1. Thinking About Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Introduction
Charles Dickens
Quizzes
Characters
Themes
Film and Video
Essay Topics
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2. Great Expectations – Introduction
Overview
Social Context
Literary Genre
Narrative Structure
Narrative Style
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3. Great Expectations – Overview
Great Expectations is Dickens’s 13th novel.
It was first published as a serial in Dickens's weekly periodical All the Year Round, from December, 1860, to August, 1861.
The novel was published in 1861 in three volumes.
The plot centers on the growth and personal development of Pip, an orphan in mid-19th century London (and Kent), England.
Like David Copperfield, the novel is narrated in the first person.
Great Expectations won universal acclaim soon after its release.
Title page of first edition, Great Expectations, 1861
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Introduction

4. Great Expectations – Social Context
The novel takes place in the early 1800’s in London, England, and the county of Kent (a coastal region in southeast England).
It was a time of great change in England due to the Industrial Revolution.
Society had been transformed by new technology, such as mass production, railroads, and the rise of the factory system.
Because of industrialization, people from rural areas travelled to London to “make their fortune” and move up in social status.
The poor became a serious problem in cities, where there were large slum areas.
There was a great contrast between the urban poor and the aristocracy in the countryside.
Victorian society maintained strict divisions between the social classes and required “ladies and gentlemen” to behave appropriately, according to their social status.
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Introduction

5. Great Expectations
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6. Great Expectations - Quizzes
Chapters 1-4
Chapters 5-8
Chapters 9-12
Chapters 13-16
Chapters 17-19
Chapters 20-23
Chapters 24-28
Chapters 29-32
Chapters 33-35
Chapters 36-39
Chapters 40-41
Chapters 42-45
Chapters 46-50
Chapters 51-53
Chapters 54-55
Chapters 56-57
Chapters 58-59
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7. Great Expectations: Chapters 1-4 Click the  for an answer.
Whom does Pip meet on the marshes in Chapter 1, and what instructions does he receive? 
What is Pip threatened with if he does not do as instructed? 
Briefly describe Mrs. Joe and her attitude toward Pip. 
What is Joe’s occupation, and how does he treat Pip? 
Describe the “crime” that Pip commits in this section of the book. 
What is the convict’s reaction when Pip tells him he saw the “other man”? 
Who arrives at the house at the end of Chapter 4, and what is Pip’s reaction? 
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All Quizzes

8. Whom does Pip meet on the marshes in Chapter 1, and what instructions does he receive?
Answer
Pip meets an escaped convict on the marshes.
The convict commands Pip to meet him the next morning at the old gun battery with a file and “wittles” (food).
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Ch 1-4 Quiz

9. Whom does Pip meet on the marshes in Chapter 1, and what instructions does he receive?
Answer
Pip meets an escaped convict on the marshes.
The convict commands Pip to meet him the next morning at the old gun battery with a file and “wittles” (food).
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Ch 1-4 Quiz

10. What is Pip threatened with if he does not do as instructed?
Answer
The convict tells Pip that there is another man with him who will find Pip and tear him open.
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Ch 1-4 Quiz

11. Briefly describe Mrs. Joe and her attitude toward Pip.
Answer
Mrs. Joe is a strict, domineering, and bad-tempered woman. She maintains an immaculate house and wears a bib filled with threatening pins and needles. She whips Pip with a cane she calls “Tickler” and forces him to drink foul-tasting “tar-water.”
She quickly becomes enraged when Pip admits he was at the churchyard and tries to make him feel guilty for being an orphan and a burden to her.
Pip thinks his sister sees him as a “young offender” who must be continually punished. Ironically, Pip will actually commit a crime against his sister, but she will not be aware of it.
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Ch 1-4 Quiz

12. What is Joe’s occupation, and how does he treat Pip?
Answer
Joe is the village blacksmith. He is good-natured and easy going, the opposite of his wife.
Joe is sympathetic to Pip and tries to protect him from his wife, but he is afraid to confront her directly.
Since Joe is also victimized by his wife, he and Pip often act like comrades against the enemy.
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Ch 1-4 Quiz

13. Describe the “crime” that Pip commits in this section of the book.
Answer
Pip obeys the convict and steals food, brandy, a pork pie, and a file. After emptying the brandy, Pip refills the bottle with “tar- water.”
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Ch 1-4 Quiz

14. What is the convict’s reaction when Pip tells him he saw the “other man”?
Answer
The convict is surprised and distressed.
Pip tells him of the guns of the previous night that indicated another escaped prisoner, which the convict recalls hearing while he was sick with chills and fever.
The convict seems to know the identity of the other man when Pip describes the bruise on the man’s face. The convict asks Pip to lead him to the man, so he can “pull him down like a bloodhound.”
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Ch 1-4 Quiz

15. Who arrives at the house at the end of Chapter 4, and what is Pip’s reaction?
Answer
As Pip tries to run out of the house before the theft of the pork pie can be discovered, he runs headlong into soldiers holding out a pair of handcuffs. He is overcome with fear and guilt and assumes that the authorities have discovered his crime and come to arrest him.
Although Pip is overcome with guilt over the theft he commits for the convict, the “crime” of Pip’s childhood will ironically be seen later as one of his few good deeds.
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Ch 1-4 Quiz

16. Great Expectations - Characters
Pip
Estella
Abel Magwitch
Miss Havisham
Joe Gargery
Jaggers
Herbert Pocket
John Wemmick
Biddy
Dodge Orlick
Mrs. Joe
Uncle Pumblechook
Compeyson
Bentley Drummle
Molly
Matthew Pocket
Miss Havisham’s Relatives
Minor Characters
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17. Miss Havisham
Miss Havisham is a wealthy dowager who lives in her decaying mansion, Satis House, with her adopted daughter, Estella.
Dickens describes her as “the witch of the place.”
Probably in her 50’s, Miss Havisham looks much older from living out of the sunlight.
Martita Hunt as Miss Havisham in Great Expectations, directed by David Lean, 1946
After being jilted by her fiancé years ago, she had a mental breakdown, “stopping time” at the moment of her betrayal, and raising Estella as an instrument of vengeance on the male sex.
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Characters

18. Miss Havisham
Realizing that she had been jilted and swindled by Compeyson, Miss Havisham went mad and stopped her life at that moment.
She never removed her wedding dress and wears only one shoe, since she was in the process of getting dressed when she received Compeyson’s letter.
The wedding breakfast and wedding cake remain on the table, uneaten and rotting.
All the clocks in the mansion are stopped at 8:40, the time she received Compeyson’s letter.
Martita Hunt as Miss Havisham in Great Expectations, directed by David Lean, 1946
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Characters

19. Miss Havisham’s Revenge
Miss Havisham, Pip, and Estella, in art from the Imperial Edition of Charles Dickens's Great Expectations. Art by H. M. Brock.
After some time passed, Miss Havisham arranged through Mr. Jaggers to adopt Estella.
Although Miss Havisham initially adopted Estella to protect her from the same misery she suffered, she eventually used Estella to exact revenge on all men.
With Pip as her victim, Miss Havisham uses Estella’s beauty and social status to torment Pip.
Knowing that Pip is in love with her, Miss Havisham sends Estella to school in France, tormenting him further.
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Characters

20. Miss Havisham’s Repentance
Late in the novel when Estella leaves to marry Bentley Drummle, Pip visits Miss Havisham for the last time.
Miss Havisham sincerely repents, realizing that she has caused Pip’s heart to be broken, inflicting the same pain on him that Compeyson caused her years ago.
Her last words in the novel are a request to Pip to "Take the pencil and write under my name, 'I forgive her!'“
Miss Havisham and Pip, in an illustration for the Household Edition of Dickens's Great Expectations. (F. A. Fraser)
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Characters

21. Miss Havisham, Charles Green,
Miss Havisham’s Death
After Pip leaves, he has a “mournful” vision of Miss Havisham dead, hanging from a beam.
As he returns to check on her, her dress catches fire.
Pip extinguishes the fire with the wedding tablecloth, badly burning his hands in the process.
Miss Havisham, badly injured and in nervous shock, spends the night crying out in agony, “What have I done? Take the pencil and write under my name, I forgive her!”
Pip learns of her death later in the novel.
Miss Havisham, Charles Green, c
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Characters

22. Compeyson
Compeyson is a well-dressed, upper class criminal who partnered with Magwitch in a forgery scheme.
At their trial for forgery, Compeyson convinced Magwitch to have separate defenses, and then Compeyson placed most of the blame on Magwitch, making him out to be a criminal mastermind.
Because of his upper-class appearance, Compeyson received a much lighter sentence.
Compeyson is linked to several subplots in the novel.
He conspired with Miss Havisham’s brother, Arthur, to court Miss Havisham and convince her to sell her share of the brewery they inherited to Arthur. Then he jilted her, and he and Arthur split the profit.
He is the “second convict” that Pip sees on the marsh.
He escapes from the prison ship with Magwitch at the beginning of the novel, and drowns when he attempts to prevent Magwitch from escaping at the end of the novel.
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Characters

23. Compeyson and Magwitch
At the end of the novel, Pip learns from Orlick that Compeyson knows Magwitch is in London and plans to escape.
Compeyson appears in the galley that prevents Magwitch and Pip from getting to the steamer and escaping from England.
Magwitch grabs Compeyson as the galley approaches, and they fall into the water fighting. Magwitch is captured, and Compeyson drowns in the struggle.
Magwitch and Compeyson, Great Expectations, dir. by David Lean, 1946
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Characters

24. Great Expectations – Themes
Ambition
Prisons, Convicts and Crime
Guilt and Redemption
Light and Darkness
Mistaken Identity
Parents and Children
Pip’s Moral Development
Social Class
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25. Prisons, Convicts and Crime
The novel begins with two convicts escaping from prison and ends with Magwitch returning to prison.
Pip begins the novel by stealing food and a file for the convict.
When the soldiers arrive at the end of Chapter 4, Pip is convinced they are there to arrest him for his crime.
It is ironic that this Pip’s initial “crime” was actually an act of kindness.
Magwitch and Compeyson Struggling, by F. A. Fraser, 1877.
When Pip helps Magwitch attempt to escape from England at the end of the novel, he is also committing a crime that is an act of kindness.
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Themes

26. Prisons, Convicts and Crime
Symbols of crime and criminals are present throughout the novel.
Pip sees a mysterious person at the Three Jolly Bargemen stirring his drink with the file he stole for the convict.
Mrs. Joe is attacked with a leg-iron that had been filed off.
Later in the novel when Pip returns home from London, he overhears two convicts on the coach who are handcuffed together, one of whom is the man who gave Pip the two pound notes.
Magwitch on the boat back to the prison ship, Great Expectations, dir. by David Lean, 1946.
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Themes

27. Prisons, Convicts and Crime
Pip is introduced to the criminal justice system in London when he visits Jaggers’s London office and becomes friends with Wemmick.
Jaggers is a powerful and feared criminal defense lawyer, and seems to understand criminals intuitively.
Molly, Jaggers’s housekeeper, was accused of murder, but acquitted when Jaggers used clever techniques in court to convince the jury of her innocence.
When Pip and his friends have dinner with Jaggers, Pip notices that Jaggers seems to bring out the worst in each of his guests.
Although Jaggers and Wemmick are darkly cynical about humanity because of their proximity to its worst elements, both are affected by their work.
Jaggers washes his hands compulsively between cases, symbolically attempting to remove the stain of his profession.
Wemmick lives a “double life” away from the law office where he lovingly cares for his “Aged Parent” in a comfortable home.
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Themes

28. Prisons, Convicts and Crime
After leaving Newgate Prison with Wemmick, Pip feels strange and wonders why his life is “encompassed by all this taint of prison and crime.”
He is struck by the contrast between the dreary prison and the beautiful Estella.
Pip doesn’t realize that Estella is directly connected to the prison because Magwitch is her father and Molly is her mother.
A door from Newgate Prison. Dickens and London Exhibition at the Museum of London.
When Magwitch reappears in the last section of the novel, Pip feels like he and Magwitch are shackled together.
“What I was chained to, and how heavily, became intelligible to me…” (Ch. 40)
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Themes

29. Prisons, Convicts and Crime
In Great Expectations, the law seems to favor those who make a good appearance and speak well.
Magwitch attacked Compeyson at the beginning of the novel because Compeyson conducted a separate defense at their forgery trial, appearing as a well-dressed gentleman, and got off with a much lighter sentence.
The first time Pip visits Jaggers at his law office, he sees Mike’s attempt to introduce an obviously false witness in his case.
Jaggers cleverly made Molly appear innocent by dressing her “artfully,” so that her strong arms looked delicate at her trial.
In addition to literal prisons, Dickens also presents characters in Great Expectations who are in metaphorical prisons.
Miss Havisham is the most obvious example of someone who has locked herself away in a self-imposed prison of obsession and resentment.
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Themes

30. Examples of Mistaken Identity
The theme of mistaken identity states Pip’s situation throughout the novel: Pip is a “common” boy who assumes the false identity of a gentleman and spends the entire novel pretending to be something he isn’t in order to gain acceptance, love, and social status.
Dickens uses this theme (people seeming to be something they aren’t) to mislead a character (or the reader) and then later reveal the truth, usually for the purpose of teaching the character (or the reader?) a lesson.
Examples of Mistaken Identity
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Themes

31. Examples of Mistaken Identity
In the opening scene, the convict threatens Pip with “another man,” unaware that a second convict escaped from the prison ship.
When Pip returns to the marshes with food, he finds a different convict from the one who threatened him the night before. The second convict is later revealed to be Compeyson.
The “pale young gentleman” Pip meets at Miss Havisham’s is later revealed to be Herbert Pocket.
Pip assumes Miss Havisham is his benefactor until Magwitch returns to London and reveals the truth.
Although Estella is thought to be an orphan, Pip discovers that her parents are actually Molly and Magwitch.
Examples of Mistaken Identity
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Themes

32. Examples of Hidden/False Identity
Jaggers knows nothing of Mr. Wemmick’s “double life”—a cynical clerk at the law office, and a loving son at home with his “Aged Parent.”
At Molly’s trial, Jaggers dresses her “artfully” to make her appear too delicate to have strangled the victim, although she was undoubtedly guilty.
At Magwitch and Compeyson’s trial, Compeyson used his upper-class appearance to convince the magistrate that Magwitch was the criminal mastermind in order to receive a light sentence.
At the end of the novel, Pip convinces Miss Havisham to be Herbert Pocket’s secret benefactor.
Examples of Hidden/False Identity
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Themes

33. Great Expectations – 1946 Version
Great Expectations, directed by David Lean, 1946
Public Domain Full-length version: 144 minutes
John Mills as Pip
Jean Simmons as Estella
Francis L. Sullivan as Jaggers
Finlay Currie as Magwitch
Martita Hunt as Miss Havisham
Alec Guinness as Herbert Pocket
Download or watch online now.
Other film versions…
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