A Charming Little Tale (Great Expectations - Charles Dickens)

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Product:	Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
Date:	27.07.04 (260 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Realistic characters and touching relationships., Easy to get engrossed in.

Disadvantages: Can be difficult to understand sometimes as we're so far removed from the people and the time he's writing about., You can lose track of the characters sometimes.

Have you ever wished you could be a high-flying executive, with money, respect and admiration showering down upon you? Have you ever had a crush on someone and wanted to impress them? Have you ever felt like your wings are clipped and you're not getting your chance to make an impression on the world?

If so, you're just like Pip in Great Expectations. He is cared for by his strict sister and her gentle husband Joe, but becomes increasingly aware of his humble circumstances when he starts to visit the odd and rich Miss Havisham and the beautiful young girl Estella who lives with her. He hates how Estella looks down on him and wants to rise up in the world to become acceptable to her.

When Pip comes into money and is granted the opportunity to become a gentleman, he assumes it is Miss Havisham who is responsible, but later discovers that, in fact, his benefactor is a figure from his childhood that he'd rather forget.

The novel follows Pip's journey from a humble child into a successful London gentleman, and examines all his feelings along the way. We see conflict within him as he grows older. He desperately wants to be a gentleman, more than anything, but nevertheless feels guilty of abandoning his origins and the people who brought him up and educated him in his childhood.

The character of Estella is also interesting. She has been repressed since childhood by Miss Havisham, and has been encouraged to be cold and unfeeling, but eventually snaps and turns against Miss Havisham. It seems that Miss Havisham finally has to reap what she sowed.

This novel features the usual charm of Dickens, the usual twists and turns necessary to make his publication of chapters in magazines having people wanting to come back for more, and his charming child who finally comes of age before the end of the novel. Pip could easilly be compared to other Dickens characters like Oliver in Oliver Twist and David in David Copperfield. As
usual with Dickens his characters aren't always what they first appear and often are revealed to be far more complex than the reader might first anticipate, and of course, Dickens brings a bygone era to life in a way that other authors such as Thomas Hardy failed to do for me.

Dicken's descriptions of Pip's boyish love and devotion to Joe are more than touching, as is the relationship that develops between Pip and Herbert.

The description of the Pocket family often verges on comedic, and the villians such as Orlick are easy to despise.

You feel fully involved in the story as you read this novel. You feel like you've known Pip all your life and have watched him grow and mature, and you feel sympathy for him in times of trouble.

Dickens has never failed to disappoint me yet, and Great Expectations was no exception. His characters are realistic, his command of the story with all its intertwining branches and recurring characters is masterful and it is a novel extremely difficult to put down once started.

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