Great Expectations is an account of a
young boy’s moral education. A study in human weakness, it depicts the rise in
social status of the seven-year-old orphan Pip, the novel’s narrator and chief
character and a kind of Everyman. On Christmas Eve in a cemetery, Pip meets
Abel Magwitch, an escaped convict who makes him steal some food and a file from
the forge where he lives with his sister and her husband, Joe Gargery, a
blacksmith. Shortly thereafter, Pip is hired by a wealthy old woman named Miss
Havisham to be a playmate for her beautiful adopted daughter, Estella.
Jilted years ago on her
wedding day, Miss Havisham is a recluse. She lives in a world of the past at
desolate Satis House, a home whose name means “enough”; the ancestor who built
it believed that whoever lived there could never want more. During his frequent
visits to Miss Havisham’s home, Pip begins to believe erroneously that her
fortune will make him a gentleman, will bring him the love of Estella, and will
provide him with prosperity. These are his great expectations.
Miss Havisham, however,
has no hopes for happiness and no intention of leaving a legacy of happiness to
anyone. Rather, she is a schemer who enjoys making nearly everyone around her
miserable. She teaches Estella to hate men, exploits Pip, and vexes her
ever-hopeful relatives. Although Pip eventually receives money from another
source, Estella continues to scorn him and to be as coldly distant as a star.
What Miss Havisham does is turn Estella and Pip into snobs.
In London, Pip matures
while dealing with many strange situations. From Mr. Jaggers, a criminal lawyer
who becomes his guardian, Pip discovers that he does indeed have a benefactor
and great expectations. Jaggers gives Pip some money, and his clerk John
Wemmick helps him. Pip takes up lodgings with Herbert Pocket, a relative of
Miss Havisham from whom he learns her story and the manners of a gentleman.
Soon, Pip feels superior to others, neglects his friends back home, and falls
into debt. Proud and selfish, he feels ashamed to have the patient and polite
but unpolished Joe Gargery visit him. When Magwitch drops by unexpectedly, Pip
finds out that he is his benefactor. The felon tells him that the money he has
been sending to Jaggers is part of a fortune he has made as a sheep farmer in
Australia. Although aghast, Pip resolves to protect the escaped convict.
As Pip learns more
about Magwitch, he begins to redeem himself. He finds out that Molly, Jaggers’
housekeeper, was Magwitch’s lover. Wemmick tells him that Molly strangled a
rival in a fit of jealousy over Magwitch. Jaggers gained her release, and she
has been working for him since then. Estella, ironically, is the daughter of
Molly and Magwitch—not the genteel maiden of Pip’s fantasies. During one of
Pip’s visits to Satis House, Miss Havisham promises to procure nine hundred
pounds for Pip so that he can purchase a business partnership for Pocket at
Clarriker’s. Shortly thereafter, Miss Havisham dies in a fire at Satis House.
With his act of generosity toward Herbert and an excursion to smuggle Magwitch
out of England, Pip overcomes his selfishness. The latter, however, is
unsuccessful. Wounded in a scuffle with the convict Compeyson, Miss Havisham’s
former lover and his former partner in crime, Magwitch is captured and taken to
a prison infirmary. Pip visits the dying convict there and tells him that he
has a beautiful daughter, a lady whom Pip loves. He is referring to Estella.
Although she does not
care for him, Estella marries a sulky oaf named Bentley Drummle. When he
returns from an eight-year sojourn in India, Pip hears that Drummle has died
from an accident involving the ill-treatment of a horse and that Estella has
remarried a Shropshire doctor with whom she is living prosperously on the
fortune that she inherited from Miss Havisham. One day, Pip sees Estella in
Piccadilly. Her carriage stops and the two talk briefly, shake hands, and part.
The novel originally ends with Pip estranged from all who were associated with
his great expectations.
When Great Expectations was published in book form, Dickens
rewrote the ending, offering some hope for his main character. Pip visits Satis
House and finds Estella still a widow; she is kinder to him, and Pip again
envisions a future together.
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