„What is detestable in a pig, is more detestable in a boy.“ – Or: How to Become a Gentleman

Unfortunately, monotheistic religions, for some reason or other, seem to be quite reluctant when it comes to giving the pig its due, irrespective of all the crunchy potential of this bountiful creature in the form of fried bacon or roast pork. Mr. Wopsle, to whom we are indebted for the quotation above, in this vein, deems it quite appropriate to ponder on the dangers of a young boy’s being pampered and degenerating towards ingratitude and gross sensuality, while he himself is actually partaking of a dish of fine hog roast, and Uncle Pumblechook, this servile hypocrite, dutifully backs him up – in both actions. This Christmas dinner is one of the finest comic scenes in Charles Dickens’s novel “Great Expectations” (1861).

Dickens was already a well-established author and editor at the time of writing this novel, and for all his fame and popularity likewise had experienced some fears of his old star being about to wane, what with Thackery’s appealing to the genteel readers and with social problems also being treated by the Brontës, George Eliot and Mrs. Gaskell. The happy-go-lucky days of Pickwick, Nickleby and Little Nell were long over. When sales of Dickens’s magazine “All the Year Round” were dropping alarmingly, due to the public’s lack of interest in the serialization of a novel by Charles Lever, the Inimitable himself stepped into the breach with “Great Expectations”, a novel that showed a new Dickensian quality – that of drawing life-like, full-dimensional characters instead of mere caricatures.

The story centres around the orphan boy Pip, who grows up in his virago sister’s household on the marshes near a town that is easily recognizable as Rochester. One day, this young boy is threatened into helping an escaped convict, and from this day on his existence changes, which is, first of all, noticeable in his awakening sense of guilt. Some time later, he is taken to the secluded place of Miss Havisham, a bitter old lady who was jilted in her youth and who raises her beautiful ward, Estella, in the spirit of taking revenge on the male sex by making her break everybody’s heart. Pip soon falls in love with this cruel and haughty girl. When he suddenly learns that he has an unknown benefactor and that he is to move to London and become a gentleman, the case is clear to him: Miss Havisham must have singled him out to become a worthy husband for Estella. Very quickly, Pip’s character changes, and soon he thinks himself above the company of Joe Gargery, a simple blacksmith and his foster-father, and Biddy, the only childhood friends he had. One day, however, the truth about his benefactor’s identity is disclosed, and all of a sudden he finds himself in a whirlwind of remorse, danger and guilt.

Although in some respects “Great Expectations” is similar to “David Copperfield”, I would consider this work of fiction as one of the Inimitable’s finest achievements. There is a lot of humour, especially in the first third of the book, which thrives on Dickens’s childhood memories, and it is peopled with all sorts of memorable caricatures, such as brazen Uncle Pumblechook, hapless Mr. Wopsle, the walnut-shell faced Sarah Pocket, and the audacious Trabb’s boy. Yet, there are also more complex characters: Miss Havisham may be a freak, but behind the façade of madness there is deep suffering; Estella may be cool and cold-hearted, but she is the victim of a cruel education; Mr. Jaggers, the seemingly unfeeling lawyer, may be a jaundiced man, but not altogether an evil one; there may be a business-like Wemmick, but there is also a private-life one, and let’s not forget about the touching death scene of Mrs. Joe Gargery, as recounted by Biddy. And there is Pip, the first-person narrator, who is warped by his promising prospects, and who has to re-learn how to behave with decency and kindness.

This, to me, seems to be the major idea of “Great Expectations”: It does not take a title, nor money, nor just manners to make a gentleman – as can be seen from the example of Pip’s rival for Estella, Bentley Drummle, who actually has no manners, because he has no heart –, but it takes the potential for affection, sympathy, and friendship to entitle you to this epithet. Pip’s moral rise becomes most obvious in his decision to provide for his friend Herbert and in his change of feelings for his unexpected benefactor.

Unlike “A Tale of Two Cities”, this brilliant tale is fired with all the sparks of Dickens’s unique imagination, which is even capable of bringing to life the casts of the faces of two convicts that serve as sinister ornaments in Jaggers’s London offices and of giving a waterside man “a slushy voice, as if much mud had washed into his throat”.

All in all, “Great Expectations” shows Dickens at his best, and may be recommended as a good first-read to anyone interested in getting to know this non-pareil author.

”I saw that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress, and like the flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes. I saw that the dress had been put upon the rounded figure of a young woman, and that the figure upon which it now hung loose had shrunk to skin and bone.”

n  n
How do you do Miss Havisham? She makes many lists of the twenty greatest characters from Dicken’s novels.

I hadn’t ever met Miss Havisham officially, although I knew of her. I have heard of her circumstances, discussed her in English Literature classes, and even referenced her in a paper. She is a tragic figure tinged with true insanity; and yet, someone in complete control of her faculties when it comes to talking about HER money. She was jilted at the altar and like a figure from mythology she is suspended in time. She wears her tattered wedding dress every day and sits among the decaying ruins of her wedding feast.

We meet our hero Pip when in an act of charity born more of fear than goodwill he provides assistance to a self-liberated convict named Abel Magwitch. It was a rather imprudent thing to do similar to one of us picking up a hitchhiker in an orange jumpsuit just after passing a sign that says Hitchhikers in this area may be escaped inmates. Little does he know, but this act of kindness will have a long term impact on his life.

n  n
Pip and the Convict.

Pip is being raised by his sister, an unhappy woman who expresses her misery with harsh words and vigorous smacks. ”Tickler was a wax-ended piece of cane, worn smooth by collision with my tickled frame.” She also browbeats her burly blacksmith husband Joe into submission. Mr Pumblechook, Joe’s Uncle, is always praising the sister for doing her proper duty by Pip. "Boy, be forever grateful to all friends, but especially unto them which brought you up by hand!” In other words she didn’t spare the rod or the child. Mr. Pumblechook is one of those annoying people who is always trying to gain credit for anyone’s good fortune. He intimates that he was the puppet master pulling the strings that allowed that good fortune to find a proper home. Later when Pip finds himself elevated to gentleman’s status Pumblechook is quick to try and garner credit for brokering the deal.

Things become interesting for Pip when is asked to be a play companion of Miss Havisham’s adopted daughter Estella. The girl is being trained to be the architect of Miss Havisham’s revenge...on all men. She is the brutal combination of spoiled, beautiful, and heartless. She wants Pip to fall in love with her to provide a training ground for exactly how to keep a man in love with her and at the same time treat him with the proper amount of disdain.

As Pip becomes more ensnared in Estella’s beauty Miss Havisham is spurring him on.

"Love her, love her, love her! If she favors you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces,— and as it gets older and stronger it will tear deeper,— love her, love her, love her!" Never had I seen such passionate.

n  n
Estella, the weapon of man’s destruction, walking with Pip.

Pip is fully aware of the dangers of falling in love with Estella, but it is almost impossible to control the heart when it begins to beat faster. ”Her contempt for me was so strong, that it became infectious, and I caught it.” His hopes, almost completely dashed that he will ever have a legitimate opportunity to woo Estella properly are buoyed by the knowledge of a benefactor willing to finance his rise to gentleman status. No chance suddenly becomes a slim chance.

Pip is not to know where these great expectations are coming from, but he assumes it is Miss Havisham as part of her demented plans for exacting revenge by using Estella to break his heart. He is willing to be the patsy for her plans because some part of him believes he can turn the tide of Estella’s heart if he can find one beating in her chest.

"You must know," said Estella, condescending to me as a brilliant and beautiful woman might, "that I have no heart,— if that has anything to do with my memory."

The book is of course filled with Dickensonian descriptions of the bleaker side of Victorian society.

”We entered this haven through a wicket-gate, and were disgorged by an introductory passage into a melancholy little square that looked to me like a flat burying-ground. I thought it had the most dismal trees in it, and the most dismal sparrows, and the most dismal cats, and the most dismal houses ( in number half a dozen or so), that I had ever seen.”

As I was reading the book it felt like the plot suddenly sped up from a leisurely world building pace that permeates most Dickens novels to the final laps of an Indy 500 race. I was not surprised to discover that Dickens had intended this novel to be twice as long, but due to contractual obligations with the serialization of the novel Dickens found himself in a quandary. He had a much larger story percolating in his head, but simply out of room to print it. Nothing drives a reader crazier than knowing that this larger concept was realized, but never committed to paper.

n  n
The rest of Great Expectations exists only in the lost dreams of Dickens.

Pip is a willing victim; and therefore, not a victim because he fully realized that Miss Havisham was barking mad, and that Estella had been brainwashed into being a sword of vengeance. He was willing to risk having his heart wrenched from his body and dashed into the sea for a chance that Estella would recognize that happiness could be obtained if she would only forsake her training.

Pip like most young men of means spent more than his stipend allowed and as debts mount he is more and more anxious to learn of his benefactor’s intentions. It will not be what he expects and provides a nice twist to the novel. There are blackguards, adventures, near death experiences, swindlers, agitations both real and imagined, and descriptions that make the reader savor the immersion in the black soot and blacker hearts of Victorian society. Better late than never, but I now have more than a nodding acquaintance with Miss Havisham, Pip, and the supporting cast. They will continue to live in my imagination for the rest of my life.

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Great Expectations, Charles Dickens' 1860 first person narration centers on the formation and social development of the inimical English character Pip.

Set in and around London in the early 1800s, Dickens uses vivid imagery and his usual genius at characterization to build a story that has become one of English languages greatest and most recognized stories.

As always in a Dickens’ novel, his brilliant cast of intriguing characters takes center stage as the reader comes to know a parade of literary gems. Perhaps the most intriguing is the escaped convict, Abel Magwitch, a complex man who Dickens brings to understandable life. Another classic portrayal is that of the jurist Mr. Jaggers, a lawyer who no doubt has become the template for a long list of legal caricatures since.

Two words: Miss Havisham.

Typical Dickensian themes such as wealth and poverty, isolation and salvation, and the struggles between good over evil come to life in this very entertaining story.

** 2018 - So many great memories of this wonderful book and like all of Dickens' stories, so many great characters. Pip, Magwich, Estella and of course Jaggers (wonder how he dances? Does he have moves?) But without a doubt the one who stands out most to me is that psychological train wreck that is Miss Havisham. Well worth the time in reading, probably good enough for a re-read.

Great expectation was my first book of Dickens. Years ago when I read it, I could not possibly understand its importance from the perspective of social injustice and class conflict of that time. I remembered that initial self-introduction of a young boy, where he talked about his family names and discussed why he preferred himself to be called as Pip and not Philip.

I still had a fresh picture of how one day suddenly Pip encountered that fearful man, who was soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and stung by nettles. Who limped, shivered, glared and growled and cried in a terrible voice...

“Keep still, You little devil, or I’ll cut your throat!”

Another image that was still persisting in my mind was that of Miss Havisham, who lived in a dilapidated house. Where in a dreary room, which was faintly lighted by candles, speckled legged spiders running home on that table cloth darkened with black fungus, mice rattling behind the panels, and she with a hand upon Pip’s shoulder, leaning on her crutch headed stick, pointing to that big table saying …

“This is where I will be laid when I am dead. They shall come and look me here.”

I reread it, to recall what else had happened in Pip’s life, which I had partially forgotten. This time I could feel this dramatic work of Dickens with some maturity and totality. I could feel the constant inner struggle of Pip with his own conscience. Pip was ambitious and he constantly tried to become a gentleman. His purpose was to impress a young noble girl, Estella.

In fact, I grew with this story this time; I understood and reckoned many new themes. Themes of crime, class conflict, ambition, and guilt were more clearly comprehended by me.

The imagery of Dickens has created some eternal and timeless characters in this book. I truly adored and approved this story yet again.

It just sprawled and quivered into me!

n   “I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so, the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.” n

A long tale about getting friend-zoned.

Update June, 2019: One of my favorite bookish podcasts, Backlisted, recently featured a discussion of Great Expectations where they shared their insights and heaped lots of love on this Dickens classic. Definitely worth a listen if you love Dickens! https://www.backlisted.fm/episodes/90...

I’m late to the party in reading Dickens. Everyone I’ve told that I’m reading Great Expectations said they hated having to read Dickens in school. I can empathize with that given how long and dense this book is – I thought it was never going to get to the end - but, I’m glad I’ve come to Dickens later in my own life because I love his storytelling and writing!

When we meet our hero, Philip Pirrup, or Pip as we will know him, he is a young boy who lost his parents and is being raised in very meager circumstances by his (mean) sister and her (caring, simple) husband Joe Gargary, the local blacksmith. He freely roams the eerie marshes that surround their home and small town. One day young Pip gets an invitation to visit reclusive Miss Havisham to see if he can be a companion to her. When he approaches her falling down mansion, I felt like I was in the audience of a midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, yelling at him “Nooooo! Turn Back!”. Of course, he doesn’t and he meets one of the most iconic literary characters ever, she who is stuck in time, rotting away from bitterness after being stood up at her wedding many years in the past. He also meets Estella, a young ward of Miss Havisham, who becomes the love of Pip’s life. But will Pip become the love of Estella’s life? Ah, the first of many questions he will be seeking answers for in Great Expectations. At Miss Havisham’s he clearly sees that he is a “common and course” uneducated boy, which simultaneously makes him feel bad and inspires him to greater things.

Fast forward a few years. He has become apprenticed to Joe to learn the trade of blacksmithing, not something that supports his vision of better things for himself. One day he learns that an anonymous benefactor has given him an endowment that comes with, you guessed it, great expectations. He immediately outfits himself in clothing fit for a gentleman and moves to London to begin his life of expectations. Things don’t always go smoothly for him, and, unfortunately he goes way over the top in this endeavor, getting carried away with himself and putting himself in great debt. After all he doesn’t have any training in how to be a gentleman, nor any good examples in his upbringing. You can see where this is going! But even though you know where this is headed – probably no place good – the ride to get there is exhilarating and rarely predictable.

Dickens writes with great energy and humor. There’s a diverse cast of memorable characters with great names (as you would expect with Dickens!) that keep things interesting and moving forward. Great Expectations is a story of human nature and a cautionary tale for the ages. Even though Dickens wrote this in 1861, the themes of love, loyalty, betrayal, integrity, meanness, class and upward/downward mobility could be easily transported to the 21st Century.

On another note, I just watched the classic 1946 David Lean movie and, while I loved seeing young John Mills and Alec Guiness, unlike the book, it definitely showed its age.

My history with "Great Expectations" goes back quite a ways. It all began at a party, back in the days when I was young and full of hope, unaware of life's many pitfalls and twists and turns. This is to say that I was unaware of them except at a cognitive level and had yet to experience "life's brutal indifference."

The party was honoring some professor for one of the many awards the university bestowed and, shockingly, the crowd consisted mainly of professors from various departments. It was, as one might expect, a dull party full of fawning younger pedagogues being obsequious to their academic betters. No one got drunk and crazy and there were no scenes of untoward behavior.

I happened upon a literature professor who seemed very bored with literature and who wanted to talk about my job, which, I admit, was far more interesting than life as a pedant. I persisted, however, in asking what books he recommended me to read. He wearily named two, one being "Jude the Obscure" and the other "Great Expectations."

I had never heard of "Jude the Obscure" and rushed out to buy a copy. I was familiar with "Great Expectations," though had no idea of the story line, and at that point the only book I had read of Dickens was, "A Christmas Carol." My opinion of Dickens was low, not based on his actual work but based on a Thomas Wolfe novel I had recently read (can't remember if it was "The Web and the Rock" or "You Can't Go Home Again?"). The protagonist of the Wolfe book was forever comparing Dickens to Dostoyevsky, the implication being that Dickens was an overly sentimental purveyor of treacle, whereas Dos was the real deal, a chronicler of life as it really was--grim, filled with uncertainties and contention and people who asked a lot of questions about what life meant and whether living was even worth it. Dostoyevsky was a hero of mine and Thomas Wolfe's novel had given me reason to doubt that Dickens was in the same league with him.

I started reading "Jude the Obscure" and felt like I had found a kindred soul in Thomas Hardy. Jude had to be one of the most depressing books I had ever read, and as his hopes were continually dashed I felt pity for him while also realizing that this book was not going to end happily.

Somewhere along the way I'd also picked up a used copy of "Great Expectations," one of the old Signet Classic editions. I tried several times to read it and the book simply did not "grab" me right from the start. I had friends who told me it was on of their favorite books, with a wonderful story, but I found it extremely off-putting.

Thirty years pass, and now I have lived and suffered and had come to reconcile my successes and failures and not have too many expectations for life. I was still afflicted with the habit of reading, though this had dwindled with the coming of the Internet. Still, I somehow managed to derive pleasure from reading and, being a whim reader, I was in my usual frenetic state after finishing one book and examining the thousands of unread books in my "to be read" personal library. For reasons I cannot fathom, I settled upon "Great Expectations." I was prepared to scuttle the book if it still failed to hold my interest. By this time I had read "A Tale of Two Cities" and "David Copperfield" and felt a bit more respect for Dickens and did not feel "Great Expectations" would be beyond my admittedly limited apprehension.

It was a shock when I started reading the book and found that it made sense, that I understood the voice of this small boy, Pip, writing about life with his harridan sister and her kindly husband Joe after being orphaned at an early age. It was like looking at a complicated puzzle I'd been unable to solve for years and finally, for the first time, the solution was crystal clear. I was to continue having this crystal clear feeling for a bit over 200 pages, when suddenly the puzzle's solution once again became opaque. I blame the character of Mrs. Havisham for clouding my vision. I simply could not understand why this character existed in the novel or what the point behind her was, if any? Once again the book became a chore and I feared I would have wasted twenty hours or so of reading and consoled myself by thinking that I probably would have wasted the time listening to lectures on Ancient Rome only to forget them in a month.

It was Audible that saved my bacon. In one of my many manic book-buying sprees, I had at some point already purchased the novel on Audible; so immediately switched to the audiobook format for the remaining 11+ hours of "Great Expectations."

It was a listening slog and had it not been for the excellent narrator Mr. Simon Prebble, I might have abandoned the venture. As I listened, I continued to dislike the book and could never figure out what purpose Miss Havisham or her ward, Estella, actually served in the book. The whole tale of Magwitch, the criminal whom young Pip feeds after Magwitch accosts him in the cemetery where Pip has gone to view his parents' graves, seemed barely plausible to me and the convenient wrapping up of all the confusion seemed mawkish and incredulous (though I must admit I cried on a few occasions due to Mr. Prebble's remarkable narrative skills).

The moral of the story, as G. K. Chesterton said in his preface was: Don't be a snob--something I learned in kindergarten. I had understood all of the many characters in Dickens' other first-person novel David Copperfield. Mr. Micawber seemed like many people I had known, as did Uriah Heep, the scheming, unctuous clerk. The fault of "Great Expectations, for me, was the falsity of the characters and the storyline. Joe and his termagant wife and Solicitor Jaggers and his assistant Wemmick were the only characters in this story who rang true to me.

Given the near overwhelming love of this novel by my fellow goodreaders, I have also not ruled out the likelihood that I am a shallow Philistine who wouldn't recognize literary genius even if I had Mr. Pocket as my teacher.

.

DNF at page 227.

The more I kept reading, the more baffled I was by what was going on. I just don't have the energy to continue reading this

Dickens is a jerk. Nobody likes his stuff, they're just afraid to say it because he's supposed to be classy. The man got paid by the word for crying out loud. Imagine if I got paid to write marching band drill by the dot. I would write a page for every four counts of music. What would I produce? A ridiculous tomb that nobody will ever get through and if they ever did it would be way too hard and too much work. And of course if you actually did it you would have to say that I was wonderful, otherwise, you'd look like an idiot. Like when you buy a new car and somebody asks if you are happy with it; nobody says "no, I just spend 30 grand on a pile of crap". Thus concludes my critique on Dickens. Those of you young enough can feel free to plagiarize it for you college essays.

I hated this book a lot less than every other Charles Dickens' book I was forced to read in school. I know he was paid by the word and that's why he goes on so. If I had my way I would like to appoint an editor for all these over-wordy books to turn them into something somewhat more readable. But that would be a bit like kicking a holy cow in the ribs, wouldn't it?

4 Stars for Great Expectations (audiobook) Charles Dickens read by Anton Lesser.

I think I still like A Christmas Carol better. But this was an interesting look at what it was like for a boy growing up in England in the 1800’s, it was such a different world back then.

My students (and some of my friends) can't ever figure out why I love this novel so much. I explain how the characters are thoroughly original and yet timeless, how the symbolism is rich and tasty, and how the narrative itself is juicy and chock-full of complexity, but they just shake their heads at me in utter amazement and say, "What's wrong with you, dude?"

What's wrong, indeed.

I give them ten or fifteen years. Perhaps they'll have to read it again in college, or maybe they'll just try reading it again as an adult to see if they can try to figure out why it's such a "classic," but after some time has passed from their initial encounter with the novel, they will find that I am not so crazy after all and that the book is in fact one of the best examples--if not the best example--of the novel. This happens to me all the time: I will re-read something I was forced to read in middle school and high school, remembering how much I hated it then, and will find that I actually love it now, as an adult. Sure, those "classics" may have taught me something about literary analysis, symbolic patterns, and the like, but I couldn't appreciate it for its complexity until I was older. I guess the rule of wine appreciation applies here, too: good taste only comes after much patience and experience.

***

Perhaps the thing I love best about this novel is the cast of characters--their names as well as their personalities. Ms. Havisham is one of my favorite characters to ever appear in all of the literature I have read. There is so much density and complexion to her character that I could literally make an entire career out of writing discourses on her characterization. She has even invaded the way I think about the world and the people I have met: I have, for instance, started referring to those instances where parents try to achieve success through their children "the Havisham effect" (unfortunately, you see this all too often in the world of teaching). Havisham's name is another exasperatingly fantastic aspect of her character: like the majority of Dickens' characters, you pretty much know what you're in for when you first read her name--she is full of lies, tricks, and deceits (or "sham"s). You don't get this sort of characterization much of anywhere else in the literary scene.

Another reason I love this novel so much is its plotting. Remember, Dickens was writing in a serialized format so he needed to keep his readers hooked so that they'd want to buy the next issue of his periodical, All the Year Round, in order to see what happens next. Thus, the plot of Great Expectations is winding, unpredictable, and quite shocking at points. Certainly, in terms of heavy action--well, what our youngsters these days would call action, fighting and big explosions and what-not--there is none, or very little at most, but that's not the thing to be looking for. Figure out the characters first, and then, once you've gotten to know and even care for them (or hate them), you will be hooked on the plot because you will want to know what happens to these people who you've invested so much feeling into. This is, of course, true of all novels, but it's what I tell my students when they read Great Expectations for the first time, and by gum, it's helped more than a few of them get through the novel successfully.

So, if you read Great Expectations in middle school, high school, or college, but haven't picked it up since, I urge you to do so. With a more patient and experienced set of eyes, you just might surprise yourself.