Great Expectations

Read from Sunday, June 19th to Tuesday, June 28th.

Great Expectations, the Dickens classic masterpiece.  This novel, published serially in a magazine in 1860, is one of the most famous by Dickens, and it tells the story from child to maturity of Pip, a poor country boy who rose unexpectedly to wealth.  It is a very rich story, with many symbols, themes and motifs, as well as an intricate plot with many interesting characters.  I will do my best to give a brief overview.

Pip, an orphan living in the country, near marshes and the ocean, one night is visiting his parents graves.  He discovers an escaped convict on the marshes, who orders him to go home, and bring back food and a file to escape from his chains.  Pip, being only seven, is terrified.  He goes home, to his sister and her husband, Joe.  His sister whips him for being out late, and she often goes on rampages.  Joe is calm, and simple, and good-natured.  The next morning, Pip sneaks out early and brings a pie and a file to the grateful convict.  He also comes across another man on the marshes.  Pip returns home, and is very guilty.  Later, the police come by, and Pip and Joe accompany them as they hunt the convicts.  Pip's convict is found beating up the other man, and both are returned to prison. 

Later in life, Pip is requested by a rich old lady, Miss Havisham, to play.  In her dilapidated Satis House, Pip walks her around, and plays cards.  She is eccentric, and has never seen the light of day, ever since she was jilted on her wedding day decades ago.  Pip also meets Estella, Miss Havisham's niece, who is Pip's age but treats him as inferior.  Pip falls helplessly in love with her, although she is cold, and confesses to be heartless.  She has been brought up by Miss Havisham to never fall in love, but instead to hurt men just like how she was hurt herself.  Pip returns again and again to the house, and he begins to resent his poor, uneducated upbringing.  He longs to be a gentleman and impress Estella.  Pip hopes that Miss Havisham will end up giving him money, and he is disappointed when she instead helps him to become Joe's apprentice as a blacksmith. 

Pip is not happy, and longs for more.  However, one day Joe's journeyman, Orlick, got in an argument with Pip's sister, and later that night she was attacked and is eventually killed.  Pip suspects Orlick, but nothing can be proved.  Pip's classmate Biddy moves into the house in order to take care of Mrs. Joe.  She is the perfect opposite to Estella, but Pip cannot realize that, and he wants out.  Finally, one day, he and Joe are surprised by a lawyer from London, who came on behalf of a secret benefactor to tell Pip he is to be a gentleman with great expectations.  Pip is very happy, but condescending to the rest of his family and town.  Of course he suspects Miss Havisham, and hopes that Estella is to be his wife.

He moves to London, but is not allowed to know the identity of the benefactor.  The lawyer, Mr. Jaggers, and his clerk Wemmick, are his guardians, but Pip lives with a young man, Herbert, and is tutored by a cousin of Miss Havisham, Matthew Pocket.  Pip must deal with the consequences of being rich.  He is embarrassed by Joe, but still regrets how he treated him.  He loves Estella, but she is very distant.  Wemmick and Herbert are both good friends, and they show him the value of working for money, and also being happy with what you have.  Finally, one stormy night, after Pip is much older (23) he is surprised by a stranger at his door.  It is the old convict, and he is actually Pip's mystery benefactor!  The convict, Abel Magwitch, had been exiled in Australia, but made his fortune as a farmer, and invested all his money in making Pip a gentleman, in order to repay him for the generosity years before.

Pip is horrified by Magwitch, and the actual source of his great expectations, and the fact that Estella was never meant for him.  Nevertheless, Magwitch must be hidden, since it is death for him if he is discovered by the police to be back in England.  Magwitch reveals his story, and how he always had to steal to survive.  He partnered with a gentleman criminal named Compeyson, and when discovered, Compeyson betrayed Magwitch to get a light sentence.  That was the other man on the marshes, and they were the two that fought.  Compeyson is out to get Magwitch, so he must be hidden.  Pip and Herbert and Wemmick work together to hide him until the time would be right to try and sail out of the country to safety. 

During this prolonged climax, many secrets are revealed.  Compeyson was actually the man who betrayed Miss Havisham by leaving her at the altar many years ago.  Magwitch is actually Estella's father, and Jagger's servant is her mother.  Pip goes back to Satis House to accuse Miss Havisham of leading him on, and to rebuke Estella for never loving him.  Estella is unmoved, but Miss Havisham is regretful of her actions, and begs Pip to forgive her.  She then is caught in a fire, and later dies.  Pip is then kidnapped by Orlick on the marshes and almost killed, but luckily Herbert followed and was able to rescue him. Orlick confessed to the attempted murder of his sister, and he was eventually arrested.  Orlick also confessed to spying on Pip and Magwitch in London on behalf of Compeyson.  The next day, Pip and Herbert take Magwitch downriver in an attempt to flee the country, but they are stopped by a police boat, with Compeyson on it as an informant.  Magwitch attacks Compeyson and drowns him, but he is arrested, although badly injured.

Magwitch is sentenced to death, but he dies naturally before hand, comforted by Pip's last words to him that his daughter is alive and that Pip loves her.  Pip becomes very ill after that, and is nursed back to health by Joe.  His money is gone, seized by the crown, and Pip resolves to make it up to the only family he really had, but had betrayed.  He goes home, thinking he will marry Biddy, but when he arrives, he discovers that Joe had already married her.  Pip, although disappointed, is immensely happy for the two of them, and decides to move to Egypt to work with Herbert at a shipping firm.  Many years later, he returns to find Joe and Biddy have a child named Pip, in honor of him.  Pip then walks by Satis House to find it nearly destroyed, but Estella standing in the ruins.  She owned the land after Miss Havisham died, and she and Pip walk off arm in arm, never to be separated again. 

The ending is controversial because it was not Dicken's original.  First, he had Pip and Estella meet, and he felt pity for her inability to love.  This revision is a happier ending, of course, although the first one probably goes along with the story better.  All in all, it is an epic tale of the dangers of wanting to become rich, the terrors of love, the abandonment of family, class differences, redemption, revenge, crime and punishment, and double personas.  It is full of symbols, such as Satis House, the marshes and the fog, the chains, Wemmick's castle, rivers, boats, fires, wedding dresses, and many others.  Pip is a likable narrator, who changes with age.  Though he is detestable at times, he redeems himself in the end by his acceptance of Magwitch for the inner nobility that he possesses.  Characters do change, and with the exception of Compeyson, all the bad ones are redeemed in the end.  Very good book, and not too difficult either, even though it was written in Victorian English.  Also there were many beautiful lines I was able to highlight.  Looking forward to watching a film adaptation.  Four and a half out of five stars.