Is Great Expectations Like a Soap Opera?

Is Great Expectations like a soap opera?

Consider all that Pip went through, or just take parts, like his trial

with the girl, at first, she didn't like him, and then later on in his

life, she loved him. Also, what are the chances that some poor boy

that no one knows ends up inheriting a huge sum of money out of the

blue one day, and that the person who leaves it to him is an escaped

criminal who Pip just happened to help out one day. All of these

things are coincidence, and that's mostly what soap operas are based

on.

Let’s go through the three Stages of Pip expectations to find out:

1st-He is going to be apprenticed to Joe.

2nd-He is expecting to be of upper class.... a gentlemen.

3rd-His very much lowered expectations.

Many of the characters other than Pip have their own expectations as

well, which makes the novel more attractive to readers because it adds

other threads to the plot ,for example ,Herbert Pocket and Pip's

expectatons are different and appealling.

Herbert's expectations are different to Pips in that he does not raise

his expectations, like Pip does. He wants simple things, like for

Clara to marry him; a good life; no complications or distractions.

The interration between Pip and other characters having both Positive

and Negative influence on him certainly makes the novel taste more

and more like a soap opera.

In most ways, Joe is a positive influence. he is kind, simple and

just. However he does inadvertantly affect Pip in a negative way

because Pip is so ashamed of him, since he is a blacksmith, that he

takes pains to avoid being a simple man himself.

Magwitch had an overall negative affect on Pip. Besides scaring him to

death as a boy, Magwitch's giving him his "gr...

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...lly becomes HIS brother and not just a "body" or "corpse".

The last line is the climax of the poem although nothing happens. We

are made aware of exactly how old his brother is and it is the only

time that Heaney uses a proper rhyming scheme througout the poem. This

adds a double emphasis that really leaves it engraved in your mind.

2004-10-28

Added by: Lisa G.

This poem is powerful because it's real. It's real because it is

plain. It's plain because it doesn't probe the poet's feelings. It

doesn't probe the poet's feelings because he probably wasn't aware of

them. What he was aware of was what was going on around him, so this

is what he described in the poem. This allows the reader to really

feel the impact of the tragedy from the poet's standpoint. The

enormity of the shock on Heaney can be seen from the way his brain

can't fully absorb it yet.