Charles Dickens' Great Expectations

Charles Dickens' Great Expectations

Charles Dickens wrote Great Expectations in 1860-1861 when he was in

London. It is set in the mid nineteenth century, in Kent, and London.

The basic plot of Great Expectations is:

Pip, a young orphan living with his sister and her husband in the

marshes of Kent, sits in a cemetery one evening looking at his

parents' tombstones. Suddenly, an escaped convict springs up from

behind a tombstone, grabs Pip, and orders him to bring him food and a

file for his leg irons. Pip obeys, but the fearsome convict is soon

captured anyway. The convict protects Pip by claiming to have stolen

the items himself. One day his uncle takes him to Miss Havishams house

to play. A few years later he is apprenticed to his sisters husband.

One-day pip is told that he is to live in London and has great

expectations thanks to a secret friend. A couple of years after this

the convict comes back to pip and tells him that he is the person that

has been supplying all the money to him and that ever since Pip help

him he promised himself that he would make Pip a gentleman. Pip is

appalled at this but helps the convict to escape back to Australia.

Before the convict escapes he is caught is put back into prison, he

gets ill and dies. Before he dies he tells Pip that he has a daughter

who was put up for adoption when she was a baby. Pip believes this to

be Estella (who he used to play with at miss Havishams house and is in

love with her). Miss havisham has died and has left her money to the

pockets. Pip decides to go abroad with his friend to work. After some

have past Pip comes back home where he goes to Miss Havishams old

house where he finds Estella. He finds her coldness and hardness has

been repl...

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...d social status. This idea soon changes when

Pip gets to London. He tries to be a gentleman when he reaches London

but soon realises that he has a lot to learn and soon he starts to

hate his past, the way he was brought up. After time he begins to hate

Joe and the way he makes his living, but when Magwitch tells him who

gave the order for him to become a gentleman, he starts to think about

himself and what he has become. Then he remembers where his roots are,

and who his family are. This is when he realises there's two types of

gentleman the good type that he wanted to become and the bad type the

one he has become. Only when he helps to save Magwitchs life by

putting his own in danger he becomes a true gentleman. Also I think

Dickens wanted us to remember where are roots are and who our true

family and friends, by the time we had finished reading the book.