Guilt and Mortality Flashcards
CRITICS Great Expectations
“Pip has certainly one of the guiltiest consciences in literature”
“the main idea behind the story is ambition and self improvement”
Context Great Expectations
First person retrospective voice- very harsh on his former self
Symbolism- Handcuffs, prison, gallows
These reflect Pip’s inner struggle to reconcile his own inner moral conscious
Rouse and Hobbs- Magwitch born evil or redeemed and Pip’s upbringing
ckens’s father in debtors prison- grew up around crime
Pip
Pip’s guilt- over stealing and Mrs Joe’s death
Pip’s discomfort at learning that his benefactor has not been Miss Havisham but a criminal.
DIDACTIC nature of the work- we are never convinced of his reformation of morals
Still pines for estella at the end
“I was too cowardly to do what i knew what was, as i had been too cowardly to avoid doing what i knew to be wrong”
LIES “a dread of not being understood”
“Black velvet coach” “four dogs” “veal-cutlets”
Joe
‘We wouldn’t have you starved to death for it, poor miserable fellow-creature’
‘Im dead afeerd of going wrong in the way of not doing what’s right by a woman’
‘That ain’t the way out of being common, old chap’
Magwitch
“Ive eat you pie”
“I was took up, to that extent that i reglarly growd up took up”
“I must put something into my stomach”
“compeyson’s business as the swindling, handwriting forging, stolen bank-note passing
waren’t it compeyson as was recommended to mercy on account of good character and bad company”
“He (m) pondered over the question whether he might have been a better man under better circumstances”
Injustice and immorality within society e.g. Compenson
Magwitch- looks scary but is not and we feel sympathy
“Who limped, and shivered”
“I’ll cut your throat”
“Leg iron”
The biblical story of cain
Fairytale-magwitch’s death- looking up to the ceiling = redemption
Jaggers
“He washed his clients off, as if it were a surgeon or a dentist”
“His penknife and scraped the case out of his nails”
“Biting the side of his forefinger”
Miss Havisham
Before she dies, she honors Pip’s request for money for his friend, Herbert Pocket, amazed that Pip wants nothing for himself- miss H wants forgiveness for ruining pip (and estella)
Ending
“Pumblechooks house that has been broken into”
“Orlick’s in the county jail”
