Great Expectations Flashcards
Growing up and growing wiser
•A story following Pip’s passage from childhood into adulthood. Pip moves from being a gentleman of material wealth and status to being a gentleman in personality, like Joe and Herbert.
- Contact with rich people makes him dissatisfied.
- Coming into money makes him shallow, selfish and unhappy.
- Trying to find love with a beautiful and wealthy, yet cruel girl makes him unhappy - the plain, poor, good girl would have been better.
- Disappointments change his character for the better.
- Pip is finally happy when he settles down to a decent living through hard work.
Social class and good character
•Dickens’ message is that character is not about money or manners, but what is in your heart. Dickens shows this as he explores what makes a ‘gentleman’. Middle class values of hard work and gentleness leads to happiness.
- Bentley Drummle: wealthy, but a lazy + abusive lout.
- Miss Havisham: wealthy but mad, manipulative and psychologically abusive.
- Pip: has money + manners, but is vain and shallow.
- Mrs Pocket: from a ‘good’ family, but is an incompetent + negligent mother.
- Upper class characters who don’t work live unfulfilling lives.
+Magwitch: member of the lowest underclass, but makes a fortune in Australia where he’s not limited by his class + gives it all to Pip.
+Biddy: common, but wise, gentle and kind.
+Joe: illiterate, strong, patient and loving.
+Wemmick: hard-working, kind, caring and fun-loving.
Ambition and illusions vs. Accepting your lot
•Dickens’ felt that illusions + foolish desires lead you astray and prevented you from living comfortably with yourself. What matters is not what you achieve, but what kind of person you are.
-Pip yearns to be a gentleman, which only makes him unhappy.
+Joe has no ambition beyond his forge, but is a good and noble man.
+Biddy is kind, patient + completely happy with her social status.
+Mr Wopsle longs to act in stage + although he only has small parts he is happy and fulfilled.
Love and loyalty
•Dickens explores how love can cause happiness when it works out, but can also be destructive when things go wrong.
- Pip’s unrequited love for Estella is main motivation for becoming a gentleman + brings him only misery.
- Miss Havisham’s life was ruined when the man she loved jilted her on her wedding day + she remained bitter and heartbroken for the rest of her life.
- Estella marries Bentley Drummle without loving him and suffers for it (abuse).
- A loveless mother, such as Mrs Joe + Miss Havisham, can ruin a person’s life.
+Joe marries Biddy for love + they are happy despite their age gap.
+Herbert marries Clara for love + they are happy despite their social gap.
+Magwitch loves Pip through gratitude + Pip come to love Magwitch through admiration.
+Joe loves Pip like his own son and best friend.
Justice
•There are two kinds of justice in Great Expectations: the justice of the law courts and natural justice (when loyalty + goodness are rewarded in the novel, while bad behaviour is punished). Dickens was very keen to write about moral behaviour and to explore what is right or wrong:
- Estella is beaten for her cruelty by Drummle.
- Drummle is seen abusing a horse and is trampled to death by one.
- Miss Havisham is burnt because of the trauma she caused Pip + Estella.
- Compeyson dies for his crimes, which the legal system failed to do.
- The legal justice system itself is shown to be violent, unfair and open to manipulation by the likes of Jaggers.
- Mrs Joe suffers then dies for her treatment of Pip and Joe and the culprit was never found.
+Herbert + Clara; Joe + Biddy; Wemmick + Miss Skiffins - all deserve their happiness together for being good characters throughout the book.
+Pip finds redemption after suffering from burns and illness + is finally happy at the end.
Pip
•Both the protagonist (whose actions make up the main plot of the novel) and the narrator (whose thoughts and attitudes shape the reader’s perception of the story).
- Victim of unstable family life (which affects his later life) and victim of unrequited love.
- Starts of as an anti-hero, but gradually becomes a better person, and then a hero when he: finds a job for Herbert; saves Miss Havisham; tries to save Estella from a bad marriage; tries to save Magwitch.
- His only true home was the forge. When he decides to leave it for London, he moves from place to place but never really has a home again.
- When he becomes a gentleman he stops working at the forge. But he never feels fulfilled until the end, when he has a job in Clarriker’s.
- Has true love with Joe which is replaced by poisonous love for Estella. Pip actually admits that he would be happier with Biddy.
- As soon as Pip dresses like a gentleman, he starts acting like he is superior to everyone - which is why he gets made fun of by Trabb’s boy.
”Her contempt was so strong, that it became infectious and I caught it.”
“Her light came along the long dark passage like a star.”
“I work pretty hard for a sufficient living.”
“I had neither the good sense nor the good feeling to know it was all my fault.”
Estella
•Miss Havisham’s adoptive daughter, psychologically traumatised from a young age. Estella is cold, cynical, and manipulative, but is also beautiful and has an addictive quality. She is the trigger for Pip’s desire to become a gentleman.
- Satis House was never truly Estella’s home. She has no home - she is passed from place to place for her lady’s education. She lost her home when Mr Jaggers gave her to Miss Havisham.
- She is actually from the very lowest level of society, but she is raised among the upper classes - ironically she is victimized twice by her adopted class (first by Miss Havisham, who destroys her ability to express emotion, then by her husband, the cruel and abusive nobleman Drummle)
- By the end, Estella doesn’t seem to take pleasure in hurting Pip; she repeatedly warns him that she has “no heart” and seems to urge him as strongly as she can to find happiness by leaving her behind.
- Like Pip, after suffering she finds redemption and can finally become her own woman. This was after years of a long, painful marriage to Drummle.
- On the outside Estella is beautiful and enchanting, but on the inside she is hollow and broken - she has no heart or emotions.
“I have been bent and broken, but—I hope—into a better shape.”
“You boy”
“She was as scornful to me as if she had been one-and-twenty, and a queen.”
“You little coarse monster.”
“All of them but you.”
Miss Havisham
•Mis Havisham is obsessive and masochistic. She adopts Estella and raises her as a weapon to achieve her own revenge on men. Both Miss Havisham and the people in her life suffer greatly because of her single-minded quest for revenge.
- She is a fairytale-like character due to how she only wears one shoe (like a corrupt Cinderella) and how she has never seen sunlight since she was jolted at the altar (like a vampire).
- Although she is very wealthy, this wealth has only seemed to make her a target for others - first Compeyson, then the sycophant relatives who are always visiting her. Miss Havisham’s life is defined by a single tragic event which she refuses to move on from, so all her wealth is wasted.
- She loves Estella like her own daughter and seeks to protect her from the hurts she herself has suffered. However, she only ends up psychologically abusing Estella without realising. This leads to her creation being her downfall as it turns out that Estella is incapable of loving Miss Havisham as well as men.
- She finally realises her mistakes when she realizes that she has caused Pip’s heart to be broken in the same manner as her own. Miss Havisham is redeemed when she begs Pip for forgiveness and pays for Herbert’s job. She suffers for her mistakes when her dress sets on fire (biblical imagery), but after it she is pure again (wrapped in white bandages).
- Miss Havisham turns Satis House into a shrine to her betrayal by Compeyson, trapped in time. Satis House represents broken dreams and bitter disappointments - both her and Pip’s.
“A skeleton in the ashes of a rich dress.”
“Had lost its lustre, and was faded and yellow.”
“Love her, love her, love her!”
“But to be proud and hard to me!”
“I stole her heart away and put ice in its place.”
Magwitch
•Magwitch also has a difficult upbringing and makes a number of bad choices. When Pip first meets him he is a frightening figure often compared to a hunted animal. He haunts Pip for years as there is always an aspect of criminality to Pip’s life after meeting Magwitch. When we next see Magwitch he is a much older and somewhat kinder figure – though he is still tough and determined to achieve his goals.
- He devoted all of his new life in Australia to earning Pip enough money to be what he himself could never be - a gentleman.
- Both Miss Havisham and Magwitch had lost someone they loved and needed someone to care about, so devoted their lives to their adopted children, with the intention to improve their lives.
- Because Magwitch had to resort to crime at a young age, he could never prove his inner nobility since he was always judged for being a poor criminal. He finally gets to prove his inner worth in Australia when he is free from the restrictions of society, and can finally earn an honest living working hard as a sheep farmer.
- At first Pip feels indebted to Magwitch, and responsible for getting him safely out of the country. However, when he comes to admire Magwitch for all he did for him, Pip becomes a better person and looks after him similar to the selfless way Wemmick looks after the Aged Parent. In this way, Magwitch’s relationship with Pip allows Pip to grow.
“The better I dressed him, the more he looked like the slouching fugitive on the marshes.”
”I’m you’re second father.”
“Starting out like a stain that was faded but not gone.”
“Dear boy.”
“In jail and out of jail.”
“They took up several obviously wrong people, and they ran their heads very hard against wrong ideas.”
Joe
•Joe is a loving, gentle father figure to Pip. His tender kindness protects Pip from Mrs. Joe’s harsh parenting. Unrefined and uneducated as he is, it is Joe’s relationship with Pip that is tested most when Pip becomes a gentleman.
- Like a child, Joe is innocent and optimistic. However, he is also wise and mature in the way that he understands people and the way the world works, even if he’s not academic.
- The forge is where he thrives and is truly confident. It is warm and homely, which reflects his personality.
- Even when Pip is ungrateful and embarrassed by him, Joe loves Pip unconditionally and comes to Pip’s aid when needed. Without Joe, Pip would be lost; he would not have anyone to guide him, tell him what is right and wrong, or constantly remind him of what is important in life.
- He is compassionate to the unlikeliest of people: convict who stole his food; the memory of his alcoholic, abusive father; Mrs Joe who he wants to protect from the suffering that his mother endured with his father.
- Joe’s deep sense of integrity and an unfailing moral compass leads him to a happy ending with Biddy.
- Joe is happy with his social class, however he realises that Pip is embarrassed of him which makes him self-conscious of himself and out his element outside the forge, where he is confident.
- Angelic and also herculean in appearance, this shows his pure heart, heroism and shows that he got his strength from working hard.
- He has a simple and dirty job, but he does it really well and with a sense of pride and is fulfilled by it. That he fixes and creates things for a living reflects his personality.
- Joe offering his home to Pip saves him from living alone on the streets like Magwitch.
“I’m wrong in these clothes. I’m wrong out of the forge.”
“What larks.”
“Ever the best of friends.”
“And bring the poor little child.”
“Larger species of child.”
“Hercules in strength, and also in weakness.”
