Great Expectations
Charles Dickens (1861)
“A poor boy is given a secret fortune and ruins every relationship that matters — then has to figure out who he actually is.”
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Great Expectations
Charles Dickens (1861) · 544pages · Victorian · 14 AP appearances
Summary
Pip, a blacksmith's apprentice in the English marshes, receives a mysterious fortune from an anonymous benefactor and moves to London to become a gentleman. He falls in love with Estella — a cold, beautiful girl trained by the eccentric Miss Havisham to break men's hearts — and abandons his loyal friends in pursuit of class and status. When Pip discovers his benefactor is actually Magwitch, the convict he sheltered as a child, his illusions about gentility collapse. He helps Magwitch escape, loses the fortune, and learns — almost too late — that Joe Gargery and the humble life he fled were worth more than everything he chased.
Why It Matters
Great Expectations was serialized in All the Year Round from December 1860 to August 1861 and was one of the most successful serials Dickens ever published — circulation of the magazine jumped during its run. It is now considered one of the supreme examples of the bildungsroman in English literat...
Themes & Motifs
Diction & Style
Register: Variable — Dickens ranges from burlesque comedy (Mrs. Joe, Pumblechook) to high Gothic (Satis House) to legal precision (Jaggers) to dialect poetry (Joe)
Narrator: Pip narrates retrospectively, from a position of earned self-knowledge. His tone toward his younger self oscillates b...
Figurative Language: High
Historical Context
Victorian England (1830s–1860s) — industrialization, transportation as punishment, debtors' prisons, the rise of the professional class: Victorian England's class system was not simply inherited — it was actively constructed and policed through speech, dress, manners, and occupation. The concept of 'the gentleman' was simultaneously...
Key Characters
Talking Points
- Dickens originally wrote a 'sad' ending in which Pip and Estella meet briefly and do not reunite. He changed it to the ambiguous mist ending at Bulwer-Lytton's suggestion. Which ending does the novel's logic demand? Is the mist a compromise or a genuinely better ending?
- Joe Gargery's dialect — 'which I meantersay,' 'wot' — is phonetically rendered throughout the novel. Jaggers's speech is clipped and precise. Why does Dickens make the most morally intelligent character speak the 'lowest' English?
- Pip is immediately ashamed of his love for Magwitch when the convict reveals himself as his benefactor. He thinks: 'The abhorrence in which I held the man... would not be overcome.' Is this class prejudice, moral failure, or a realistic human response? Can it be all three?
- Miss Havisham says she 'meant' to warn Pip, meant to stop the manipulation, but couldn't. Do you believe her? Is she genuinely self-deceived or performing remorse?
- Estella warns Pip repeatedly and explicitly that she has no heart. Why does Pip — an intelligent person — completely fail to hear her? What does this reveal about the nature of obsessive love?
Notable Quotes
“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 ...”
“She was dressed in rich materials — satins, and lace, and silks — all of white. Her shoes were white. And she had a long white veil dependent from ...”
“She calls the knaves Jacks, this boy! And what coarse hands he has! And what thick boots!”
Why Read This
Because Pip's problem — wanting to be someone else so badly that you destroy who you actually are — is not a Victorian problem. It is the problem of every teenager who has ever been ashamed of their family, their neighborhood, their accent. Dicken...