Great Expectations

Sample questions
In what ways might a knowledge of the social and political context in which Great
Expectations was written and first published contribute to an understanding of
the novel?

Discuss the ways in which Dickens uses the different locations in Great
Expectations in order to emphasize the themes of the novel.

How might Mrs Joe tell the story of her life and Pip's? How would this help the
reader to understand the themes of the novel?

In what ways does Great Expectations explore the relationship between family,
money and social class?

Discuss the role played by crime, punishment and the law in Great Expectations.
Your essay should include a discussion of the significance of Mr. Jaggers and Mr.
Wemmick in relation to these topics.

Write an essay on two of the following characters and discuss their role's
andsignificance in the novel: Mr. Wopsle; Mr. Pumblechook; Orlick; Mrs Matthew
Pocket.

Write an essay describing the narrative structure of Great Expectations and

discussing how it may affect the reader's understanding of the action of the novel.
Discuss the relationship between Pip and Herbert Pocket. In what ways are they
like and unlike one another?

To what extent is it useful to see the narrative of Great Expectations in terms of a

fairy tale or a pilgrimage?

Write an essay on parents (both living and dead) in Great Expectations? In what
ways does their presence or absence affect the lives of their children?

Discuss the ways in which Great Expectations helps the reader to understand
nineteenth-century attitudes towards children.

Some readers think that Jaggers strikes a note of sinister authority in Great
Expectations. How do you respond to his character and role?

Question and answers

Discuss Pip as both a narrator and a character. How are different aspects of his
personality revealed by his telling of his story and by his participation in the story
itself?
Pip’s story—the story of the novel—traces his development through the events of
his early life; his narration, however, written years after the end of the story, is a
product of his character as it exists after the events of the story. Pip’s narration
thus reveals the psychological endpoint of his development in the novel. Pip’s
behavior as a character often reveals only part of the story—he treats Joe coldly,
for instance—while his manner as a narrator completes that story: his guilt for his
poor behavior toward his loved ones endures, even as he writes about his early
life years later. Of course, Dickens manipulates Pip’s narration in order to evoke
its subjects effectively: Pip’s childhood is narrated in a much more childlike voice
than his adult years, even though the narrator Pip presumably writes both parts
of the story at a single later date. Dickens also uses Pip’s narration to reinforce
particular aspects of his character that emerge in the course of the novel: we
know from his actions that Pip is somewhat self-centered but sympathetic at
heart to others; Pip’s later narration of his relationships with others tends to
reflect those qualities. When Magwitch reveals that he is Pip’s benefactor, for
instance, Pip is disgusted by the convict and describes him solely in negative
terms; as his affection for Magwitch grows, the descriptive terms he chooses to
apply to the convict become much more positive.

What role does social class play in Great Expectations? What lessons does Pip
learn from his experience as a wealthy gentleman? How is the theme of social
class central to the novel?
One way to see Pip’s development, and the development of many of the other
characters in Great Expectations, is as an attempt to learn to value other human
beings: Pip must learn to value Joe and Magwitch, Estella must learn to value Pip,
and so on. Throughout the novel, social class provides an arbitrary, external
standard of value by which the characters (particularly Pip) judge one another.
Because social class is rigid and preexisting, it is an attractive standard for every
character who lacks a clear conscience with which to make judgments—Mrs. Joe
and Pumblechook, for instance. And because high social class is associated with
romantic qualities such as luxury and education, it is an immediately attractive
standard of value for Pip. After he is elevated to the status of gentleman, though,
Pip begins to see social class for what it is: an unjust, capricious standard that is
largely incompatible with his own morals. There is simply no reason why Bentley
Drummle should be valued above Joe, and Pip senses that fact. The most
important lesson Pip learns in the novel—and perhaps the most important theme
in Great Expectations—is that no external standard of value can replace the
judgments of one’s own conscience. Characters such as Joe and Biddy know this
instinctively; for Pip, it is a long, hard lesson, the learning of which makes up much
of the book.
Throughout the novel, Pip is plagued by powerful feelings of guilt and shame, and
everywhere he goes he tends to encounter symbols of justice—handcuffs,
gallows, prisons, and courtrooms. What is the role of guilt in the novel? What
does it mean to be “innocent”?
At the beginning of the novel, Pip’s feelings of conscience are determined largely
by his fear of what others might think, a state of mind no doubt reinforced by
Mrs. Joe’s “Tickler.” He has strong feelings of guilt but an inadequate system by
which to judge right from wrong; unable to determine the value of his own
actions, he feels guilty even when he does the right thing. He acts with
compassion and sympathy when he helps the convict, but he nevertheless feels
deeply guilty and imagines that the police are waiting to take him away. As the
novel progresses, Pip comes closer to trusting his own feelings; when he helps
Magwitch at the end of the novel, he feels no guilt, only love, and he remains with
the convict even after the police arrive to take him away. Throughout the novel,
symbols of justice, such as prisons and police, serve as reminders of the questions
of conscience that plague Pip: just as social class provides an external standard of
value irrespective of a person’s inner worth, the law provides an external
standard of moral behavior irrespective of a person’s inner feelings. Pip’s
wholehearted commitment to helping Magwitch escape the law in the last section
of the novel contrasts powerfully with his childhood fear of police and shows that,
though he continues to be very hard on his own shortcomings, Pip has moved
closer to a reliance on his own inner conscience—which is the only way, as Joe
and Biddy show, that a character can truly be “innocent.”

Plot
From the master of character-based stories, is born yet another memorable
character – Pip. Pip is a young orphan who lives with his sister and his sister’s
husband, whom we meet as he is sitting on his parent’s grave one night. Suddenly
he comes face to face with an escaped convict, who asks him for food. Pip does as
he is asked, but the police find the convict anyway. However, this fearsome man
protects Pip by saying that he has stolen the items himself.
One day, Pip goes to the Satis House, which is the estate of Miss Havisham, a
wealthy dowager, along with his Uncle Pumblechook.
Their host is quite an eccentric (which makes her a truly compelling character) –
she keeps the clocks in her house all stopped at a specific time, and constantly
wears her old wedding dress in all of the occasions. During his visit to this woman,
Pip meets Estella, a beautiful young lady of a pompous nature, and falls in love
with her. As a result, he starts paying Miss Havisham regular visits. He starts
hoping and dreaming about a moment when he becomes rich enough to be
considered as a marriage prospect for Estella, but his hopes are shattered when
Miss Havisham offers him to become a common laborer in her business.
Nevertheless, he accepts. Under her guidance and his brother-in-law, he learns
how to become a blacksmith. Pip does not have an easy time during his
apprenticeship, but one day he receives the news that a mysterious benefactor
has left him with a great fortune, and he must go to London to begin learning how
to become a gentleman. Pip suspects no one else but Miss Havisham, and he
thinks that she left him a fortune so she could marry him off to Estella. So, he
moves to London with his hopes up. There, while walking the path to becoming a
gentleman, him and his friend Herbert whom he befriends after his arrival in
London, lead a pretty undisciplined life. They enjoy Pip’s fortune and even starts
mounting debts.
A few years of such a life go by, until one night when a familiar man enters Pip’s
room. Remember the convict from the very beginning of the book, who seemed
unimportant to the story? Well, it turns out, he is the crucial character that
moved Pip’s life in the way it was transformed: he, and not Miss Havisham, is the
benefactor that left him with the fortune. He tells him how the boy’s kindness
when he was in need moved him, and that he decided to make it his life’s purpose
to make a gentleman out of that boy. That is why he explains, he went to
Australia and made a fortune which he could give to him. Pip is not happy about
the news, but he now feels morally obliged to help the convict (who by the name
is called Magwitch) to escape the authorities that are after him in London. As the
story progresses, we learn many surprising truths about the story, such as that
Estella is Magwitch’s daughter, who was raised by Miss Havisham to be a
heartbreaker – Miss Havisham had her heartbroken as she was left at the altar,
and decided to take revenge on men, through Estella.
Pip realizes he has only been a toy in Miss Havisham’s hands, and that she only
used him so Estella could practice her seduction skills on him.
As the days pass, Pip becomes fond of Magwitch with whom he spends most of
the time with. He plans an escape for him, but before it happens, Estella marries a
wealthy man, and Miss Havisham begs for his forgiveness. He finds kindness in his
heart and forgives her. However, destiny is not as good with her as Pip is. But in
this book destiny is not good to anyone, it seems: as Pip and Magwitch go through
with Magwitch’s escape, they are confronted by several characters and
circumstances that make it impossible for them to carry out the plan. Magwitch is
caught and sentenced to death, and Pip loses all of his fortunes.
After the turn of fate, Pip decides to go abroad with his friend Herbert and gets
employment in the mercantile trade. Years pass by before he comes back to
London. During his return, he meets Estella, who tells him about her unhappy
marriage, with her husband who treated her poorly but has passed away. Pip
notices that Estella is no longer the cruel and cold woman he once knew, and he
leaves the garden in which he met with her, with her hand in his.