...THE GLENCOE LITERATURE LIBRARY Study Guide for Great Expectations by Charles Dickens i Meet Charles Dickens In addition to writing short stories and novels, Dickens wrote essays and journalistic pieces, and edited a weekly periodical filled with fiction, poetry, and essays. First titled Household Words, the magazine was later retitled All the Year Round. Dickens contributed to this publication several serialized novels, including Great Expectations, and writings on political and social issues. Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, in Landport, Portsea, England. He was the second child and eldest son of eight children. Dickens’s father, who worked as a clerk in the Navy Pay Office, was a spendthrift who often mismanaged the family money. In 1822 the family moved to London and soon found itself in financial crisis. The family was forced to live in poverty, and Dickens was no longer able to go to school. One of the most traumatic periods of his life began in February 1824, when his father was sent to debtors prison. Young Dickens, only twelve years old, was forced to go to work for several months pasting labels on bottles. This experience was painful and socially humiliating to him, and images of the factory haunted him for the rest of his life. These images provided a backdrop to much of his fiction, which often focused on class issues; the plight of the poor and oppressed; and lost, suffering children. As an adult, he championed social and political causes designed...
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...The inevitable future of everyone is affected by the perspectives of others on you. In Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, social classes have eternally definite aspects of human existence; the several places that Pip stands in the social hierarchy changes Pip’s life and his own perspective of it, through the lens of how others look at him. The continuum all starts when Pip is a country boy. Pip’s life as a country boy changes how Estella, Miss Havisham and even Pip looks at himself. For example, when “Pip struggles throughout the story to become Estella’s love, but comes to realize she will have nothing to do with him as long as he does not have money” (http://staff.washington.edu/). This quote that was taken from a Washington University...
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...Philly Feldpausch Tuesday Class 11/03 How does Pip and at least one other character change over the course of Great Expectations? Why is Dickens interested in these changes? What role does social class play in these changes? Pip, the main character, changes throughout the course of Great Expectations by maturing and becoming a gentleman. He was a young boy when the novel began and then he was sent to play with a young girl, who told him he was coarse and common. When Estella told Pip that, Pip immediately decided to change and become a gentleman to win her heart. Because of his already low self esteem, Pip changes even faster and shapes to whatever people want him to be. Since he isn’t really shown love at home, he craves it from everyone...
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...private school for three years. In May 1827 Charles worked as a junior clerk for the law offices of Ellis and Blackmore. In 1832 at the age of 20 Charles submitted his first story A Dinner at Poplar Walk. As a young man Charles also mastered shorthand, and before long was employed as a Parliamentary reporter. In 1836 at the age of 25 he started working at Pickwick Papers. At Pickwick Papers he published many of his novels in monthly installment in the paper. The first of these installments were from the novel Oliver’s Twist, which would later be published in 1838. Some of Charles Dickens other novels include Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop, A Christmas Story, David Copperfield, Bleak House, Hard Times, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, and Our Mutual Friend. Charles Dickens first love was a woman by the name of Maria Beadnell, after Maria’s parents disapproved of their courtship Maria was sent away to school in Paris. On April 2, 1836 after a one year engagement Charles married Catherine Thomson Hogarth. Together Charles and Catherine would have 10 children and be together for 18 years. In 1857 however Charles would hire Ellen Ternan to star in one of his plays and fall madly in love with her. Although not a practice in that time Charles would divorce his wife Catherine to pursue his relationship with Ternan who was 27 year his junior. When Catherine left him she would take only one of their children with her leaving the others to be cared for by her sister. Leaving...
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...shortly thereafter, Nancy is beaten to death. Nancy is a morally ambiguous character who wrestles with making the right decisions. She serves as a common Dickens character who tries to do right but gets crushed by a cruel world. In Dickens’s world, people grow and change over time and can be easily influenced by the world’s vices. People enter the world innocent and rational, but as they age, society seeks to break them. Still, Dickens believes that some, like Nancy, can free themselves from society’s influence and become more compassionate. Dickens lauds those who reflect the created order by showing concern for the needs of others, regardless of social standing or background; he also believes that humans can become corrupted by the world, so discovering inherent goodness is a struggle. People enter the world innocent and rational, and society quickly preys on them. Society strives to form each person into what it wants, changing how people grow over their lives. Scrooge of A Christmas Carol was once compassionate towards others and becomes hard-hearted after tragic events. He lost a sister and grew stingier, driving those in his life away. He comes to believe his responsibility was to himself. Dickens wants to show how being self-absorbed causes people to care only for themselves and not for others. “At the heart of Carol, Dickens had an economic message. A society in which the masters are concerned only with the bottom line and take no responsibility for the general welfare is...
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...SPARK ARKNOTES W W W. S PA R K N O T E S . C O M Great Expectations Charles Dickens EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Justin Kestler EXECUTIVE EDITOR Ben Florman TECHNICAL DIRECTOR Tammy Hepps SERIES EDITORS Boomie Aglietti, Justin Kestler PRODUCTION Christian Lorentzen WRITERS Brian Phillips, Wendy Cheng EDITORS Ben Florman, Jennifer Burns Copyright ©2002 by SparkNotes llc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or distributed in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, any file sharing system, or any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written permission of SparkNotes llc. sparknotes is a registered trademark of SparkNotes llc. This edition published by Spark Publishing Spark Publishing A Division of SparkNotes llc 120 Fifth Avenue, 8th Floor New York, NY 10011 USA Context All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or distributed in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, any file sharing system, or any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written permission of SparkNotes LLC. SPARK ARKNOTES W W W. S PA R K N O T E S . C O M Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, and spent the first nine years of his life living in the coastal regions of Kent, a county in southeast England. Dickens’s father, John, was a kind and likable man, but he was incompetent with...
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...Great Expectations by Charles Dickens In this essay I will be exploring the ways in which Charles Dickens builds tension in the novel great expectations. In this novel I will be discussing the main themes used by dickens to place the viewer in suspense and tension. Dickens focuses on the main characters like Pip and the convict in order to create tension and suspense as Pip was the main point of sympathy since he was presented as an orphan whilst the convict was illustrated as a monster. Great expectations is on the subject of a little boy called Pip who thinks that money will buy everything however through the help of the convict, soon after in his life he will discover that money will not obtain him joy. The most significant obsession in life is the theme of happiness which Pip finds at the subsequent stages of the novel where he catastrophically falls in love with Estella, therefore regrets his action of choosing money in excess of his friends and family. Whilst dickens uses descriptive language to assemble an image in the readers mind he also uses powerful language in order to involve the reader within the novel in addition to allow the reader experience the themes and emotions. This Essay will explore how Dickens builds tension throughout his novel using imagery and his powerful language in both the setting and weather in chapter 1 and 39 whilst exploring the emotions of two main characters Pip and the convict in chapter 1 and 39 of the novel. ...
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...Great Expectations was written by Charles Dickens in the post-Industrial Revolution, a time where your social status plays a huge role in the ways where people perceived you to be. Those of high status are praised and looked up to, while the low class people are seen as dimwits and undeserving of any recognition. Similarly with Pip, he has the idea that the greatest expectation he can have in life is by having that status in order to be with the girl of his dream, Estella. After some time at Miss Havisham’s place, he began hating his “coarse and common” life and began wishing for more. He began looking down on those around him, including Joe who was his closest friend and confidant. During the years of his life written by Dickens, Pip changes from an innocent young boy, to a...
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...1. With the emphasis on Dickens’ Great Expectations and with wider reference to Kincaid’s Lucy, compare and contrast the writer’s intentions and achievements arising from their presentation of women. Throughout ‘Great expectations’ by Charles Dickens and Jamaica Kincaid’s ‘Lucy’, both authors seem to present women intentionally to relate to the idea of patriarchy (a system or society governed by men) and how independence or obedience links to their social class’s expectations. Dickens does this by upholding the Victorian ideology of gender, which in ‘Great Expectations’ addressed women as either an angel in the house- the ideal wife, obedient, devoted and submissive to their husband or alternatively, the whore. Independent with the desire for more power than their social class expectations allows, very anti-men. Being an angel in the house was expected of all women in the Victorian era, they had a limited amount of power, enough to be the ideal wife who would be generally rewarded, represented by Biddy. However those women whom abused their power and went against all expectations of social class, the whores, were physically punished by Dickens but given a chance of redemption, evidence of this is shown by Estella and Miss Havisham. Kincaid follows the same idea as Dickens to a certain degree in ‘Lucy’. She focuses on the character of Lucy and her journey to independence, constantly trying to prove her power to break free from her homeland and mother, she manages to achieve...
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...2015 Great Expectations Paper In novels, -and even in life,- actions made in the past can and will affect the future, and “Great Expectations” was a perfect example of that exact thing. The things Pip had done in his early life, shaped his future. The scary convict that Pip tried to leave in the past came flooding back to him unexpectedly on that stormy night, leaving him afraid and regretful. That one night of fear in Pip’s childhood drastically changed the way his life spanned out. Which goes to show, something so seemingly small, can change your life so immensely. That is something Pip has to figure out the hard way. Pip’s life was never easy, it was full of surprises. For such a common boy, he had lots of uncommon things happen to him. As a child, pip was a naive, ignorant, frail boy that did not have much guidance, aside from what little he got from his brother in law Joe. He was raised with an abusive older sister, in a small town in London, and not much goes on between helping an escaped convict, and being sent to Miss Havisham’s estate. Most of Pip’s growing as a boy happened at the ghostly mansion housing the heartless girl he falls head over heals for. When Pip first enters Miss Havisham’s estate is when he first experiences the pain of being self conscious. After playing cards with Estella, Miss Havisham orders Estella to take him to the courtyard and give him food and drink. She follows her orders and does so. Estella had said rude things to Pip previously...
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...Great Expectations and Fairy tales Tolkien describes the facets which are necessary in a good fairy tales as fantasy, recovery, escape, and consolation - recovery from deep despair, escape from some great danger, but most of all, consolation. Speak- ing of the happy ending,�all complete fairy stories must have it�However fantastic or terrible the adventure, it can give to child or man that hears it,�a catch of breath, a beat and lifting of the heart near to tears. (Uses of Enchantment, pg.143) Great Expectations shares many of the conventions of fairy tales. The one dimensional characters, the use of repetition, and the evil women seem to make the similarities strikingly strong. However, are they strong enough to conclude that it is indeed a fairy tale? It can not be ignored that it also falls short on some important areas, such as the traditional fairy tale ending. Is there enough evidence to classify it either way? Fairy tales have characters of complete good or complete evil. There are no characters who posses both of these qualities. In reading Great Expectations it is plain to see that there is indeed total goodness and total evil. This can be seen in many of the characters. There is no goodness to be found in Orlick. He plays the role of the bully. His hot temper results in the near death of Mrs. Joe and in the near death of Pip. Compeyson is another who has no goodness to be found in him. He is full of evil and hate. It was said that "He had no more heart than...
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...She explains that “until you [Pip] spoke to her [Estella] the other day, and until I saw in you a looking-glass that showed me what I once felt myself, I did not know what I had done. What have I done” (Dickens 399). Her admittance of her mistake and her unwillingness to move on suggests this idea of a figurative suicide as she no longer lived a life in the present, but rather in a house of memories. The only action Havisham took after the wedding was a vow to “save her from misery like mine” (Dickens 403). Oddly enough, Havisham succeeded and this leads to one of the great ironies of this story that produces an undesirable effect on Pip and his life. Estella was only adopted to break other men’s hearts and successfully breaks Pip’s. However, Pip’s heartbreak ironically removes Havisham from her desire to break his heart. In Chapter 49, Havisham finally comes to regret her decision as she constantly shouts “What have I done” (Dickens 403) and breaks free from her past shown by the symbolism of the burnt dress and ruined cake. The question is whether Havisham truly freed herself as Pip notices that “Though every vestige of her dress was burnt, [...] she still had something of her old ghastly bride appearance” (Dickens 403) as if suggesting she could never escape her past even with the dismissal of her...
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...Early on in “Great Expectations”,the concept of betray is introduced and quickly becomes ever-presented and integral part of many characters. How does betrayal affect the plot as a whole? The deception in the novel affects the storyline because, most of the characters in the novel used it as a way of revenge. The entire plot changes when, Pip decided to go through a dramatic alter with himself after he concluded that Estella and Miss.Havisham betrayed him. Who was betrayed the most throughout “Great Expectations”? Philip Pirrip was betrayed the in the greatest degree compared to others. Philip was double-crossed by Estella and Miss.Havisham. He was betrayed by the two when Miss.Havisham adopt Estella. Havisham had taught Estella to wheel in...
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...Concept of Self-realization in Pride and Prejudice, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Great Expectations and Lord Jim. The words self-realization is often used in literature to refer to the liberation of an individual from the sense of limitation brought about by identification with conditioned beliefs, opinions, fears, desires, and habits. The main objective of this paper is to show concept of self-realization in Pride and Prejudice, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Great Expectations and Lord Jim. It has also been tried to add some new concepts regarding these novels. Necessary and related information has been collected from various books and internet. Austen's serene world, in Pride and Prejudice which harbours dynamic action, goes unnoticed by the readers who read her novels on the surface level. But the readers who fathom the depths of her creativity can realize that active forces are working, reforming and psychologically molding the characters in her novels. Tess of the D’Urbervilles is one of the most famous novels of Thomas Hardy. In this novel we see a tragic end of Tess with an ultimate realization. Great Expectations was one of Dickens’ best-known novels and was written in 1860. Great Expectations is a Bildungsroman and follows the progression of Pip from child to adult; from humble blacksmith to gentleman; from innocence to experience; from rags to riches and on his journey, Pip meets a range of interesting characters, from the comical Wemmick, to the cruel Estella....
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...How does the director of Great Expectations use filmic techniques to create an atmosphere of tension in the scene where Pip’s benefactor is revealed? This essay will be analysing the scene where Pip’s benefactor is revealed in David Lean's version of 'Great Expectations' focusing on how tension is brought to the screen. Great Expectations is a novel written by Charles Dickens in 1861 but set in 1812. The film version I will be analysing was produced in 1945. Firstly an interesting aspect of this scene is that only diegetic music is used. I think the director chose to do this because not using any non diegetic music makes the scene seem a lot more realistic as the sound used are real such as the wind outside and the chiming clock. This makes the tension more genuine as there is no unrealistic mood music creating it. It strengthens identity with Pip as he can hear everything the audience can and also creates a contrast to other scenes. The wind throughout this scene almost serves as mood music as it gets louder and quieter to create tension, it is also used later on in the scene when Magwich lets his guard down and then an increase of the wind makes him tense once more. Only using diegetic music also draws attention to smaller sounds for example, when Pip drops the glass later on in the scene. The sharp sound is incredibly obvious compared to all other sounds used in the scene. Secondly the technique of pathetic fallacy is employed through the use of the pouring rain...
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