Great Expectations

The relationship between Pip and Estella in Great Expectations can reasonably be described as complicated. The two meet as children, and as they grow up, adult feelings inevitably enter the...

The context of this quote is that Pip has just come home from his first day at Miss Havisham's house. Mrs. Joe and Mr. Pumblechook want to know all about it. Pip feels incapable of explaining what...

Charles Dickens uses humor and pathos both singly and together. Although the novel has many serious themes, Dickens makes the narrative more compelling through the constant interjection of humorous...

When Pip first meets Magwitch in the marshes as a young boy, he is terrified at the sight of a man with a leg iron. The convict threatens Pip and demands that he bring him a file and food.Pip is...

Pip lies to Mrs. Joe and Uncle Pumblechook because he does not want to tell them what happens at Miss Havisham’s house. He does not think they will understand. When Pip returns home from Miss...

The thing that Pip and Estella most have in common is their background. Both have humble origins; Pip is an orphan raised by his sister and her blacksmith husband, whereas both of Estella's parents...

Estella explicitly says that she has "no heart" in chapter 29: "You must know," said Estella, condescending to me as a brilliant and beautiful woman might, "that I have no heart—if that has...

I used to think, with a weariness on my spirits, that I should have been happier and better if I had never seen Miss Havisham's face, and had risen to manhood content to be partners with Joe in...

I would say that the title Great Expectations does not apply merely to Pip but to human expectations in general. Pip is deeply disappointed in love, but this is a pretty common experience for men...

Miss Havisham is an eccentric old lady who is always dressed in her wedding dress. She is described as being "faded" - everything about her is old and decaying. Her hair is white and...

In Stage Two, Chapter XXVII, Pip receives a tardy message from Joe, who asks to visit Pip. And, even though the message, written by Biddy, expresses Joe's wish that Pip "excuse it [the visit] for...

Pip meets the convict in the marshes in a cemetery. Pip’s meeting of the convict was a fortuitous event, for sure. The day starts fairly ordinarily. Since most of Pip’s family is dead, including...

In Chapter Eleven of Great Expectations, Pip is wandering around Miss Havisham's yard when he encounters a "pale young gentleman" with "red eyelids" and "light hair." Rather unexpectedly, this...

Out of all the film adaptations of Great Expectations, the 1946 David Lean version tends to receive the most celebration. The film is quite close to the spirit of the original novel, capturing the...

Pip goes to Cairo and Estella marries someone else. There are two endings of the book. Charles Dickens was advised by a friend to make the ending a little happier, so he revised it. However, in...

Pip never knew his parents. He was raised by his sister and her husband, the blacksmith Joe Gargery. Because he did not know his parents and had never seen even a drawing of either of them, he...

The most important moral lessons from the book are: being a good person is more important than wealth; good deeds will come back to benefit you; bad deeds will come back to haunt you; family is the...

Money plays a very large role in Great Expectations. The title hints at this, for the great expectations that come to Pip are the expectations that he will become a wealthy gentleman due to the...

The relationship between Pip and Estella in Great Expectations is incredibly complex and goes through many different stages. When they first meet as children, Estella treats Pip with scorn,...

Pip’s expectations are broken down into a cycle of how he experiences the world. Stage One: Childhood and the Rise to Riches Pip has almost no expectations when the book opens. He agrees to help...

Miss Havisham commands Pip and Joe to meet with her in order to sign over Pip as an apprentice to Joe. From the time Pip is young, Miss Havisham invites him to her house to watch him play with...

On the face of it, it might seem rather noble of Miss Havisham to take in the offspring of a couple of common criminals. But in actual fact, there are less selfless motives at work. Ever since she...

Dickens manages to hook the reader right from the start of Great Expectations. The opening scene is a masterpiece of mood-setting that captures our attention with its vivid description of the...

There are some excellent examples of personification in chapters 2 and 3. Pip, much against his will, has stolen from both his sister and from his brother-in-law and best friend Joe Gargery. He has...

Much of the humor in Great Expectations comes from Dickens's detailed descriptions of his larger-than-life characters. For instance, Uncle Pumblechook is described as "a large, hard-breathing,...

This quote is from the end of the first part of Great Expectations, in chapter 19. It is a beautiful, haunting quote. It goes like this: "Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for...

Miss Havisham is an eccentric lady who lives a life of seclusion. She has a reputation for being strange, and few have actually seen the inside of her house. [Everybody] for miles round had heard...

Estella's decision to marry Bentley Drummle stuns everyone. Drummle is of noble stock, but he is also cruel and brutish. Pip is shocked and made miserable when Estella reveals her intention to...

Estella treats Pip very scornfully when they first meet. They first encounter one another when she lets him into Satis Hall, where he has come to meet Miss Havisham. From the start, Estella seems...

In a passionate scene, Miss Havisham demands to know why Estella shows her cool indifference rather than love. They are sitting by the fire, Miss Havisham holding Estella's hand. Miss Havisham...

1. Another significant event in Pip's journey to maturity, is his detour after having gone with Joe to Miss Havisham to sign the papers of indenture. Afterwards, Pumblechook, "that basest of...

Biddy is a perfect contrast to both Estella and Pip. She is a patient, sweet, kind, simple girl who is completely happy with her social status. Like Pip, Biddy is an orphan. Unlike Pip, she does...

Miss Havisham dies because she goes too close to her fireplace in her distraught condition after asking Pip to forgive her. The material of her old wedding dress, which she has worn for decades, is...

Molly, Mr. Jaggers's housekeeper, is a minor character with a big secret: she is Magwitch's wife and Estella's mother. Molly had been accused of murder, but Jaggers was able to get her acquitted,...

Pip reaches London in chapter 20 of Great Expectations after much eager anticipation. His departure is a great event—not only for him but also for Joe and Biddy and various members of the...

On the one hand, Pip is tempted to show him off to Trabb's boy, yet at the same time he worries that Trabb's boy might reveal some of Pip's humble past and the Avenger would ridicule him...

Pip likens Wemmick to a mechanical object with a a mouth like post office slot. This is the Wemmick Pip first meets, the professional Wemmick whose job is to be Mr. Jaggers's clerk. Wemmick points...

Pip got his nickname from the fact that he could not pronounce his name when he was young. Pip is an orphan. His father, his mother, and most of his siblings are dead. He is raised by the one...

In Chapter 8 of "Great Expectations" Pip arrives at Satis House after having been brought by Uncle Pumblechook at the request of Miss Havisham. He is there to play with Estella, who haughtily...

Miss Havisham wants to gain revenge on the whole of mankind for being jilted on her wedding day all of those years ago. She doesn't deliberately set out to fool Pip as to the true identity of his...

To describe a scene is to show it through the five senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. Pip's visit to Mr. Wemmick's home is perhaps the most whimsical chapter in the novel and Dickens...

One of the most interesting things about Great Expectations is that the expectations Pip has as a result of being made into a gentleman turns out to be entirely false, because he misconstrues the...

Jaggers is Pip’s legal guardian and lawyer. He does not really like Drummle so much as appreciate him. He knows what kind of person Drummle is, and that intrigues him. Drummle is strong, and...

At the end of Chapter 35, after Mrs. Joe has died, and after Biddy has told Pip lovingly "how Joe never complained of anything...but ever did his duty in his way of life, with a strong hand, a...

Though some critics have argued that Great Expectations isn’t a pure bildungsroman in that it incorporates a number of other genres, it nonetheless displays the basic qualities one would associate...

In one respect, Great Expectations is a social satire that criticizes the social justice of the Victorian Age as well as the fawning admiration of the rising middle class for what he perceived as a...