Great load of *!?@"*/# (Great Expectations - Charles Dickens)

Member Name: Roxie_228

Product:	Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
Date:	08/09/03 (447 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: um...

Disadvantages: Forced to read this!

*** Introduction ***

?Great Expectations? is the novel by Dickens about Philip Pirrip?s life, with him as the leading character and the narrator, a life that without one sole benefactor would probably be the common and predictable experience that Pip himself was expecting. Although he desperately wanted to become much more than he believed he was to be, if the encounter which took place in chapter one had never occurred the life story of Pip would be an extreme opposite, and probably not worth writing about either!

***Characters***

Pip ? the main character about who the whole novel is about.
Mrs Joe ? Pip?s older sister who has brought him up
Magwitch ? more than an escaped convict
Joe ? Mrs Joe?s husband another main character
Estella ? the snobby ?daughter? of a rich lady
Mrs Havisham - the rich lady I just mentioned
Biddy - Carer of Mrs Joe who goes on to marry Joe

Most of the other characters I couldn?t keep up with?!

*** Main additions to the plot ***

In chapter one we encounter Pip in the churchyard early Christmas Eve visiting the graves of his long deceased family, parents, Phillip and Georgiana, and fellow siblings Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham and Tobias. At this point Pip?s life is nothing special, in fact it?s downright miserable, living with his elder sister Mrs Joe who likes to intimidate and victimise Pip alongside her own husband.
However Pip is not alone in the churchyard as he soon comes to discover for himself!
An important addition to Pips yearning to be a ?gentleman? is the way in which Estella looks upon him, when Pip meets Estella in Chapter 8 during an expedition to Satis House.
?She seemed much older than I, of course, and being a girl, and beautiful and self-possessed; and she was scornful of me as if she had been one and twenty, and a queen.?
Estella looks down on Pip, she comes from a much wealthier background and is of higher
class than him, she deems him common and believes herself to be above Pip. ?Why, he is a common labouring boy!? Estella has a powerful influence over Pip at his impressionable age, and his way of thinking begins to alter. ?I had never thought of being ashamed of my hands before; but I began to consider, them a very indifferent pair. Her contempt for me was so strong that I became infectious and I caught it.?
At first Pip does not understand Estella?s perception, but when he comes to realise the stark differences between them instead of excepting them, as Joe clearly had a long time ago, Pip becomes ashamed of himself, and yearns even more to be a ?gentleman?.
At this point Pip?s personality is that of a kind, polite well brought-up child, he is perhaps a little more timid than usual, owing to the violent manners of his sister, but other than that Pip is no different than can be expected.
?I in great part refer the fact that I was morally timid and very sensitive.? Each aspect of Pip?s childhood personality fade and change during the years to come.

Upon coming home from up-town at Satis House in Chapter 15 another piece of Pip?s life is thrown into place: ?I became aware of my sister lying without sense or movement on the bare boards, where she had been knocked down by a tremendous blow to the back?. Mrs Joe Gargery had been attacked whilst standing by the fire at a time when both Pip and Joe had gone out.
?On the ground beside her, when Joe picked her up, was a convicts leg-iron which had been filed asunder ? some time ago? Pip recognises this leg-iron and it provides a strong connection to Chapter one. ?I believed the iron to be my convict?s iron- but my mind did not accuse him of having put it to its latest use?
The results of the actions pip took at the beginning of this novel force themselves upon Pip, ?It was horrible to think that I had provided the weapon, however un-designedly.?
At this point in Pip?s life he still contains
a certain respect for his older sister, and he feels guilt and shame, emotions that would be a surprise for the late Pip to encounter.


Pip?s education develops immensely all to the omission of a sole benefactor unknown to Pip, until one night when Pip?s benefactor is finally revealed!
?It was wretched weather; stormy and wet, stormy and wet, and mud, mud, mud deep in all the streets?. The repetition Dickens uses when describing the weather circumstances clearly emphasizes just how miserable it is. Magwitch (the convict) seems to prompt the bad weather with his own appearances, and just as Pip?s old life has been displaced, so have the memories with it.
?He looked about him with the strangest air ? an air of wondering pleasure, as if he had some part in the things he admired,? and ?Even yet, I could not recall a single feature, but I knew him?.?
Magwitch returns to Pip a good many years later, unrecognizable to put forth a revelation of which Pip has awaited since he escaped life as an apprentice.
?Yes, Pip, dear boy, I?ve made a gentleman on you! It?s me wot has done it! I swore that time, sure as ever I earned a guinea, that guinea should go to you. I swore arterwards, sure as ever I spec?lated and got rich, you should get rich.?

*** What I wont tell you ***

~Who is in the churchyard with Pip at the beginning?

~What becomes of Pip by the end?

~Do Pip and Estella ever get together?

~Who really attacked Mrs Joe?


*** Conclusion ***

Personally, I despised this novel! It bored me relentlessly, I read it for the one reason, swathed in flowery dresses and frumpy coats and marching around school, Ms Mantell! Lovely woman, and its not often you hear me say that about a teacher either! She never judges, always listens to your point of view and tries to understand as well as helping at the same time, in issues other than her own lessons when there?s nothing to say she need even
bother to help. So anyway, I read this slowly and grudgingly and its not something I would like to do again!
I think that too many characters were introduced and by the end the housekeepers, servants, messengers and whoever else all blended into one person for me!
I?m not really a big Dickens fan anyway I suppose, one or two of his novels were good, and they were fun to portray in musicals when I was about 7 years old?but now they just soak up my valuable time!
I can't give you a price on it because i didn't buy it i was loaned it by the school.

This was a lot shorter than my usual dronings but I really did not want to bore anyone more than I had to!

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