More handpicked essays just for you.
Theme with great expectations
Theme with great expectations
Dickens use of contrast and symbols as narrative techniques in hardtimes
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Suffering is perhaps the biggest theme or idea of the book Great Expectations. The whole story is about Pip suffering throughout his life and what he seeks to discover that ultimately leads him into more pain. All of the people he is closest to in life suffered their whole life, such as Miss Havisham, Magwitch and Estella. The book ends with some hope that resolves all of the pain throughout all of the main characters and even secondary characters lives. Throughout Pip's childhood he and the ones he was closest to, his process of becoming a gentleman he had suffered as well, and when his journey comes to its end he still deals with more pain in him of lost love and curiosity. If the book would have tone renamed its best title for it would be "Suffering Expected".
Starting out straight from the beginning of Pip's life he is already in pain from losing his parents. He then must live with his older sister Ms.Joe who puts him through a great deal of torture during his childhood. Such as when he went to the graveyard without her approval, she filled his mouth with tarred water just to prove a point to him. Not only was it Ms.Joe though, but the convict as well who put the dark image in his head of the certain someone who would come to kill him if he didn't bring him what he wanted which Pip eventually could not stop being concerned about after he came back from the graveyard. Once Pip starts to visit Miss Havisham though it is obvious the way she has designed the Satis House is in such a low, dark, depressing emotion because of the experiences she's had to suffer during her past. Miss Havisham's suffering has defined her character though. "Miss Havisham herself, of course, is the big victim of the novel, abandoned on her wedding day ...
... middle of paper ...
...rity, and the ending of his story he has sealed with pain and hardships of life. From losing his parents and sister, his best friend, being treated cold hearted by the love of his life Pip still manages to make it out in an okay way with the little hope with Estella and his close one's child who looks just like him in a scary way. It is not the best ending but it could've been worst for the young man. Pip's idea of life is truly suffering from the worst and getting only a little bit of resemblance from it.
Works Cited
Andrewa, Kenneth. "Suffering in Great Expectations." . N.p., 15 June 2010. Web. 17 May 2014. .
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Great Expectations.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2007. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.
Dickens, Charles. "Chapter 59." Great Expectations. : , . . Print.
As a young child living in England’s marshes, Pip was a humble, kind, and gentle character. He lived an impoverished life with his sister, Mrs. Joe, and her husband, Joe Gargery, the neighborhood blacksmith. Pip was grateful for everything he had, including his few possessions and his family’s care. When he was offered the chance to play at The Satis House, the home of the wealthy Miss Havisham, Pip went in order to make his family happy.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.” In his novel, Great Expectations, Charles Dickens exemplifies Ralph’s belief and conveys that when a person has gone wrong in life, a trauma or pain can help him or her return to a better path. All through the novel, characters such as Pip, Miss Havisham, and Magwitch illustrate this theme through the decisions they made in life and where those decisions took them.
In his early existence, extraordinary young Pip lives in impoverished house in Kent, England with his sister, Mrs. Gargery and her husband, Joe Gargery, a blacksmith. Here he is constantly beaten into submission by his caring sister. When these beating fail to correct Pip he is then subjected to the atrocious tar water. Then one evening while masquerading as a pleasant hostess, Mrs. Gargery learns of a splendid opportunity for Pip, the privilege to travel to a wealthy mistress’s house, Mrs. Havisham’s house.
Many people strive for things that are out of their reach. In the novel Great Expectations, Charles Dickens shows the themes of personal ambition and discontent with present conditions. The main character, Pip, shows early on in the story that he is unhappy with his current situation. Throughout the story he strives for the things that are beyond his reach, and is apathetic to the things that he can obtain. Pip demonstrates this by striving for Estella when he could have Biddy, and yearning to be a gentleman when he could be a blacksmith.
... more conscious, regretful and likable Pip. The chapter ends with Pip imagining that there had been signs, warning. him that Magwitch was coming, but had gone unnoticed by him.
When Ms. Havisham inherited money at a young age, she did not have to work anymore; therefore, she could do whatever she wanted, but it lead to a very sad and corrupted life. At a young age, Pip sees Ms. Havisham, “as an immensely rich and grim lady who lived in a large and dismal house barricaded against robbers, and who led a life of seclusion (53)." A mansion conveys that the owner is ‘immensely rich’ and usually contains all the materials a person may want in life, which can lead to happiness. Ms. Havisham inherited her wealth from her father, and has spent her days ‘barricaded’ inside the Satis House, ‘secluded’ from the outside world, showing that she is isolating herself from reality, leading to corruption. Her house, Satis House, which means enough house, implies that Ms. Havisham should be happy and completely content with her life, but she is not. Therefore, material and inherited money do not completely satisfy an individual or account for contentment. When Pip enters Ms. Havisham’s r...
The novel ‘Great Expectations’, by Charles Dickens, follows a young, socially inexperienced orphaned boy called Pip, through his journey, emphasizing his inability to adapt to life and relationships around him. His story is told through the eyes of the older Pip and highlights the aspects of society which Dickens disapproves of. His techniques throughout the novel help to give a better understanding of Pip's life. When Pip first encounters the escaped convict in the graveyard, the tense relationship between them is obvious to the reader, but all is revealed in chapter 39, where the readers meet both Pip and the convict again, and witness a role-reversal between them. The weather in the novel is significant; Dickens describes it in such a way that it creates an atmosphere using foreboding ominous imagery. This story of a lonely orphan in a mixed up world provides plenty of opportunities to consider the difficultly of an impoverished childhood in the nineteenth century and how hard it might have been for such a naïve and gullible young boy to survive in this time, especially with such harsh family circumstances. The theme of injustice, which is inherent throughout, explains some of the reasons why he has so many ‘great expectations.’
This progression of Pip’s life tests him many over. He tries again and again with haste to move towards his one true goal borne upon a children’s folly that grows to be his all consuming desire. He resents his current status as mere orphan smithy boy, common in all respects to his eyes, and fails to recognize his own strangeness in rejecting his allotted path in life. His father figure, Joe, advises that his own questioning is uncommon enough but he simply disregards fulfilment in being himself, believing himself to be the one true, harsh, judge of his character, he is simply not one to back down on his ideals.
Living in a world where much about a person’s character is measured by wealth, it has become increasingly important to maintain a separation between material characteristics and intangible moral values. Pip, in Dickens’ Great Expectations, must learn from his series of disappointments and realize the importance of self-reliance over acceptance to social norms. Through his unwavering faith in wealthy “ideals,” such as Miss Havisham and Estella, Pip develops both emotionally and morally, learning that surface appearances never reveal the truth in a person’s heart.
“Great Expectations.” Novels for Students 4. (1998): 12. Online. Discovering Collection. 06 Feb. 2006. Available http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/DC.
In order to make more money Pip’s uncle sends Pip to a psychotic old lady’s house named Mrs. Havisham. Mrs. Havisham is a mean and nasty character who constantly bickers at Pip and tells him of his unimportance. Pip continues to be mild mannered and respectful to Mrs. Havisham yet he begins to see that he will never get ahead in life just being nice. Mrs. Havisham uses Pip as sort of a guinea pig to take out her passion of revenge against men. She does this by using her daughter, Estella to torment Pip.
French, A.L " Imprisonment: The Case of Great Expectations." Discussions of Charles Dickens, 82-92. William R. Clark, ed. Boston: D.C. Heath & Co., 1961.
Charles Dickens’ aptly titled novel Great Expectations focuses on the journey of the stories chief protagonist, Pip, to fulfill the expectations of his life that have been set for him by external forces. The fusing of the seemingly unattainable aspects of high society and upper class, coupled with Pip’s insatiable desire to reach such status, drives him to realize these expectations that have been prescribed for him. The encompassing desire that he feels stems from his experiences with Mrs. Havisham and the unbridled passion that he feels for Estella. Pip realizes that due to the society-imposed caste system that he is trapped in, he will never be able to acquire Estella’s love working as a lowly blacksmith at the forge. The gloomy realizations that Pip is undergoing cause him to categorically despise everything about himself, feeling ashamed for the life he is living when illuminated by the throngs of the upper class.
These elements are crucial to the structure and development of Great Expectations: Pip's maturation and development from child to man are important characteristics of the genre to which Great Expectations belongs. In structure, Pip's story, Great Expectations, is a Bildungsroman, a novel of development. The Bildungsroman traces the development of a protagonist from his early beginnings--from his education to his first venture into the big city--following his experiences there, and his ultimate self-knowledge and maturation. Upon the further examination of the characteristics of the Bildungsroman as presented here it is clear that Great Expectations, in part, conforms to the general characteristics of the English Bildungsroman. However, there are aspects of this genre from which Dickens departs in Great Expectations. It is these departures that speak to what is most important in Pip's development, what ultimately ma...
The most important theme throughout the book can be said to be ambition and self-improvement. Pip at heart is an idealist; whenever he is convinced that something is superior to what he has, he immediately desires to obtain that improvement. This is best illustrated when he sees Satis house, which puts him into a state of mind of desiring to be a wealthy gentleman. In this novel, Pip’s ambition and self-improvement takes three forms: moral, social, and educational. Firstly, he desires moral self-improvement and is very hard on himself when he feels that he acts immorally, by trying to act better in the future. This can be noticed when Pip leaves for London and is disappointed with his behavior towards Biddy and Joe. Secondly he desires social self-improvement, after having fallen in love with Estella, who demands Pip to act according to high society. His fantasies of becoming a gentleman are further fueled by Mrs. Joe and Pumblechook. These fantasies prove to be very significant throughout the plot, since the author uses these ideas of social class to explore the class system of his period. Thirdly, Pip desires educational improvement, which is deeply connected to his social ambition and dream of marrying Estella. Ultimately, through the examples of Joe, Biddy and Magwitch, Pip learns that social and educational improvement are irrelevant to one’s real worth and that conscience and affection are to be valued above social ranking.