GREAT EXPECTATIONS

SUMMARY
by: Charles Dickens

SUMMARY CHARACTERS MAIN IDEAS QUOTES FURTHER STUDY WRITIN

Plot Overview

Pip, a young orphan living with his sister and her husband in the marshes of
Kent, sits in a cemetery one evening looking at his parents’ tombstones.
Suddenly, an escaped convict springs up from behind a tombstone, grabs Pip,
and orders him to bring him food and a file for his leg irons. Pip obeys, but the
fearsome convict is soon captured anyway. The convict protects Pip by
claiming to have stolen the items himself.

One day Pip is taken by his Uncle Pumblechook to play at Satis House, the
home of the wealthy dowager Miss Havisham, who is extremely eccentric: she
wears an old wedding dress everywhere she goes and keeps all the clocks in
her house stopped at the same time. During his visit, he meets a beautiful
young girl named Estella, who treats him coldly and contemptuously.
Nevertheless, he falls in love with her and dreams of becoming a wealthy
gentleman so that he might be worthy of her. He even hopes that Miss
Havisham intends to make him a gentleman and marry him to Estella, but his
hopes are dashed when, after months of regular visits to Satis House, Miss
Havisham decides to help him become a common laborer in his family’s
business.

With Miss Havisham’s guidance, Pip is apprenticed to his brother-in-law, Joe,

who is the village blacksmith. Pip works in the forge unhappily, struggling to
better his education with the help of the plain, kind Biddy and encountering
Joe’s malicious day laborer, Orlick. One night, after an altercation with Orlick,
Pip’s sister, known as Mrs. Joe, is viciously attacked and becomes a mute
invalid. From her signals, Pip suspects that Orlick was responsible for the
attack.

One day a lawyer named Jaggers appears with strange news: a secret
benefactor has given Pip a large fortune, and Pip must come to London
immediately to begin his education as a gentleman. Pip happily assumes that
his previous hopes have come true—that Miss Havisham is his secret
benefactor and that the old woman intends for him to marry Estella.

In London, Pip befriends a young gentleman named Herbert Pocket and

Jaggers’s law clerk, Wemmick. He expresses disdain for his former friends and
loved ones, especially Joe, but he continues to pine after Estella. He furthers
his education by studying with the tutor Matthew Pocket, Herbert’s father.
Herbert himself helps Pip learn how to act like a gentleman. When Pip turns
twenty-one and begins to receive an income from his fortune, he will secretly
help Herbert buy his way into the business he has chosen for himself. But for
now, Herbert and Pip lead a fairly undisciplined life in London, enjoying
themselves and running up debts. Orlick reappears in Pip’s life, employed as
Miss Havisham’s porter, but is promptly fired by Jaggers after Pip reveals
Orlick’s unsavory past. Mrs. Joe dies, and Pip goes home for the funeral, feeling
tremendous grief and remorse. Several years go by, until one night a familiar
figure barges into Pip’s room—the convict, Magwitch, who stuns Pip by
announcing that he, not Miss Havisham, is the source of Pip’s fortune. He tells
Pip that he was so moved by Pip’s boyhood kindness that he dedicated his life
to making Pip a gentleman, and he made a fortune in Australia for that very
purpose.

Pip is appalled, but he feels morally bound to help Magwitch escape London,
as the convict is pursued both by the police and by Compeyson, his former
partner in crime. A complicated mystery begins to fall into place when Pip
discovers that Compeyson was the man who abandoned Miss Havisham at the
altar and that Estella is Magwitch’s daughter. Miss Havisham has raised her to
break men’s hearts, as revenge for the pain her own broken heart caused her.
Pip was merely a boy for the young Estella to practice on; Miss Havisham
delighted in Estella’s ability to toy with his affections.
As the weeks pass, Pip sees the good in Magwitch and begins to care for him
deeply. Before Magwitch’s escape attempt, Estella marries an upper-class lout
named Bentley Drummle. Pip makes a visit to Satis House, where Miss
Havisham begs his forgiveness for the way she has treated him in the past, and
he forgives her. Later that day, when she bends over the fireplace, her clothing
catches fire and she goes up in flames. She survives but becomes an invalid. In
her final days, she will continue to repent for her misdeeds and to plead for
Pip’s forgiveness.

The time comes for Pip and his friends to spirit Magwitch away from London.
Just before the escape attempt, Pip is called to a shadowy meeting in the
marshes, where he encounters the vengeful, evil Orlick. Orlick is on the verge
of killing Pip when Herbert arrives with a group of friends and saves Pip’s life.
Pip and Herbert hurry back to effect Magwitch’s escape. They try to sneak
Magwitch down the river on a rowboat, but they are discovered by the police,
who Compeyson tipped off. Magwitch and Compeyson fight in the river, and
Compeyson is drowned. Magwitch is sentenced to death, and Pip loses his
fortune. Magwitch feels that his sentence is God’s forgiveness and dies at
peace. Pip falls ill; Joe comes to London to care for him, and they are
reconciled. Joe gives him the news from home: Orlick, after robbing
Pumblechook, is now in jail; Miss Havisham has died and left most of her
fortune to the Pockets; Biddy has taught Joe how to read and write. After Joe
leaves, Pip decides to rush home after him and marry Biddy, but when he
arrives there he discovers that she and Joe have already married.

Pip decides to go abroad with Herbert to work in the mercantile trade.

Returning many years later, he encounters Estella in the ruined garden at Satis
House. Drummle, her husband, treated her badly, but he is now dead. Pip finds
that Estella’s coldness and cruelty have been replaced by a sad kindness, and
the two leave the garden hand in hand, Pip believing that they will never part
again. (Note: Dickens’s original ending to Great Expectations differed from the
one described in this summary. The final Summary and Analysis section of this
SparkNote provides a description of the first ending and explains why Dickens
rewrote it.)
 NEXT

CHAPTERS 1–3

More Help

Character List
CHARACTERS

Pip: Character Analysis

CHARACTERS

Quotes by Theme
QUOTES

Themes
MAIN IDEAS

Review Quiz
FURTHER STUDY

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