English Paper 3

Great expectations is a beautiful novel written by Charles Dickens in a first person form which is really uncommon of Dickens taking into consideration the other famous novels he has written; nevertheless according to me, this is one of the finest books written by him. The only one thing that I feel is a weak point in the book is its ending; it does not follow the plot and it seems that Dickens just forced the story to end on a happy note.

There are three endings to Great Expectations; the first one was dull and sad, then he decided to end with a happy ending but still felt that there was something wrong and hence he finally wrote the third ending that had a minor but highly significant change from the second ending. The main reason why Dickens changed the ending was because his friend, Wilkie Collins told him that if he does not want his career to go down the drain he should end on a happy note as the audience wants and is expecting the story to end on a happy note.

The original ending of the novel is dark but still follows the plot; Pip hears that Drummle, Estella’s husband died many years ago but she got remarried to a doctor and together they lived a sad life. One day as Pip was walking on the streets of London, he sees Estella driving a carriage and she recognizes him; Estella tells Pip that she knows she looks really different, but that she thought he might like to have a chat with her. After this meeting Pip says that he was very glad to meet her because seeing her gave him the assurance, “that sufferings had been stronger than Miss Havisham’s teachings, and had given her a heart to understand what my heart used to be.” This marks the end of Pip’s final great expectations. It makes him realize that Estella h...

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... was finally published just makes it seem that getting Estella was his final and greatest expectation and it makes the readers feel that he never matured; it shows us how although Pip has gone far from being a poor boy living in a village to having his own business in the Middle East, from the inside he is still an immature boy who has not forgotten Estella after all these years.

Eventually Dickens published the third version of the ending and the book was highly appreciated by many authors and even readers; but his idea to change the ending has been a debate for many years ever since cause different authors and readers have their own opinion and though about which out of the three endings would be the best fit.

Works Cited

http://www.shmoop.com/great-expectations/summary.html

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_19c/dickens/ending.html