these changes. 2. Relate Molly’s story and how her past is interwoven with Miss Havisham’s past even though they never meet. 3. Trace the changes that have taken place in Pip’s character since arriving in London. Chapters 50 and 51 1. Relate Provis’ story of his past. 2. Discuss the prison and court system concerning children in nineteenth century London. 3. Research and describe the working conditions for children during the nineteenth century in London. Discuss the child labor laws and how they came about. Chapters 52 and 53 1. Discuss in what ways Pip has changed since finding out that Provis is his benefactor and not Miss Havisham. 2. Describe Orlick’s plot to murder Pip. 3. Write a character sketch of Orlick and his part in this novel. 4. Discuss how Pip’s feelings for Provis have changed. Why has this happened? Chapters 54 and 55 1. Describe the escape and capture of Magwitch. 2. Discuss how Dickens uses humor in these chapters. Great Expectations: Suggested Essay Topics

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3. Discuss how Mr. Jaggers is a central figure who ties all the other characters together. Chapters 56 and 57 1. Research and discuss the court system in London during the nineteenth century. 2. Describe the last days between Pip and Magwitch. 3. Discuss the many ways that Magwitch has influenced and changed Pip’s life. 4. Explain why Joe becomes more distant as Pip becomes healthier. Chapters 58 and 59 1. Describe the two endings of the novel. Which one do you prefer and why? 2. Discuss the idea or theme that money brings happiness. Cite examples from the novel to support your opinion. 3. How has guilt affected Pip’s life? 4. Explain why the love between Joe and Biddy is the only true love in the novel.

Great Expectations: Sample Essay Outlines • Topic #1 Pip's life is influenced by several characters in Dickens' Great Expectations. Some of these influences affected Pip in a positive way; others were negative. Write an essay analyzing the characters who played an important role in Pip's life both in a positive and negative way. Outline I. Thesis Statement: The role of Pip in Great Expectations is developed through the positive and negative influences of Joe, Abel Magwitch, and Miss Havisham. II. Influences of Joe A. Positive influence 1. Exhibits honesty 2. Gives Pip's early life stability 3. Gives Pip unconditional love 4. Possesses a forgiving nature 5. Exemplifies the goodness of hard work B. Negative influence 1. Represents the lower class 2. Is a source of embarrassment to Pip III. Influences of Abel Magwitch A. Positive influences 1. Forces Pip to recognize what is really important in his life 2. Provides the means for Pip to become a gentleman 3. Loves him unconditionally B. Negative influences 1. Tries to mold Pip into a caricature of the upper class Great Expectations: Sample Essay Outlines

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2. Represents the lower class and criminal element 3. Provides the money which will result in Pip's downfall IV. Influences of Miss Havisham A. Positive influences 1. Helps Herbert at the request of Pip 2. Enables Pip to see that wealth does not bring happiness B. Negative influences 1. Manipulates people 2. Tries to mold Estella who ultimately hurts Pip 3. Makes Pip unhappy with his station in life V. Conclusion: Joe, Miss Havisham, and Abel Magwitch are three major characters in Dickens' novel who have influenced and developed the role of Pip. • Topic #2 Great Expectations is a portrait gallery of many characters. These characters are interwoven throughout the novel in a masterful way. Write an essay illustrating how suspense and coincidence help tie these characters together and create an exciting novel for the reader. Outline I. Thesis Statement: The use of suspense and coincidence helps Dickens create not only a spellbinding novel to read, but an array of characters whose lives are interwoven one with another. II. Coincidence A. Enables characters to be tied together 1. Magwitch knew and was associated with Miss Havisham's fiancee 2. Molly is Estella's mother 3. Magwitch is Estella's father and Pip's benefactor 4. Pip loves Estella and she is Magwitch's daughter 5. Mr. Jaggers is Miss Havisham's and Abel Magwitch's lawyer B. Promotes the plot 1. Pip finds Magwitch in the cemetery and helps him 2. Pip meets and falls in love with Magwitch's daughter at Miss Havisham's house 3. Pip receives his fortunes after his many visits with Miss Havisham 4. Pip accidentally drops the note from Orlick III. Suspense A. Creates interest for the readers 1. Pip does not really know the identity of his benefactor until the end of the second stage 2. Convicts seem to be a part of Pip's life from the beginning of the novel B. Supplies information in bits and pieces 1. The convicts at the beginning of the novel do not have names 2. A mysterious stranger stirs his drink with Joe's file 3. Pip passes an unidentified gentleman on Miss Havisham's stairs 4. Pip stumbles over someone on his stairs at the Temple on a stormy night 5. The pale young gentleman at Miss Havisham's house is Herbert 6. The past of Magwitch, Miss Havisham, and Estella is revealed by key characters IV. Conclusion: The novel is made more interesting to read because of its vast number of characters tied together through the art of suspense and coincidence.

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• Topic #3 Humor is used in a novel for many reasons. Write an essay showing how humor is used in Great Expectations to entertain and to relieve the tension brought about by frightening or intense actions in the novel. Outline I. Thesis Statement: In the novel, Dickens uses humor to relieve the tension built by intense moments and to provide entertainment for the reader. II. Relieves the tension built by intense moments in the novel A. Pip's encounter with the first convict in the cemetery B. Mrs. Joe's funeral C. Mr. Wopsle's career as an actor III. Provides entertainment for the reader A. Joe's visit to Pip in London B. Wemmick's home life with the Aged Parent C. Wemmick's wedding D. Wemmick's courtship of Miss Skiffins E. Trabb's boy's ridicule of Pip when he returns to the village F. The Christmas dinner when Pip was young G. Pip's fight with the pale young gentleman IV. Conclusion: Tension is relieved and entertainment is provided for the reader through Dickens' use of humor throughout his novel. • Topic #4 Pip's life can be divided into three phases or stages. Write an essay explaining the three stages of Pip's development. Outline I. Thesis Statement: Pip's development can be divided into a stage of innocence, a stage of sin, and a stage of redemption. II. The stage of innocence A. Pip's life with Joe at the forge B. Pip's encounter with the convict on the marshes C. Pip's introduction to Miss Havisham and Estella D. Pip's relationship with Biddy III. The stage of sin A. Pip's life in London 1. Pip's desire for material possessions and signs of wealth 2. Pip's social snobbery B. Pip's relationship with Joe and his past IV. The stage of redemption A. Pip's relationship with Magwitch B. Pip helps set Herbert up in business C. Regards Joe and the marshes more favorably D. Pip's new relationship with Miss Havisham and Estella

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V. Conclusion: The three stages in Pip's life helped to mold his character and to help him develop into maturity.

Great Expectations: Compare and Contrast • Early 1800s: Workhouses were set up so that the poor and those who owed money had an alternative to debtors' prison from which there was no escape without paying the debt; this was almost impossible if the debtor were unable to work. Today: The poor are being urged off of social welfare programs and into "workfare," low-paying jobs that teach skills but do not pay a living wage. • Early 1800s: Child labor was used and abused by industry with long hours and unsafe conditions in the workplace, especially the mines. If children got sick, there was no medical care for them except from charities, such as London's Hospital for Sick Children begun in 1852 and supported by Charles Dickens. Today: Child labor laws are strictly enforced, and medical care for the poor is widely available since social reform laws were enacted in the United States in the mid-1960s. • Early 1800s: Since most of England heated homes and industry with coal and peat, air pollution was visible and lung problems were widespread. Pip notices the grime and soot on everything in his first impression of the city and wonders how people could choose to live in such a dirty place. Today: Air pollution, although not always visible in PCBs and ozone-depleting chemicals, is now one of our greatest global concerns. Continual research explores new methods of cleaner heat, from solar power to natural gas. • Early 1800s: Dickens supported and campaigned for public backing for the so-called "Ragged Schools" where poor children could receive some education. Despite their horrible conditions these schools were arguably better than complete neglect. Today: A modern belief in public education for all children owes much to such early reformers as Dickens since that education has shown to improve society for all citizens.

Great Expectations: Topics for Further Study • Research the history and 1850-60 social climate of Australia as an English penal colony, where Magwitch had been living, when Queensland was becoming a separate colony from New South Wales. • Investigate U.S. social conditions in 1842 when Dickens visited the United States, and compare this to conditions seen in 1868 when he returned to America on a reading tour. Keep in mind Dickens' themes of class distinction and real life versus expectation of changes he would have been likely to see in the American people. Consider the Gold Rush; the Emancipation Proclamation; John Brown's 1859 raid on Harper's Ferry, Virginia; the 1857 Dred Scott Decision; etc. • Investigate child labor in England before the 1875-80 movement to legally limit work-hours and to improve dangerous factory conditions. Dickens' arousal of public sentiment against industry's inhuman treatment of minors and disenfranchised citizens in his novels contributed to this reform.

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• Great Expectations was first adapted by film in the silent movie version in 1917, released by Paramount Pictures, on five reels, Famous Players Film Company, 3 January 1917, and presented by David Frohman. • A 1934 remake, poorly directed by Stuart Walker, starred Jane Wyatt as Estella and Phillip Holmes as Pip, but the public thought their performances were lackluster. Universal released this film on eleven reels. • A British production of the novel on film was made in Great Britain in 1946, directed by David Lean and available from Rank/Cmeguild This most acclaimed of the film versions of Dickens' novel stars John Mills as Pip, Valerie Hobson as Estella, and Alec Guiness as Herbert Pocket, Jr., and it won two Oscars in 1947. According to critic Robert Murphy, it was "one of the finest of all film adaptations of Dickens." • Two critical adaptations of the novel were captured on film in 1962 dealing with (1) setting, character, and themes and (2) critical interpretation. Each of these two films were produced for a high school or early college audience by the Encyclopedia Brittannica Corporation, and each are 35 minutes in length. • In 1973, the University of Michigan produced a dramatization of Dickens' attack in Great Expectations on the upper class of British society, with a senior high to college level audience in mind. Available on the Dickens' World Series from the University of Michigan, this film runs 29 minutes. • A 1974 version by Scotia-Barber/ITC was released in 1974 in Great Britain. Joseph Hardy directed. • Produced by the BBC, the first close-captioned version of Great Expectations was made in 1981 and released in the US in August 1988 by CBS/Fox Video. Starring Gerry Sundquist, Stratford Johns, and Joan Hudson, it was directed by Julian Aymes and runs for 300 minutes (also available on two cassettes in Great Britain from BBC/International Historic Films, Inc., #R249). • Great Expectations: The Untold Story was adapted for viewers from Magwitch's point of view. Featuring John Stanton, Sigrid Thornton, and Robert Coleby, and directed by Tim Burstall, this video was released by Facets Multimedia, Inc. in 1987. • Great Expectations was filmed for prime time television by Primetime/Harlech Television in both Great Britain and the US in 1989. This was a made-for-TV presentation in 1989. • Walt Disney Home Video also has a 1989 version of the novel on video, starring Jean Simmons and Anthony Hopkins, directed by Kevin Connor, and running 325 minutes. • Two 1978 animated versions of Great Expectations represent Dickens' tale of Pip. One is close-captioned, directed by Jean Tych and produced by Burbank Films for Live Home Video, and the other is available from Library Video Company, both running 72 minutes. • Selected readings from Great Expectations is available on audio tape from Time Warner. The 1994 tape, accompanied by a study guide, runs 72 minutes and is narrated by Michael York. • A 1987 unabridged sound recording on eleven cassettes (approximately 16 hours running time) includes both endings to the novel. The narrator is Frank Muller, and the set is available from Recorded Books in Charlotte Hall, MD. • A 1981 abridged version, two cassettes running 180 minutes, is read by Anton Rodgers, available from Listen for Pleasure, Downsview, Ontario. Both endings are included.

Great Expectations: What Do I Read Next? • Dickens' Oliver Twist is the story of an orphan who overcomes his humble beginnings to prove himself worthy of the virtuous Nancy's love for him, and to overcome all of his notorious enemies. • William Thackeray's Vanity Fair is from the same period as Dickens' Great Expectations. Like it, the novel makes statements against social class distinction and snobbery. However, Thackeray's hero is a girl who inherits money and work to win the credibility and love of her readers.

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• Likewise, Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White has the theme of virtue overcoming adversity. Laura endures an unhappy marriage and the loss of her wealth to end by marrying her true love and giving birth to their son. Although Dickensian elements of plot twists and social themes occur, his humor may seem to be missing.

Great Expectations: Bibliography and Further Reading Sources Bradbury, Nicola. Charles Dickens's "Great Expectations." New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990. Brooks-Davies, Douglas. Charles Dickens: Great Expectations. London: Penguin, 1989. Calder, Angus. Introduction to Great Expectations. Penguin, 1981. Carlisle, Janice, ed. "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens. Bedford Books of St Martin's Press, 1996. Connor, Steven. Charles Dickens. London: Basil Blackwell, 1985. Cotsell, Michael, ed. Critical Essays on Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations." Boston: G.K. Hall, 1990. Dickens, Charles. Great Expections. New York: New American Library, 1963. Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations, edited by Margaret Cardwell. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1993. Harvey, Sir Paul, Ed. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967. Hochman, Baruch, and Ilja Wachs. Dickens: The Orphan Condition. Madison, NJ: Farleigh Dickenson University Press, 1999. Holbrook, David. Charles Dickens and the Image of Woman. New York: New York University Press, 1993. Hornback, Bert G. "Great Expectations": A Novel of Friendship. Boston: Twayne, 1987. House, Humphrey. The Dickens World, 2nd edition. Oxford University Press, 1942. Houston, Gail Turley. Consuming Fictions: Gender, Class and Hunger in Dickens's Novels. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1994. Leavis, F. R., and Q. D. Leavis. Dickens the Novelist. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1970. Lucas, John. Charles Dickens: The Major Novels. London: Penguin, 1992. Meckier, Jerome. Dickens's "Great Expectations": Misnar's Pavilion Versus Cinderella. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2002. Newlin, George. Understanding "Great Expectations": A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources and Historical Documents. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000. Page, Norman. A Dickens Companion. New York: Schocken Books, 1984.

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Prentice Hall Literature: Gold. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1989. Sandrin, Anny. Parentage and Inheritance in the Novels of Charles Dickens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Schilling, Bernard Nicholas. The Rain of Years: Great Expectations and the World of Dickens. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2001. Steward, Joyce Stribling, and Virginia Rutledge Taylor, eds. Adventures In Reading: Classic Edition. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1968. Watkins, Gwen. Dickens in Search of Himself: Recurrent Themes and Characters in the Work of Charles Dickens. Houndmills, UK: Macmillan, 1987. Worth, George J. "Great Expectations": An Annotated Bibliography. New York: Garland, 1986. For Further Study Barnard, Robert. Imagery and Theme in the Novels of Dickens. Humanities Press, 1974. Includes valuable discussions of the images and themes that Dickens pursues in his novels, including Great Expectations. Becker, Mary Lamberton. Introducing Charles Dickens. Dodd, 1940. This biography contains the story of Dickens' late-life encounter with a boy who, like himself in his youth, holds dreams of someday becoming the master of Gad's Hill. Buckley, Jerome Hamilton. Season of Youth: The Bildungsroman from Dickens to Golding. Harvard University Press, 1974. Provides an important discussion of Great Expectations in the tradition of the bildungsroman, a type of novel that focuses on the coming of age of a major character. Chesterton, G. K. Charles Dickens, 22nd edition. Methuen, 1949. Besides "The Boyhood of Dickens" in Chapter 2, an excellent commentary on the lowbrow character of some highbred gentlemen (168) and "The Alleged Optimism of Dickens" in Chapter 11. Clark, William Ross, ed. Discussions of Charles Dickens. Heath, 1961. An anthology of criticism from the late nineteenth century into the twentieth, including Gissing, Bush, Orwell, House, Stange, Moynahan, and Miller. Collins, Philip, ed. Dickens: The Critical Heritage. Barnes, 1971. A collection of contemporary responses, reviews, and critical interpretations of Dickens' works. Connor, Steven. Charles Dickens. Basil Blackwell, 1985. Groups discussions of Dickens' novels according to theme; the essay on Great Expectations is found under the category of "Self and System." Coolidge, Archibald C. Charles Dickens as a Serial Novelist. University of Iowa Press, 1967. A valuable study of the manner in which Dickens wrote his novels for publication in periodicals in installments, and the effects that this manner of publication had on the development of his works. Dickens, Mamie. My Father as I Recall Him. Dutton, n.d. Dickens' love of Gads Hill and his intensity in living with the characters he created. Fielding, K. J. Charles Dickens: A Critical Introduction. David McKay Co., 1958. An influential study of Dickens' works in which the author emphasizes, among other things, the fact that the novels can be interpreted Great Expectations: Bibliography and Further Reading

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in a variety of ways. Fielding, K. J., ed. The Speeches of Charles Dickens. Oxford University Press, 1960. Dickens addresses the need for more and better schools for lower class children. Ford, George H. "Charles Dickens." In Dictionary of Literary Biography Volume 21: Victorian Novelists Before 1885, edited by Ira B. Nadel and William E. Fredeman. Gale, 1983, pp. 89-124. Dickens' biography, criticism, and themes, interwoven as Bildungsroman in the author's life and work. Forster, John. "Great Expectations." In The Life of Charles Dickens. Scribners, 1904, pp. 355-61. Dickens plans Great Expectations as an autobiography similar to David Copperfield's. Garraty, John A., and Peter Gay, eds. "From Liberalism to Democracy." In The Columbia History of the World. Harper, 1972, pp. 871-83. General background on the socio-economic influences of the time, including the force of democracy versus the fear of rule by the many illiterate. Gilmour, Robin. The Idea of the Gentleman in the Victorian Novel. Allen, 1981. A study of the cultural and political significance of "gentleman" as a recurring theme in Victorian novels; includes a discussion of Pip's desire to better his lot in life and to become a gentleman in the context of other works of Victorian literature. Grebanier, Bernard D., Samuel Middlebrook, Stith Thompson, and William Watts, eds. English Literature and Its Backgrounds, Volume Two: From the Forerunners of Romanticism to the Present, 2nd edition. Holt, 1949. A comprehensive timeline of British literature, 1550-1940, and an illustrated chapter on "The Victorian Age" (417-48). Hobsbaum, Philip. A Reader's Guide to Charles Dickens. Thames & Hudson, 1972. Provides a wealth of background information on Dickens' life, Dickens' England, and Dickens' novels. Inglis, Rewey Belle, Alice Cecilia Cooper, Marion A. Sturdevant, and William Rose Benet, eds. Adventures in English Literature. Harcourt, 1938. A timeline of British Victorian authors (671) and a reprint of the chapter on Dickens' childhood from G. K. Chesterton's Charles Dickens, published in 1906 (1090-99). Kaplan, Fred. Dickens: A Biography. Morrow, 1988. A comprehensive biography of the author that provides much insight into Dickens' life and into the composition of his novels. Kent, Charles. Charles Dickens as a Reader. Lippincott, 1872. A personal view of Dickens by one who knew him and his lasting love of theater and audience. Leavis, F. R., and Q. D. Leavis. Dickens the Novelist. Pantheon, 1970. Includes Q. D. Leavis' insightful essay "How We Must Read 'Great Expectations,'" a useful introduction to interpreting the novel. Miller, J. Hillis. Charles Dickens: The World of His Novels. Indiana University Press, 1969. Includes an influential essay in which the author interprets the major themes of Great Expectations. Nelson, Harland S. Charles Dickens. Twayne, 1981. Covers detailed information on the background, audience, and serialization of Dickens' works; also includes summaries of the novels. Page, Norman. A Dickens Companion. Schocken Books, 1984. An invaluable resource with information on such topics as the composition, serialization, publication, and reception of Dickens' works.

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Priestley, J. B. Charles Dickens and His World. Viking Press, 1969. A detailed study of the England of Dickens' day; useful for gaining a better understanding of the setting of his novels. Sandrin, Anny. Great Expectations. Unwin Hyman, 1988. A collection of Dickens' criticism and biography, including the story he told of meeting a young boy who reminded him of himself as a child with dreams of becoming master of Gads Hill. Slater, Michael. Dickens on America and the Americans. University of Texas Press, 1978. Dickens notes distinct differences between American and English factory wage slaves. Slater, Michael, ed. Dickens 1970: Centenary Essays. Stein, 1970. Comedy social change, and children's issues are addressed, among others. Storey, Graham, and Kathleen Tillotson, eds. The Letters of Charles Dickens Vol. Eight. Clarendon Press, 1995. Notable primarily for Dickens' 1858 admission of his failed marriage and his protection of the woman purported to be his mistress, closely followed by his will in which only his family is mentioned. Ward, Adolphus William. Dickens. Harper, 1882. A generally positive review with attention to Dicken's revised ending as one that is less than expected. Wilson, Edmund. The Wound and the Bow: Seven Studies in Literature. Oxford University Press, 1947. In the essay "Dickens: The Two Scrooges," Wilson became one of the first critics to focus on Dickens as an artist, and to attribute much of the darker themes in his novels to his personality and background. Wilson, Angus. The World of Charles Dickens. Viking, 1970. Many illustrations and easy-to-understand text, including a description and illustration of the "Ragged Schools" (228-29). Worth, George J. Great Expectations: An Annotated Bibliography. Garland, 1986. An invaluable resource that will direct the student to a variety of published material on Great Expectations for the study of this novel.

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