1. Great Expectations

2. Victorian Era Named for Queen Victoria
Reigned from 18 years old (1819) until her death at 81 (1901)
Major industrial change = social change
- Factories, trains, steam boats
Could finally have wealth without a birth right
People left farms to make money in cities
Wealth spread, while poor became extreme

3. Charles Dickens 1812 – 1870, England, Height of Victorian Era
Dad was terribly in debt – put in debtors’ prison when Charles was 12
Charles’s 7 siblings and mother moved into prison
Charles lived and worked on his own for those 3 moths – hated it
Put labels on bottles in a warehouse – too good for it
Dad was released – Charles returned to school
Dickens worked as a law clerk, then a court reporter, then a novelist
First book: Pickwick Papers (funny!)

4. Serial Story Told in installments (typically magazines)
Dickens’s magazine: All the Year Round
Magazine lost popularity after a bad serial written by someone else
Dickens wrote Great Expectations to improve sales, more $$$
Great Expectations was released in weekly installments, 2 chapters at a time
Immediately published as a book after last installment

5. Genre: Bildungsroman German: “A novel of self-cultivation”
Novel that focuses on the protagonist’s growth
Typically from childhood through adulthood
Can be adulthood to death, as well
“Coming of age” story; character is literally coming to a certain age
Novel ends with the protagonist understanding himself better and his new place in the world

6. Characters Pip: protagonist, main character, first person narrator
The Convict: floats in and out of Pip’s life
Joe Gargery: Pip’s brother-in-law, blacksmith, cares deeply for Pip
Mrs. Joe: Pip’s sister, married to Joe, she is overbearing, ambitious
Miss Havisham: wealthy, mentally unstable after being left at the alter years ago
Estella: Beautiful girl, Pip’s age, lives with Miss Havisham
Jaggers: lawyer, watches over Pip as he moves social classes
Keep this list going!!