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Great Expectations by Charles Dickens/ Author Introduction / Historical Context / About the Work / Themes / Characters/ Summary & Analysis

 Great Expectations

by Charles Dickens



Brief Biography of Charles Dickens

Born to a navy clerk, Charles Dickens spent his early childhood in Kent, the setting for Pip's village in Great Expectations. When Dickens was ten, the family moved to London and his father was thrown in debtors' prison. Dickens left school and worked in a boot-blacking warehouse to help support his household. He later returned to school but left at fifteen to work as a law clerk, a court reporter, and a political journalist before devoting himself to writing full-time. His books were wildly successful both in England and in the United States, and include classics like Great Expectations, Bleak House, and Oliver Twist, still popular today. Dickens also founded a theater company and a magazine, All the Year Round. He was unhappily married to Catherine Hogarth, with whom he had ten children. Dickens was still writing when he died in 1870 and is buried in Westminster Abbey's Poets' Corner.

Historical Context of Great Expectations

The technological innovations that gave rise to the Industrial Revolution of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century introduced the first capitalist economy, opening social and financial opportunities to people who had never had the chance to gain status or wealth under the rigid hereditary class hierarchy of the past. These opportunities enabled people born into lower classes to raise their standing in society by making money and acquiring education. The new opportunities in turn inspired ambitions that had not been possible in pre-Industrial Revolution England, where one's life path was determined strictly by birth. Great Expectations explores both the dream and the realization of such ambitions, both what is gained and what is lost, and showcases lives from all classes of nineteenth-century British society.

Other Books Related to Great Expectations

Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White is considered one of the earliest English mystery novels and was serialized to great success in Dickens' magazine All the Year Round just a short while before Dickens published his own Great Expectations in that same magazine. The mystery proved an ideal literary form for serialization as each installment left readers with unanswered questions, eager for the next installment. In its reliance on suspense and haunting enigma, the mystery form also drew on the Gothic literary tradition of the early nineteenth century. In Great Expectations, intricate plot twists and the secret of Pip's anonymous patron show the influence of the Gothic tradition as well as of the nascent mystery novel. In addition to being literary peers, Collins and Dickens were lifelong friends and collaborators.

Key Facts about Great Expectations

Full Title: Great Expectations

When Written: 1860-1861

Where Written: Kent, England

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

Literary Period: Victorian Era

Genre: Coming-of-Age Novel (Bildungsroman)

Setting: Kent and London, England

Climax: Pip discovers his patron is the convict

Antagonist: Orlick, Bentley Drummle, and Compeyson

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

THEMES 

1. Love and Redemption: The novel explores the complexities of love, forgiveness, and redemption through Pip's relationships with Joe, Biddy, Estella, and Magwitch.

2. Class and Social Status: Dickens critiques the social class system of Victorian England, highlighting the contrast between the wealthy and the poor, and the limitations of social mobility.

3. Coming of Age and Identity: Pip's journey is a classic coming-of-age story, as he navigates his transition from adolescence to adulthood, and grapples with his own identity and sense of belonging.

4. Guilt and Shame: Many characters in the novel struggle with guilt and shame, including Pip, Magwitch, and Miss Havisham, highlighting the destructive nature of these emotions.

5. Revenge and Forgiveness: The novel explores the themes of revenge and forgiveness, particularly through the characters of Magwitch and Compeyson, and Pip's own struggles with forgiveness.

6. Illusions and Disillusionment: Dickens explores the tension between illusions and reality, as Pip's expectations and illusions about his life are gradually disillusioned.

7. Loyalty and Betrayal: The novel highlights the importance of loyalty and the devastating consequences of betrayal, particularly through the relationships between Pip and Joe, and Pip and Magwitch.


Main Characters:


1. Pip(Philip Pirrip): The protagonist and narrator of the novel, a young man who inherits a fortune and must navigate his new status.

2. Miss Havisham: A wealthy, eccentric spinster who was jilted on her wedding day and now lives in a dilapidated mansion.

3. Magwitch (Abel Magwitch): A convict who escapes from prison and demands that Pip help him, later revealed to be Pip's benefactor.

4. Estella: Miss Havisham's adopted daughter, raised to break men's hearts, and the object of Pip's unrequited love.

5. Joe Gargery: Pip's brother-in-law, a kind and gentle blacksmith who is one of the few people who treat Pip with kindness.


Supporting Characters:


1. Jaggers: A lawyer who represents Magwitch and helps Pip with his new fortune.

2. Wemmick: Jaggers' clerk, who becomes a friend and confidant to Pip.

3. Compeyson: A convict who betrayed Magwitch and is later revealed to be the man who jilted Miss Havisham.

4. Biddy: A young woman who is a friend of Pip's and later becomes Joe's wife.

5. Mrs. Joe Gargery: Pip's sister, who is married to Joe and is often cruel to Pip.

SUMMARY & ANALYSIS

Pip is an orphan living in southeast England with his foul-tempered sister, Mrs. Joe, and her gentle husband, Joe Gargery, the village blacksmith. On Christmas Eve, Pip encounters an escaped convict in a leg-iron who scares Pip into stealing food and a metal file for him. Pip steals the food and file from his sister's pantry and Joe's blacksmith shop. The next day, Pip and Joe see soldiers capture the convict on the marshes where he wrestles bitterly with another escaped convict. The convict Pip helped protects Pip by confessing to the theft of the food and file, and Pip's involvement in the theft goes undiscovered.


Soon after, Pip is invited to start visiting wealthy Miss Havisham and her snobby adopted daughter, Estella, at Satis House. Miss Havisham was abandoned by her fiancée twenty years prior and seeks revenge on men by raising Estella to mercilessly break hearts. Estella's disdain for Pip's "commonness" inspires Pip's dissatisfaction with life as an apprentice blacksmith. He grows infatuated with Estella and assesses himself by her standards long after his Satis House visits come to an end.

Pip is apprenticed to Joe and grows increasingly despondent at his low status, seeking to elevate himself through independent study. When Mrs. Joe is brain damaged by the blows of an intruder at the forge, Pip suspects Orlick, Joe's cruel journeyman helper. Biddy moves in to run the household and becomes Pip's confidante, trying in vain to help Pip get over Estella.


One night, Mr. Jaggers tells Pip that he has an anonymous patron who wishes Pip to be trained as a gentleman. Pip assumes that this patron is Miss Havisham and that Estella is secretly betrothed to him. Unsympathetic to Joe and Biddy's sadness at losing him, Pip snobbishly parades his new status and goes to study with Matthew Pocket. Pip lives part time with Matthew's sweet-tempered son Herbert Pocket in London, where the two become fast friends. Pip's study mates are Startop and Bentley Drummle, the foul-tempered heir to a baronetcy who becomes Pip's nemesis when he pursues Estella, now an elegant lady. Pip also befriends Wemmick, Mr. Jaggers' clerk, who is stoic and proper in the office and warm and friendly outside of it. Pip spends extravagantly and puts on airs, alienating Joe on Joe's trip to London. Pip wishes Joe were more refined and fears association with him will jeopardize his own social status. He doesn't return to the forge until he hears Mrs. Joe has died. Even then, his visit is brief.


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

Provis' rival on the marshes was Compeyson, Miss Havisham's devious former fiancée. Compeyson is looking for Provis in London and Pip plans to get Provis out of England by boat. Before they escape, Orlick manages to lure Pip to the village marshes and tries to kill him, but Herbert intervenes. Pip nearly succeeds in escaping with Provis but Compeyson stops them, then drowns, wrestling with Provis in the water. Provis is arrested and found guilty of escaping illegally from the penal colony of New South Wales, but dies from illness before his execution.


Pip falls ill. Joe nurses him and pays his debts. Healthy again, Pip returns to the village hoping to marry Biddy only to stumble upon her happy wedding with Joe. Pip goes abroad with Herbert to be a merchant. When he returns eleven years later, he finds an spitting image of himself in Joe and Biddy's son Pip II and runs into Estella on the razed site of Satis House. Suffering has made Estella grow a heart and she and Pip walk off together, never to part again.


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