Great Expectations

Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. 2004. 633p. ISBN 0-7434-8761-3. Available at FIC DIC on the library shelves.

Orphaned early in life, young Pip had to go live with his sister and her husband. A mean and abusive woman, Pip’s sister mistreat him terribly. Joe Gargery, Georgiana’s husband, is a mild-tempered and mannered blacksmith who also suffers at the hands of his wife. Spending time at the graveyard by the church one cold morning in 1812, Pip is surprised to come upon an escaped inmate from a nearby prison ship. This convict, Abel Magwitch, threatens Pip and asks him to bring food and a file so he can remove his leg irons.

Pip does so and helps Magwitch, but he is soon recaptured along with another inmate who had also escaped. Pip remains deadly afraid that his sister and Joe will discover that he assisted Magwitch, but as time passes this becomes only a distant memory. Pip is asked to report to Miss Havisham, an old rich and eccentric woman. As a young bride, she was jilted at the altar and ever since then time has stopped for her. She walks around her decrepit manor house in her wedding dress, and her moldy wedding cake remains in the dining room. There, Pip is asked to entertain her. He also meets Estella, Miss Havisham’s adopted daughter, and he falls hopelessly in love with her, even though she readily tells him she will never love him back.

Pip grows up but he progressively becomes disgusted with his lifestyle as an apprentice to a blacksmith. Everything is so much refined at Miss Havisham. Plus there is no way Estella would ever love a blacksmith. Pip wishes that he could become a gentleman, but he would need money, and lots of it. His break comes when he is informed by an out of town lawyer named Jaggers that he has in fact great expectations, having been endowed by a rich benefactor to a life of privileges and leisure. Convinced that this benefactor is Miss Havisham, Pip leaves his village for London, and meets several individuals, including a relative of Miss Havisham. As he becomes progressively more indebted and experiences setbacks, Pip still hopes that he will change Estella’s mind. When his benefactor is revealed, it is not Miss Havisham, but rather Abel Magwitch who made a fortune in exile and who has returned to England, at the risk of death for an exiled criminal can never return.

Now knowing where his riches come from, Pip cannot abide to collect another penny. He endeavors to engineer Magwitch’s escape out of England with his friends, but enemies lurk everywhere...

Arguably Dicken’s best novel, Great Expectations has it all. Emotional rollercoaster. Action. Adventure. Aspiration. Treachery. Secrets. Tragedies. Misunderstandings. A classic for the ages, Pip’s life remains a highlight of English literature.