Charles Dickens (1812 – 1870)

Great Expectations first published in serial form in All the Year Round (December 1,

1860 – August 3, 1861).

THE PERIODICAL MARKETPLACE AT MID-CENTURY

Literary genres grow out of the concrete determinacy of the particular social and

historical conditions in which they are published.

DEVELOPMENT OF PERIODICAL LITERATURE AS A CONSQUENCE OF

- Growth in the cloth trade

- Developments in printing and paper-trade.

- Leisure time

CONTEXT

- Set in early Victorian England.

- Industrial Revolution.

- Capitalists and manufacturers amassing huge fortunes.

- Class no longer entirely dependent on the circumstances of one’s birth.

- London vs rural areas.

- Manners.

GENERAL INFORMATION

Type of work – Novel

Genres – Bildungsroman, social criticism, autobiographical fiction.

Time and place written – London, 1860-1861.

Date of first publication – Published serially in England from December 1860 to August

1861, published in book form in England and America in 1861.

Narrator – Pip

Setting – Mid-nineteenth century (Christmas eve 1812 – winter 1840)

Place – Kent and London, England.

13th novel written by Dickens

Volume One:

OPENING SCENE – a very dramatic scene where Dickens puts a little bit of comedy.

CHAPTER 2

- Pip’s childhood background: he lives with her sister 20 years her senior, Joe and

the forge.

- Physical domestic abuse.

- No affection.

- We never know the real name of the sister, we only know her by Mrs. Joe.

- Gender roles reversal, we should expect the man to be the violent but in this case

is the woman.

- Mrs. Joe uses a cane to beat Pip and Joe, called Tickler.

- Pip feels terror; he’s scared because of the convict, because he has to steal

things, and because he can’t tell nobody.

CHAPTER 4

- Pip has some guilty feelings

- Mrs Joe’s “cross temper” = natural state

- The Xmas dinner

- Some soldiers with a pair of handcuffs come to their place.

CHAPTER 5

- The forge is a symbol in the novel.

- Magwitch protects Pip

Quote 22: My convict never looked at me, except that once. While we stood in the hut,

he stood before the fire looking thoughtfully at it, or putting up his feet by turns upon

the hob, and looking thoughtfully at them as if he pitied them for their recent

adventures. Suddenly, he turned to the sergeant, and remarked,— “I wish to say

something respecting this escape. It may prevent some persons laying under suspicion

alonger me.” “You can say what you like,” returned the sergeant, standing coolly

looking at him with his arms folded, “but you have no call to say it here. You’ll have

opportunity enough to say about it, and hear about it, before it’s done with, you know.”

“I know, but this is another pint, a separate matter. A man can’t starve; at least I can’t. I

took some wittles, up at the willage over yonder,—where the church stands a’most out

on the marshes.” “You mean stole,” said the sergeant. “And I’ll tell you where from.

From the blacksmith’s.” “Halloa!” said the sergeant, staring at Joe. “Halloa, Pip!” said

Joe, staring at me. “It was some broken wittles—that’s what it was—and a dram of

liquor, and a pie.” “Have you happened to miss such an article as a pie, blacksmith?”

asked the sergeant, confidentially. “My wife did, at the very moment when you came in.

Don’t you know, Pip?” “So,” said my convict, turning his eyes on Joe in a moody

manner, and without the least glance at me,—“so you’re the blacksmith, are you? Than

I’m sorry to say, I’ve eat your pie.” “God knows you’re welcome to it,—so far as it was

ever mine,” returned Joe, with a saving remembrance of Mrs. Joe. “We don’t know

what you have done, but we wouldn’t have you starved to death for it, poor miserable

fellow-creatur.—Would us, Pip?”

- And he goes back to the prison ship.

CHAPTER 7
 - We meet Biddy

- Learing to read + write

- We discover that Joe is illiterate

- Joe explains about his family. A story of violence and humble origins.

- Pip leaves his house with Mr Pumblechook and the following day will go to

Miss Havisham’s house. His step towards loss of innocence.

CHAPTER 8

- We meet Miss Havisham, Stella and Satis House.

- Pip is made aware of class distinctions

- Miss Havisham is described as dressed in white like if time has stop, she has

“sick fancies” and is delighted thar Pip likes Stella

CHAPYER 9

- Pip makes up a narrative of what happened at Satis House.

CHAPTER 12

- Pip keeps visiting Miss Havisham for some more months.

- Self-justification + pressure of the environment upon the individual

- Pip feels ashamed of his low origins.

- Joe goes with Pip to Satis House

- Pip is not expected to return to Miss Havisham’s

- Celebration of Pip’s apprenticeship as a forger, he’s disappointed

The forge is a symbol of class, it represents Pip’s low origins.

CHAPTER 15

- Pip teaches Joe to read but he has difficulties to learn

- In feeling ashamed of Joe, Pip is also feeling ashamed of his own past.

- Orlick is a worker in Joe’s forge and treats Pip cruelly

- Pip visits Satis house but Estella has left

- Mrs Joe is attacked and becomes and invalid, believe to been Orlick the

reponsible

CHAPTER 16

- Biddy comes live with them and nurses Mrs Joe

- Pip wants to become a gentleman partly on Estella’s account

CHAPTER 18

- Jaggers – lawyer

- Pip’s sudden inheritance, will become a gentleman and will move to London

- Pip believes his benefactor is Miss Havisham, his tutor will be Miss Havisham’s

cousin, Matthew Pocket

Volume two – change in setting. Pip is in London

CHAPTER 20
 - Oppressive atmosphere + reference to Newgate Prison

- Jaggers is shown as a powerful man

CHAPTER 21

- We meet Herbert Pocket, he was the young pale boy that Pip fought in Miss

Havisham’s house.

- Two examples of families that not work according to the expectations

CHAPTER 22

- Herbert tells Mis Havisham story

- Mrs Havishman is abandoned by his fiancé in her wedding day

- Concept of gentleman

But that he was not to be, without ignorance or prejudice, mistaken for a gentleman, my

father most strongly asseverates; because it is a principle of his that no man who was

not a true gentleman at heart ever was, since the world began, a true gentleman in

manner.

CHAPTER 27

- Letter from Biddy, Jow will visit Pip in London

- His feelings about the visit

I received this letter by the post on Monday morning, and therefore its appointment was

for next day. Let me confess exactly with what feelings I looked forward to Joe’s

coming. Not with pleasure, though I was bound to him by so many ties; no; with
considerable disturbance, some mortification, and a keen sense of incongruity. If I could

have kept him away by paying money, I certainly would have paid money. My greatest

reassurance was that he was coming to Barnard’s Inn, not to Hammersmith, and

consequently would not fall in Bentley Drummle’s way. I had little objection to his

being seen by Herbert or his father, for both of whom I had a respect; but I had the

sharpest sensitiveness as to his being seen by Drummle, whom I held in contempt. So,

throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the

sake of the people whom we most despise.

- Joe calls Pip “sir”

- Joe had visited Miss Havisham + learnt that Estella was back and wanted to see

Pip.

- Joe’s parting speech. He regains his position. Joe’s speech of class

“Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings welded together, as I may say,

and one man’s a blacksmith, and one’s a whitesmith, and one’s a goldsmith, and one’s a

coppersmith. Diwisions among such must come, and must be met as they come. If

there’s been any fault at all to-day, it’s mine. You and me is not two figures to be

together in London; nor yet anywheres else but what is private, and beknown, and

understood among friends. It ain’t that I am proud, but that I want to be right, as you

shall never see me no more in these clothes. I’m wrong in these clothes. I’m wrong out

of the forge, the kitchen, or off th’ meshes. You won’t find half so much fault in me if

you think of me in my forge dress, with my hammer in my hand, or even my pipe. You

won’t find half so much fault in me if, supposing as you should ever wish to see me,

you come and put your head in at the forge window and see Joe the blacksmith, there, at

the old anvil, in the old burnt apron, sticking to the old work. I’m awful dull, but I hope
I’ve beat out something nigh the rights of this at last. And so GOD bless you, dear old

Pip, old chap, GOD bless you!”

- He becomes a truly Christian man

CHAPTER 28

- Pip travels back home

- Social underworld – Pip meets two convicts on the coach. Pip feels horrified at

their proximity

- To the born gentleman like Herbert the convicts in their manacled state are a

species apart, less human. Yet Pip has reason to know that they are human,

- Pip CAN feel compassion for them.

CHAPTER 29

- On the theme of Estella, Herbert presents a down to earth position. Dickens uses

him to laugh at Pip’s fancy for the girl

- Estella is now a beautiful young woman

- Miss Havishman’s insistence on Pip loving Estella. Miss Havishman’s concept

of love.

CHAPTER 32

- Estella’s note to Pip. They’ll meet in London

- Estella’s arrogance vs. Pip’s sweet words of love.

“I live quite pleasantly there; at least—” It appeared to me that I was losing a

chance. “At least?” repeated Estella. “As pleasantly as I could anywhere, away

from you.” “You silly boy,” said Estella, quite composedly, “how can you talk such

nonsense?

CHAPTER 34

- pip’s consideration of his expectations, this had set him apart from Joe and

Biddy

- his sister dies

CHAPTER 35

- going home for funeral

- biddy will work now as a school teacher. Independent woman, with resources.

CHAPTER 36

- pip’s coming of age 21 years old = adulthood

- meeting with jaggers, pip will get 500 pounds per year

CHAPTER 37

- materialization of Pip’a plan with Herbert: Pip anonymously buys the

partnership of Herbert with a merchant.

CHAPTER 38

- pip spends a lot of time with Estella at Mrs Brandley’s house at Richmond. He is

ill-treated by Estella. Manipulative character of the young woman as MIss

Havishman indicated.

- pip and estella visit satis house.

- estella in opposition to miss havishman. Estella has grown into a cold,

insensitive woman, as miss havishman taught her. Miss Havisham is the victim

of her own “creature”

- drummle courting estella

- estella confesses she doesn’t deceive pip as she does with all her other suitors.

CHAPTER 39

- pip is 23 years old

- notice the weather: preparation for the convict’s reappearance

- Juxtaposition of the convict's gratitude and happiness in his "production" to

Pip's repugnance at finding out the real source of his luck. It is Magwitch's pride

vs. Pip's shame (p.316). Notice how Magwitch shares Pip's misconception that

the qualities of a gentleman lie in surface appearances.

IRONY on the Victorian Age: the convict-slave becomes the maker of gentleman

- magwitch must be hidden. he has escaped

- The volume closes with Pip's realization about the source of his income and

consequent loss of innocence: Pip discovers: Miss Havisham was not his

benefactor, Estella will not marry him.

- terrible bad weather to conclude the second stage of pip’s expectations

volume three

- the volume comes to conclusions. Discovery of magwitch the man, pip grows to

maturity and the ending.

CHAPTER 40

- pip’s relationship to Magwitch

- Discovery of the convict’s identity. Name: Abel Magwitch

CHAPTER 41

- Herbert, the born gentleman in the novel, of course feels like Pip towards

Magwitch at first (gentleman detachment from the underworld that the convict

represents). However, since Herbert is another true gentleman at heart, his

attitude towards Magwitch will shift from a reaction towards what he represents

(the convict - the outcast) to a reaction towards Magwitch the man.

- pip will not accept any more money from maghwitch and will send him far from

england.

CHAPTER 42

- introduction to magwitcht the man: his own story - the convict as a victim of

circumstances. Life of proverty. Criminality froma young age.

- Compeyson = MIss Havishman’s lover

- Compeyson abandoned her on their wedding day.

CHAPTER 44

- pip confronts miss havishman for having kept his idea that she was his

benefactor

- pip declares his love for estella

- estella’s engagement with drummie

CHAPTER 47

- pip gets more and more in debt to the point that he is going to be arrested for it.

- pip realises molly, jagger’s housekeeper is estella’s mother

CHAPTER 49

- pip’s true gentleman emerges: he is kind to miss havushman who feels guilty for

having pushed estella to break pip’s heart

- pip imagines miss havishman hanging to a beam. miss havishman burning: fire.

CHAPTER 50

- pip also got injured in the fire, trying to save miss havishman. herbert takes care

of him

- pip sure that ,agwitch is estella’s father.

- jagger confirms pip’s suppositions about magwitch and estella. estella’s origins

vs. estella’s appearance as a high class young lady

- the police surprises them when they are on the boat helping magwitch to escape.

compeyson is with them

- pip will lose his fortune after magwitch’s arrest

 - magwitch is found guilty. Sentenced to death

- joe nurses pip when he is sick

- biddy marries joe

- pip leaves england to work with herbert

- 11 years later pip and estella visit satis house, there is nothing left, she confesses

that her husband is dead and that had a really hard life with him.

PUBLISHED ENDING/SECOND ENDING

- estella and pip leave together holding hands and pip “saw the shadow of no

parting from her”

THE ORIGINAL ENDING

- in london, estella and pip meet after exchanging a few words and then part.