Summary of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Description

Great Expectations is a coming-of-age tale with strong moral lessons about wealth and nobility, guilt and criminality, and conscience and self-deception. Throughout, various shadowy intrigues, a classic madwoman-in-the-attic, sinister plots and even a chase on the River Thames enliven the story. Its author, Charles Dickens, characteristically paces his narrative with plentiful mysteries and twists, including the true identity of Pip’s generous benefactor – the creator of Pip’s “great expectations.” The novel is simultaneously a bleak love story that pits the hero’s warmth and devotion against his love interest’s cynicism and cruelty. Pip’s very love for Estella drives his doomed pursuit of gentility and wealth. Despite its social satire, Great Expectations is, like most of Dickens’s oeuvre, ultimately a story of redemption – a feel-good tale apt to bolster your faith in humanity.

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Sujets

• Classics
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: GetAbstract AG
• Date de parution: 16 décembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9798887270227
• Langue: English

Extrait

Great Expectations
Charles Dickens•First edition: London 1860/61

Coming-of-age story
Victorian literature

Take-Aways Great Expectations  is a coming-of-age tale with strong moral lessons about wealth and nobility, guilt and criminality, and conscience and self-deception. A mysterious benefactor transforms poor, country boy Pip into a high-society, London gentleman. But it’s only when Pip loses everything that he understands what’s truly noble: honesty, humility, hard work, selflessness and a pure heart. The novel   contains many elements of social satire and caricature, but ultimately, the tale is a redemptive one. Pip’s penitence and his family’s forgiveness enable Pip’s redemption. Conversely, Compeyson’s lack of remorse and Miss Havisham’s inability to forgive him keep Satis House frozen in time and darkness. Criminality and prison   shadow Pip’s life, beginning with his boyhood home near the prison ships and through to the origins of his great expectations.  When Charles Dickens was 12 years old, his father spent three months in debtors prison. This experience greatly influenced his future writing. Dickens’s writing helped shift Victorian-era opinion about class inequalities. The novel as it exists today contains a revised, happier ending. In the original conclusion, Pip remains single and Estella remarries after Drummel’s death. Great Expectations  was Dickens’s 13th and final finished novel before his death, and critics have called it his best romance and most honest story. “Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching.” (Estella, to Pip)

What It’s About
What Makes a Gentleman?
Great Expectations  is a coming-of-age tale with strong moral lessons about wealth and nobility, guilt and criminality, and conscience and self-deception. Throughout, various shadowy intrigues, a classic madwoman-in-the-attic, sinister plots and even a chase on the River Thames enliven the story. Its author, Charles Dickens, characteristically paces his narrative with plentiful mysteries and twists, including the true identity of Pip’s generous benefactor – the creator of Pip’s “great expectations.” The novel is simultaneously a bleak love story that pits the hero’s warmth and devotion against his love interest’s cynicism and cruelty. Pip’s very love for Estella drives his doomed pursuit of gentility and wealth. Despite its social satire,  Great Expectations  is, like most of Dickens’s oeuvre, ultimately a story of redemption – a feel-good tale apt to bolster your faith in humanity.

Summary
The Orphan and the Convict
Young orphan Philip Pirrip – who goes by “ Pip ” – grows up in the household of his violent older sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery , and her kind, docile husband Joe , a blacksmith. They live in a marshy area not far from some of England’s prison hulks – decommissioned ships used as floating prisons for the worst criminals. One Christmas Eve, Pip visits his parents’ graves in a lonely churchyard. He chances upon escaped inmate Abel Magwitch , who uses the threat of violence to force Pip to steal food and a file for removing a leg shackle. He forbids Pip from telling anyone of the encounter, leaving the boy overwhelmed with fear and guilt.
On Christmas Day, soldiers arrive at Joe’s forge and ask him to fix handcuffs for two prison escapees. At Joe’s bidding, Pip joins their pursuit on the marsh. Distant shouting leads the searchers to two grappling fugitives, Magwitch and another man. Magwitch reveals that the two are longtime enemies and exults in bringing about the other fugitive’s capture, though they must both return to prison. Neither Magwitch nor Pip admits to their encounter, and their secret forever binds them.
An Education
In the evenings, Pip attends a village school where the teacher sleeps through the lesson. Slowly, with the help of another village orphan, Biddy , he gains a meager education. One night, his fortunes seem to change. Mrs. Joe announces that she’s sending Pip to play regularly at the house of Miss Havisham , a legendary recluse who lives in an old brick manor uptown. Mrs. Joe believes that the visits will endear Pip to the wealthy Miss Havisham, who may then become his benefactor.