Preview

great expectations

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
9105 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
great expectations
Great Expectations
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the Charles Dickens novel. For other uses, see Great Expectations (disambiguation).
Great Expectations

Title page of Vol. 1 of first edition, July 1861
Author Charles DickensCountry United Kingdom
Language English
Series Weekly: 1 December 1860 – 3 August 1861
Genre Realistic fiction, social criticismPublisher Chapman & HallPublication date 1861 (in three volumes)
Media type Print
Pages 544
Great Expectations is Charles Dickens's thirteenth novel. It is his second novel, after David Copperfield, to be fully narrated in the first person.[N 1] Great Expectations is a HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bildungsroman" \o "Bildungsroman" bildungsroman, or a coming-of-age novel, and it is a classic work of Victorian literature. It depicts the growth and personal development of an orphan named Pip. The novel was first published in serial form in Dickens's weekly periodical All the Year Round, from 1 December 1860 to August 1861.[1] In October 1861, Chapman and Hall published the novel in three volumes.
Dickens originally intended Great Expectations to be twice as long, but constraints imposed by the management of All the Year Round limited the novel's length. Collected and dense, with a conciseness unusual for Dickens, the novel represents Dickens's peak and maturity as an author. According to G. K. Chesterton, Dickens penned Great Expectations in "the afternoon of [his] life and fame."[2] It was the penultimate novel Dickens completed, preceding Our Mutual Friend.
It is set among the marshes of Kent and in London in the early to mid-1800s.[3] From the outset, the reader is "treated" by the terrifying encounter between Pip, the protagonist, and the escaped convict, Abel Magwitch.[4] Great Expectationsis a graphic book, full of extreme imagery, poverty, prison ships, "the hulks," barriers and chains, and fights to the death.[4] It therefore combines intrigue and

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Pip Dialectical Journal

    • 691 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Shane Sukhlal Joanna Trim English 9 September 18, 2014 Journal on Great Expectations Chapters 1-3 1.Book started by introduction of the narrator,using the first person words such as “I” in the sentence “My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip. ”(Dickens,1). 2.Pip reveals most of his family members,who he lives with, and his orphancy. Pip’s mother and father are dead,and he lives with his sister and her husband who’s profession is a blacksmith.…

    • 691 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    This essay will determine the differences between two popular books, The catcher in the rye: by J.D Salanger and Great expectations: by Charles Dickens. Great expectations was first published in serial form in 1861 and is written in standard English with many colloquial and archaic words. As with catcher in the rye, it was first published in 1951 and is written in American English and also has many colloquial words and is also written as if the main character is speaking (first person narrative) directly to you.…

    • 816 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Havisham's hatred of men and it is through her that Miss Havisham is able to…

    • 2499 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    The novel, Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens is heavily a character-driven novel due to the fact that the sequence of events in the novel are causes and effects of the actions of the characters as well as the interactions between them. The novel mainly depicts the growth and development of an orphan named Pip, who is greatly influenced by the other characters and became a gentleman and a bachelor in the end of the novel through his encounters with the other characters. Pip, as the main character, definitely has a lasting impact on the drive of the novel since his decisions are very instrumental and effective towards the other characters as well as to himself. This phenomenon applies to not only Pip, but to the other characters, especially Estella, Miss Havisham, Joe, and Abel Magwitch. Everything a character does and every encounter between the characters in Great Expectation has an effect on the flow of the plot and situation of the novel.…

    • 1322 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    gcse english

    • 3494 Words
    • 14 Pages

    Charles Dickens, the author of ‘Great Expectations’ uses many different ways and methods of building up tension and mystery in the setting. He uses a variety of techniques to give the graveyard, the marshes and Miss Havisham’s house mysterious feelings with a sense of darkness and Gothic horror.…

    • 3494 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Expectations. Having expectations could change one’s life. One can induce change within themselves or it can be influenced by others. This concept is noticeable with Pip, the main character in the novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. Pip is an orphan boy who lives in Kent, England with his abusive sister, Mrs. Joe, and his sympathetic uncle, Joe Gargery. He searches for value as a person in becoming a gentleman and in earning the love of Estella, an orphan adopted by Miss Havisham, a wealthy spinster. Throughout his journey, Pip matures from having innocence to losing innocence, marking his change in character and expectations. In Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Pip transforms when he encounters a convict, visits Satis House, and experiences London.…

    • 716 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Charles Dickens was born during the Victorian times, he wrote ‘great expectations’ in a weekly instalment, every week he sold one part to maintain the reader’s interest. He wanted people to understand the mass divide of the rich and poor. He wished the people would realise how badly the poor were treated at that time. He used Pip to grab the reader’s attention in the opening chapters by making him a likeable character. Dickens did this as he made the readers sympathise for Pip.…

    • 769 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Great Expectations is one of Dickens most famous novels. It is often wondered why it is such a popular book. The answer is simple, the use of satire. From the moment Pip is introduced, to the point in which him and Estella supposedly fall in love, Dickens has placed his sense of satire to please the reader’s sense of feelings for the characters. This young boy named Pip was not raised in…

    • 934 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The story Great Expectations is best viewed through the class studies critical lens with a contrast between rich and poor. Miss Havisham’s estate and Uncle Pumblechook are comparable to the life of Pip and the family he lives with because they are upper class and lower class.…

    • 440 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    the narrator of Great Expectations is an adult who relates the narrative in his own voice, but he tells the story from his memory rather than as it happens.…

    • 2325 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Great Expectations can be seen as a way of bringing fire out to be a hurtful, but powerful thing. It can destroy, but also bring people up because we all have a fire within us. The fire within us can drive every one of our fears, and also our powers. Each one of us needs to find the fire within us and make it something that makes us stronger than ever before. It's all each of us needs and all of us want to find us before it destroys…

    • 558 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    belonging

    • 1177 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The novel ‘great expectations’ is mainly targeted to the youth, young adults and adults. Mainly because the audience needs to have the ability to comprehend the text, due to its complexity, and it is within these age groups that are capable of that.…

    • 1177 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    paper

    • 421 Words
    • 1 Page

    wgtqegfawefHaving Great Expectations and actually reaching them are two very different things in regard to Pip. Great Expectations is all about Pip’s expectations of becoming a gentleman. He is constantly expecting, or wishing things to happen, only to be let down over and over. Pip would just assume things, without getting affirmation from anybody, and because of that would then just be let down. Charles Dickens was trying to show what men and women want and work for, and what they get, often end up being extreme opposites. All of the great expectations in this book end up unfulfilled. The title Great Expectations is paradoxical to what events actually play out in Pip’s life, because everything he desires or dreams will be wonderful, only ends up disappointing him. As soon as Pip met Estella, at a young age of seven, he knew that he loved her, and thought she was so beautiful. . Estella however, was terribly “Now, I return to this young fellow. And the communication I have got to make is, that he has Great Expectations.”(153) Having Great Expectations and actually reaching them are two very different things in regard to Pip. During Pip’s lifetime, if you were not a gentleman or a lady, you would not amount to anything. Great Expectations is all about Pip’s expectations of becoming a gentleman. He is constantly expecting, or wishing things to happen, only to be let down over and over. Pip was his own worst enemy. He would just assume things, without getting affirmation from anybody, and because of that would then just be let down. Charles Dickens was trying to show what men and women want and work for, and what they get, often end up being extreme opposites. All of the great expectations in this book end up unfulfilled. The title Great expectations is paradoxical to what events actually play out in Pip’s life, because everything he desires or dreams will be wonderful, only ends up disappointing him.…

    • 421 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    ‘Great expectations’ is a novel written during and set in the Victorian era, a time in which status, class and money were extremely important and where a discrepancy between the rich and poor was evident. The novel follows the ill-fated life of the protagonist in the novel, ‘Pip’. Dickens writes in such a way that each character is a subject of either sympathy or scorn. Dickens implies that Pip is a subject of sympathy through his use of guilt and suffering. Dickens also uses powerful vocabulary to create a poignant image of Pip and his surroundings. The story itself is narrated by middle aged Pip and Dickens intentionally uses him so that we see the story through the perspective of Pip as a child and an adult. Dickens even uses Pip’s name as an indication of his stature and future actions, ‘Pip’ could be seen as a small apple seed that grows into a large tree. As well as ‘pirrip’, a palindrome, being conceived as the word ‘rip’ placed symmetrically symbolising his character ripping into different personalities as he grows.…

    • 1211 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The sharp division of classes appears many other times during Great Expectations and helps show how different life was for different groups of people in England. The book gives two distinct viewpoints for this time…

    • 330 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays