will come into handsome property....immediately removed from his present sphere of life and from this place and be brought up as a gentleman--in a word, as a young fellow of great expectations." 

And, it is these grand hopes, these "great expectations" that links so many of the characters in Dickens's grand effort of narrative:

• Magwitch hopes to vicariously redeem his tragic life
• Pip expects that in becoming a gentleman, he will become superior to others and worthy of Miss Havisham's respect and Estella's love. 
• Herbert Matthews aspires to secure a respectable position and to marry
• The orphaned Biddy hopes to find a meaningful position in life.
• Mr. Wopsle parodies the expectations of Pip in his ridiculous hopes of becoming a serious actor.
• So, too, does Pumblechook parody Pip's excessive expectations in his claim to having brought about Pip's success.
• Mr. Wemmick's exaggerated home displays a lightly comical image of great expectations.
• In a sinister form of expectations, Orlick hopes to destroy Pip who has always been his rival.
• Miss Havisham, who has had great expectations of a happy life, seeks to regain some peace of conscience with Pip's forgiveness.
• Estella's great expectations to break men's hearts become tragic as she marries a cruel husband and becomes aware of her limitations in receiving love.
• Finally, the readers have "great expectations" as they hope to see Pip succeed and attain his only love, Estella. 

The novel clearly has an relevant title as paradoxically there is in its narrative the unfulfillment of many of the expectations of characters while at the same time, as critic Angus Calder notices, Pip attains the other "great expectations" of many readers as 

Pip does not merely see what has been there all the time; in the cases of Miss Havisham and Magwitch, he actively helps them to become better people near the end of their lives.

And so, the "friendly foe" of Sir Phillip Sidney, "Great Expectations" is, indeed, an appropriate title for the grand work of Charles Dickens.

As you know the title of a work is important. In this case, the title, Great Expectations, refers to the protagonist's desires for his future. In particular, as the novel progresses, Pip desires greater things for himself and his future. He has great expectations about leaving poverty and becoming a gentleman. When he sees Satis House he is obsessed to be wealthy - partially to win the affections of Estella.

He has great expectations about shedding his ignorant country boy ways and becoming learned. This is why he learns to read at Mr. Wopsle's aunt's school. He even has great expectations about moral reform and becoming a better person. For example, he regrets his mistreatment of Joe and Biddy. In short, we can say that Pip has great expectations to rise above his social class. In a sense, this is his salvation.

The irony of all of Pip's desires is that whatever he achieves does not make him any happier. He is no happier than when he as an apprentice as a blacksmith. In this sense, we can say that these great expectations did not deliever.

Great Expectations tells a story of characters who have ambitious and often unrealistic expectations for both themselves and the people in their lives. It could be argued that the purpose of this novel is to show how people's expectations in life are often unrealistic, uninformed, or unreasonable. Furthermore, expecting someone else to play a role in one's own personal development does not lead one to success, as Pip learns by the end of the novel.

The purpose of "great expectations" in the novel is to set characters on courses that might or might not be appropriate for them and to obfuscate the things that really matter. The book makes it clear that expectations are not synonymous with ambition and are certainly not synonymous with hard work. To attain one's expectations, or goals, one must propel oneself forward rather than relying on external assistance.

For instance, Estella’s expectations of her future and her sense of how to treat others, derived from being raised by Miss Havisham, lead to disastrous consequences for her when she marries Drummle. Pip’s expectations of his benefactor’s identity—he wrongly believes Miss Havisham is his benefactor—and about his future lead him to initially take the wrong path and rebuff the people who truly love him in favor of the superficial pursuit of the life of a gentleman.

Ultimately, when the truth is revealed to him, Pip learns that he spurned the people who truly cared about him and wasted time, money, and effort on achieving an empty ambition. He also learns that to attain something he wants and to reach his goals, he needs to do more than merely “expect” another person to gift him money or status. He needs to work hard and lift himself up rather than expect others to achieve his aspirations on his behalf.

Nearly everyone has great expectations when they are young. They expect a lot of themselves, a lot of other people, and a lot of life. But they are usually disappointed in all three. This is expressed very succinctly in Ernest Hemingway's short story, "Hills Like White Elephants." While they are waiting outside a little cafe for the train to Madrid to arrive, the girl wants to try a drink called Anis del Toro. 

"It tastes like licorice," the girl said and put the glass down.

"That's the way with everything."

"Yes," said the girl. "Everything tastes of licorice. Especially all the things you've waited so long for, like absinthe."

The pessimistic German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer expresses the same truth another way.

Of course, as Schiller says, we are all born in Arcadia; in other words, we come into the world full of claims to happiness and pleasure and cherish the foolish hope of making them good. In any case, experience after a time teaches us that happiness and pleasure are a fata Morgana which is visible only from a distance and vanishes when we approach it.  

The great English Romantic poet William Wordsworth begins his most famous poem, "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" with the following stanza.

THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, 
The earth, and every common sight, 
To me did seem 
Apparelled in celestial light, 
The glory and the freshness of a dream. 
It is not now as it hath been of yore;-- 
Turn wheresoe'er I may, 
By night or day, 
The things which I have seen I now can see no more. 

The title of Dickens' novel Great Expectations appears to have multiple meanings. It can apply simply to the hero Pip, who had "great expectations" in the form of a promised fortune and also had great expectations of his future life as a wealthy gentleman married to Estalla. It can apply to some of the other characters in the novel as well. It can be at least partly autobiographical, because Dickens own early life was similar to that of Pip, and Dickens also enjoyed good fortune for a period before he became disenchanted. But in a larger sense it can apply to humanity in general. Children are likely to have grandiose dreams they expect to see fulfilled at some time in the distant future. But they can be rudely disappointed either by failure or success. Macbeth thought he would be happy if only he could become king of Scotland, but he ended up reflecting that

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

The Bible, of course, ought to have some words on the subject. We find some famous ones in Ecclesiastes 1:14:

I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.

Pretty pessimistic. It can't be that way for everybody. Or can it? Maybe Dickens was only suggesting that people shouldn't expect too much from life because they are bound to be disappointed with the way things turn out in reality. In the end Pip seems to realize that a simple life with modest expectations is the best kind of life. He uses Joe and Biddy as examples of people who are happy because they do not make themselves unhappy. 

Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman is a good example of disappointed expectations. So are the heroes of Henry James's stories "The Great Good Place," "The Lesson of the Master," and "The Beast in the Jungle." So is the hero of Voltaire's novel Candide, which ends with this sentence:

“All that is very well,” answered Candide, “but let us cultivate our garden.”

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 Romney Marshes with all is cold, damp, and dreariness. This is an inhospitable place, to put it mildly, certainly no place for a small child like Pip. That Pip should live here only heightens the sympathy we’ve already gained from knowing that he is an orphan.

Poor young Pip comes across as the loneliest boy in the world. And his loneliness, the kind that only a child would understand, is driven home in the first major set-piece of the novel, Pip’s terrifying encounter in the churchyard with the escaped convict Abel Magwitch.

As Magwitch descends upon him, Pip is all alone. His parents may be nearby, but they’re long since dead, buried in the churchyard. At this precise moment, Pip desperately needs the protection of an adult. Such protection will indeed arrive one day, but ironically it will come from the man who now threatens to cut his throat.

The scene in the graveyard is important because it establishes the lack of a true protector in Pip’s life, something that will affect him as he makes the difficult transition into adulthood. In due course, Pip will seek protection in a number of adult authority figures such as Miss Havisham and the lawyer Mr. Jaggers. But neither of them have his true interests at heart, and so Pip will remain as lonely inside as he was on the outside on that cold, foggy day in the churchyard.

The opening pages of Charles Dickens’ novel Great Expectations are significant in a number of ways, including the following:

• The very first paragraph introduces Pip, the narrator of this autobiographical novel.  Since the novel explores Pip’s development from childhood to adulthood, the opening paragraph immediately engages our interest in the central character of the book.
• The second paragraph opens with a sentence that performs several functions: (1) it already suggests some wit on the part of Pip; (2) it begins to show Dickens’ talent as a writer, especially in the balanced phrasing of “his tombstone and my sister”; and (3) it not only introduces two more important characters (Pip’s sister and her husband) but also begins to sketch the kind of world into which Pip was born (thanks to the reference to “the blacksmith”).
• The following sentence emphasizes that Pip never saw his father or his mother, thus introducing two major themes of the book: isolation and the function of substitute parental figures.
• The next two sentences (about Pip’s interpretation of the tombstones) begin to introduce an element of paradoxical humor into a book that is often humorous indeed. The frequently whimsical quality of Dickens’ writing begins to appear when Pip says, concerning one of the tombstones, that

The shape of the letters on my father's, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair. From the character and turn of the inscription, "Also Georgiana Wife of the Above," I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly.

Pip is a character whom we are already beginning to like, since he (now an adult) can look back on his earlier self and offer wry self-mockery. Pip seems lacking in excessive pride or pretension and seems to have a sense of humor. Pip is already displaying the distinctiveness of personality, the idiosyncrasy, for which Dickens’ characters are so often well-known and which often helps make them so unforgettable.

• Finally, Pip’s references to his five dead siblings already imply another theme of the novel: that life can be hard, that success in life (and even survival) is hardly guaranteed, and that life can often lead to loneliness and isolation.  The adult Pip’s comments on his dead siblings already imply his compassion, but his sense of humor prevents this moment from being saccharine or sentimental.

1.  Estella is with the protagonist Pip. This Estella is the same daughter of the convict with whom we opened the book. A second generation that has taken advantage of the young Pip is now and still at work.

2. I believe there is great irony in Dickens' closing scene of Great Expectations. Estella's character is changed from what we have seen throughout the novel, she has been leading and manipulative to Pip. Here, we see her changed:

I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape. Be as considerate and good to me as you were and tell me we are friends.

Estella's words to Pip demonstrate his experiences. This bending and breaking has been happening his whole life. The difference here is that she is embracing it. Pip never could embrace his circumstances. He continues with great expectations... his life feels unfulfilled.

3. The setting of the scene is at Satis House, or what was left of it. This moment finds Estella being genuine and sincere to Pip, something she never really did while Miss Havisham was alive or while Satis House was standing.

4. Most importantly, Satis House is changing.

The ground belongs to me. It is the only possession I have not relinquished. Everything else has gone from me, little by little, but I have kept this. It was the subject of the only determined resistance I made in all the wretched years.

Satis House was a symbol of the "determined resistance" she was trained in for all those years. Estella's life is moving on. Pip is not in that place in his life to let go or move on yet. Estella has matured through the problems of her existence. Pip is still expecting.

Interestingly enough, Great Expectations had two different endings.  Dickens changed the ending when he was convinced that the first one would not be profitable.  I guess everyone’s a sucker for a happy ending!  Both scenes have significance, but I tend to believe that the original ending is worth more.

In the published ending, Pip runs into Estella on the ruins of Satis House.  She seems to have mended her ways and is ready to ride off into the sunset with Pip.  Dickens implies that the two will never part again, and live happily ever after.

I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so, the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.

This is an optimistic ending.  The significance is that anyone can change, and even if you have been hurt you can still find love.

In the original ending, things do not end with Pip and Estella together.  Pip runs into Estella on a street in London.  She is married, he is not, and he has Joe and Biddy’s child with him.  They shake hands and part ways forever.

I was very glad afterwards to have had the interview; for, in her face and in her voice, and in her touch, she gave me the assurance, that suffering had been stronger than Miss Havisham's teaching, and had given her a heart to understand what my heart used to be.

It’s a matter of taste, but I have always believed this ending to be far more realistic and Dickens's true intention.  They have both been through so much that one has to ask if they really would be happy together, or ever can be happy at all.  However, the significance of this ending is that Pip has moved on with his life and is no longer pining for Estella.  He has learned his lesson.  That’s another reason I prefer the second ending.

The title is also appropriate because the major character of the novel is Philip Pirrip (nicknamed "Pip"), and Dickens is thus alluding both to Sir Philip Sidney and also to a phrase in one of Sidney's Astrophil and Stella sonnets (21), in which Astrophil's friend refers to

. . . that friendly foe,

Great Expectations . . .

In Sidney's poem' great expectations are a "friendly foe" because they challenge us to do our best, to achieve our full potential even if doing so requires hard work and effort.  Pip, in Dickens' novel, has great expectations of himself but is also the object of others' great expectations.

Well ther ya go. I never knew that Dickens was alluding to one of Sidney's sonnets. This is enlightening information that adds to the depth of my appreciation of Dickens, whom I already appreciate greatly. Thanks for the insight. Great to have you with us on eNotes, by the way!

I love how the title is suggestive to the reader from the beginning. It certainly fits as the above posts suggest. My students place great wonder in the word expectations because they see it as something placed on a person by an authority. For example, I have the expectations that when I assign an essay, students will turn it in. What they find so intriguing about the book is that these are the expectations of the characters. Then, the connection to real life becomes so much more relevant. Students realize that as children, they expected they would play NFL football or become president. Now, their realities as high schoolers are starting to set in. They didn't even make the football team, or they never got a grade higher than a C and doors begin to close. This book's title suggest much about what occurs in the text, but even more, it demonstrates an overwhelming truth about life that is important for readers to grasp.

I agree with #5. One of the classes I hated the most in school was the critical analysis class when pursuing my English degree. I always had, and still have, a problem looking at a text from different perspectives. For me, the only perspective which matters is my own when deeming a text great or not. I place a lot of faith in author intent mixed with personal interpretation.

In regards to a title, when an author names his work, it is similar to naming a child. The author has slaved over the 'raising' of the text- they have felt anger, happiness, worry, perhaps every emotion one can experience in their lives. So, (not that I am refusing the critical analysis of your question) who are "we" to question the naming of Dickens' "child"?

Just a thought!!!

As the above posts mention -- the book is all about expectations, so the title is appropriate.  I would add that if one thinks about most "great expectations" we realize that more often than not, the reality does not, and cannot, possibly live up the grand mental/emotional build-up that comes before. What follows then is the inevitable let down -- and it is a let down even in the face of it not being a disaster! I can dream about a great beach vacation for months, but in reality, the airport is a hassle and the weather could be less than ideal. Even if most of my vacation is a delight,  I have great expectations which, of course, cannot possibly live up to the fantasy.

I don't think it makes a lot of sense for people like us to second guess Dickens.  He was one of the great literary talents of the world and we are not (so far as I know).  However, for the sake of argument, do you suppose you might want to think about calling the novel "Dashed Expectations?"  After all, the book is centered around the idea that no one ever really got what they expected.  So maybe the title should be about that.

You might want to relate the choice of title to some of the key themes of this excellent novel, in particular that of class consciousness and transformation. One of the crucial stages of the novel is when Pip goes to Satis House for the first time and experiences the rather uncomfortable epiphany that he is nothing but a "common labouring boy" who "calls the Knaves Jacks." He comes back home with the ambition of becoming a gentleman and winning Estella. Thus his great expectations come as something of a dream come true.

However, the transformation that these great expectations bring is critically presented by Dickens from the very first. The new clothes that Pip wears, for example, change the way that characters such as Pumblechook and Trabb treat him, but those that love him are not so impressed. Although Pip in London learns the mannerisms and habits of being a gentleman, in his character he is shown to act in a very un-gentlemanlike fashion when Joe comes to visit him in London, for example. In addition, his great expectations seem to be based around a life of idleness, corruption, moral vice and dissolution as he lives off the wealth of a convict. Dickens seems to use the phrase "great expectations" to ironically comment upon the way in which a sudden injection of wealth and status does not automatically equate with "great expectations" and, in fact, we might argue that Pip would have been better off and happier had he stayed in the marshes. Throughout the novel, then, Dickens uses the phrase to comment upon class and the impact of money by showing the way in which it is moral character and maturity that gives one truly great expectations.

For Charles Dickens, Great Expectations was significant because it was semi-autobiographical. It was his revision of his earlier semi-autobiographical novel David Copperfield. Besides the fact that both books are about young boys who have rough upbringings, they are pretty different. David Copperfield is idealized. Great Expectations is darker. Also, Great Expectations takes place in and around Rochester, where Dickens grew up. The places are based on his childhood haunts.

An example of this is the graveyard from the beginning of the book. This is actually based on a real graveyard outside a castle in Rochester which has the same headstones Dickens describes as being Pip’s siblings’ headstones. Dickens grew up looking at them, and incorporated them into Pip’s life.

To five little stone lozenges, each about a foot and a half long, which were arranged in a neat row beside their grave, and were sacred to the memory of five little brothers of mine,—who gave up trying to get a living, exceedingly early in that universal struggle,—I am indebted for a belief I religiously entertained that they had all been born on their backs with their hands in their trousers-pockets, and had never taken them out in this state of existence (Chapter 1).

Dickens even based Satis House on a real house, which you can still visit today. When he was a child, Dickens was enamored with another house called Gad’s Hill Place, and he returned to buy it once he was famous and could afford the house. He was creating his own arc, similar to, but different from, Pip’s. Unlike Pip, Dickens made his own success.

Some of Great Expectations's themes could definitely apply to Dickens's life. Dickens had trouble with relationships, especially when it came to love. He married, but fell out of love with his wife. He loved children and had many, but he was an exacting father. He had high expectations, and often as a result had rocky relationships with his own children. Life didn't turn out to be a fairy tale for Charles Dickens.

"Great Expectations" is significant also as a Bildungsroman, or the "novel of maturation."  And it is for this reason, Dickens's novel is often included in school anthologies.  The moral lessons that Pip learns parallel closely the lessons that many young people must learn:

1. Money cannot buy quality in a person.  After his first visit to Satis House, Pip becomes ashamed of his "coarse hands and [his]common boots."  He is ashamed of being "a common laboring boy....that was much more ignorant than [he] had considered [himself] ...and generally was in a low-lived bad way."  But, Pip later learns that the poorer characters are the more genuine and noble.  Mr. Jagger's clerk, Wemmick is a kind and loving man, Joe and Biddy are warm, decent people of strong moral character while many of the "gentlemen" such as Drummle are cruel and unethical.
2. Being influenced by others can be detrimental. In his efforts to become a gentleman, Pip wishes to socialize with Estella and the other gentlemen; in so doing, he becomes snobbish.  He is embarrassed by Joe's visit to London, mortified as Joe clumsily drops his hat and does not know how to act in the presence of Herbert. Later on, when Pip visits the forge, Joe, notes the difference, "Diwisions among such must come and must be met as they come.  You and me is not two figures to be together."  In his realization of his cruelty to Joe, Pip calls himself "a swindler":  "and with such pretenses did I cheat myself."
3. Appearances can often be deceiving. Many of the people that Pip has been impressed with are not what they have seemed to be.  Estella, for all her beauty, is cold and heartless.  Herbert, the gentleman on whom Pip wishes to model himself, is a failure in his business ventures, Mr. Jaggers, a lawyer, is actually a crude and heartless man, Miss Havisham is a pitiable, misdirected woman.  The convict, Magwitch, is really a good man who has simply had an unfortunate life, Joe and Biddy are the best people he has known.
4. Spiritual/ethical values are what are most important inlife. From Joe, Biddy, and Magwitch, Pip learns the value of real love and friendship, the value of integrity in a person.

In addition to the important moral lessons, the title itself is significant in the suggested meanings of the often repeated phrase "great expectations."  Pip expects money to buy him happiness and social position as a gentleman, as well as love.  But, none of these qualities can be attained by his false expectations.  For, after Magwitch appears and Pip realizes the meaning of Mr. Jaggers phrase to take nothing on appearances--"Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence.  There's no better rule"--he remarks in Chapter 41 that he has "no expectations."

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 and women in general. He was disappointed in his ambition to become a gentleman, which was an ambition largely inspired by his love for Estella; but this too is a common enough experience for people who manage to climb a few rungs up the social ladder. They often find that the people who were above them are not as good as the people they left below. Life itself is a disappointment for many of us. We expect too much of it when we are young. True love is hard to find. True friendship is equally hard to find. And they seldom last. Troubles are very easy to find, or they find us. The hero of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby is very much like Pip. Gatsby wanted to become a gentleman in order to win Daisy, just as Pip wanted to become a gentleman in order to win Estella. Both are cruelly disillusioned. Gatsby spends a fortune entertaining people and not one of them comes to his funeral--not even Daisy. The words "Great Expectations" are like the first part of an unfinished sentence which might read something like: Great expectations are a bad mistake because they lead to disillusionment and unhappiness. Pip's story is just an example of a general principle.

Expectations of this world
And the people in it,
Are surely the sources
Of our greatest misery.
    The Uddhava Gita

The title has a double meaning, because when it refers to “great expectations” it is talking about both Pip’s money and his plans for himself; neither worked out for him.

In many ways, Dickens is satirizing the role of money in determining one’s fate.  Pip had one life in store for him before the money, and a different one after.  Most people would agree that although a blacksmith’s life is not luxurious, having a trade you can be successful in and people who love you is preferable to being isolated in the city with people who pretend to be your friend only as long as you have money.

When Jaggers tells Joe and Pip that Pip has expectations, they gasp.  They seem to understand exactly what he is saying.

“Now, I return to this young fellow. And the communication I have got to make is, that he has Great Expectations.” (ch 18)

He also comments that the expectations come with the money to support them.  Pip is to be a gentleman.  He will be set for life.  Everything will be fine from now on.

Ironically, things don't go well for Pip.  His life as a gentleman is lonely and full of conflict.  He struggles, because he is not given guidance on what to do with the money.  The other gentlemen that he associates with seem to mostly waste thiers.

When Pip learns that the money came from the convict, the whole illusion comes crashing down on him.  He realizes that he is the same person he was, and he can go back to being that person.  He had turned his back on those he loved, but seeing Magwitch sacrifice himself out of a paternal desire to see Pip was enough to return Pip to his simple lifestyle, and become much happier making his fortune, modest though it may be, on his own.

As part of the plot in a work of literature, the exposition gives readers information about characters, setting, and initial conflicts.  In the early chapters of Great Expectations, Charles Dickens introduces readers to his protagonist, Pip (who is a young child at the time), and the people who influence his life. 

From the moment we meet Pip in the graveyard, we understand that he is an extremely sensitive child who is clearly upset by being alone and in the presence of his deceased, buried parents and siblings.  Already shivering and about to cry, Pip is accosted by a convict, who demands that Pip return the following day with food and a file and that he not tell anyone of this encounter.  Traumatized, Pip returns home to his abusive sister, who is raising him "by hand," and her husband Joe. 

As Dickens is a master of character development, the exposition he provides in first few chapters of the novel (with the focus on Pip's fear of the convict and fear of his sister) establishes Pip as an overly-sensitive child who obsesses over things that are seemingly beyond his control.  This information, though it may seem to accompany the isolated incident with the convict, is essential to readers' understanding of Pip's character--and will also help readers understand Pip's reactions to his interactions with Miss Havisham, Estella, Magwitch, Herbert, Biddy, and Joe, among others.  Thus, Dickens is able to lay the groundwork for his bildungsroman--with the focus on his protagonist, Pip, from page one of the novel. 

I like to discuss the title of the novel by comparing it to another Dickens work, David Copperfield.

Every character in the novel has great expectations, but the title has a deeper meaning.  When Dickens wrote the book, he was a very different person than when he wrote David Copperfield and Oliver Twist.  In those stories, love is bright and blooming with possibility.  In Great Expectations, a darkness has settled in.  Dickens had been deeply disappointed by love, and by life.

Both Great Expectations and David Copperfield are considered Dickens’s autobiographies, but they were written at very different points of his career.  When he wrote David Copperfield, Dickens was a promising young author very much in love and with the world before him.  The book demonstrates that optimism, with the character of Dora and David, but recognizes Dickens’s settling for comfort instead of passion because Dora dies and David ends up with Agnes. 

The passion of young love is represented by Estella, whom Pip desperately loves to the point of obsession.  From a young age, Miss Havisham manipulates him into loving her.

Miss Havisham watched us all the time, directed my attention to Estella's beauty, and made me notice it the more by trying her jewels on Estella's breast and hair. (ch 9, enotes pdf p. 62)

Unfortunately, Dickens’s Agnes did not work out.  Dickens married Catherine Hogart and they had many children together, but he wasn’t happy with her.  Just as Miss Havisham was disappointed by love, the promise of young love turned to decay for Dickens.

The most prominent object was a long table with a tablecloth spread on it, as if a feast had been in preparation when the house and the clocks all stopped together. An épergne or centre-piece of some kind was in the middle of this cloth; it was so heavily overhung with cobwebs that its form was quite undistinguishable; and, as I looked along the yellow expanse out of which I remember its seeming to grow, like a black fungus…. (Ch 9, p. 59)

Just as Dickens’s great expectations for love and life not realized, those of Pip, Estella and Miss Havisham crumble and decay.  Yet even near the end of his life, Dickens maintained some optimism.  Herbert Pocket and Wemmick both find love, but it is the comfortable love and not the passionate, as is Joe and Biddy’s love.  Estella, Pip, and Miss Havisham, the passionate ones, all suffer.  Similarly, Magwitch, who also had great expectations, lives only just to see them realized before he too is destroyed.

Read more about David Copperfield here: http://www.enotes.com/david-copperfield/summary

You can learn something of the significance of the title by understanding Dickens’ own upbringing. Refer to the biographical section of e notes. Go to the Study Guide section and skip to the biography.

Some of Pip’s experiences mirror those of Dickens. Dickens resented the life he had working in a factory (especially as he had had designs on being an actor) and he knew he deserved something better. Pip when he was young and working at the forge, dreamed of his fortune and how it would be to be a ‘gentleman.’

In the novel itself, Pip’s “expectations” go in stages. First he fantasizes about how it would be to be a gentleman. Little does he know that a good deed will earn him an inheritance that will set him on his way to realizing his dream.

Unfortunately for Pip, in the second instance he actually abandons his ‘real’ friends in the pursuit of this life and the new set of expectations it brings with it.

Then there’s London and all the expectations that that creates. Even the other characters consistently try to match their own expectations. Miss Havisham, bent on avenging her damaged honor, raises Estella for the specific purpose of making men feel her own pain. Her expectations can never truly be met. Magwitch (Pip’s benefactor) is intent on making Pip ‘great’. Ironically, Pip imagines how life would have been back at the forge.

The readers’ expectations change as the plot twists thereby drawing everyone in to the conflict between expectations and the realization that each step in the process to attaining that which you strive towards only creates its own new set of expectations.

The title of Dickens's classic, Great Expectations, is certainly one that is pregnant with meaning. While it can denote grand hopes and desires, it can also be an exclamation as in the expression "Great Caesar's ghost!"  As it is spoken by the cynical Mr. Jaggers, the latter denotation as of "Good grief!" may have been his intent when he uttered the two words since, unlike Pip, he is aware of the source of Pip's newfound wealth.  Indeed, the double entendre is present in the utterance of these words as an allusion to their source:  There are grand hopes from a convicted convict, hopes that seem rather farfetched and worthy of exclamation, indeed.

For Pip, his aspirations to become a gentleman are many and beyond the reach of the dreams created in his little room after his first visit at Satis House. His grandiose plans to become successful and to marry Estella, for instance fall to chance.  At the end of Chapter IX, Pip reflects upon the role of destiny since, at times, his expectations become what Sir Phillip Sidney in his Astrophil and Stella sonnets refers to as 

. . . that friendly foe,

Great Expectations . . .

It is this friendly foe that causes Pip to write,

Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.

Thus, his guilt born in the graveyard on the marshes forms the chains that bind Pip as much to his illusionary hopes--"great expectations" held by himself and by others such as Magwitch and Joe and Pumblechook--as to his rejection and prodigal return to Joe at the narrative's end--"Great Expectations!" What ridiculous happenings!

Yes, lit24 sums it all up quite nicely.

The tension throughout the novel is one that is common to all of our lives; it is the inner struggle of believing that what we have been given in life is not enough, that we should always strive for something better and have great expectations of a more fulfilling future. What Pip eventually learns, after all he had hoped to gain and after all his endeavors for another, more rewarding existence, what he learns is the same lesson Dorothy learns in the Wizard of Oz: after all is said and done and hoped for and wished for, there is no place like home. And home is not so much a place as it is a state of mind, a way of being satisfied (ah, Satis House) with what one has.

In many ways, in the end Pip is back where he started in a simpler and less frought existence. It is certainly not by chance that his name is Pip: small and simple and the same in the end as it is in the beginning, the same read forwards as it is backwards: PiP.

I have read "Great Expectations" countless times and thoroughly enjoyed the book.  The reason Charles Dickens titled it so was because Pip had had a hard life in so short a lifetime, and when he supposedly came into good fortune, he had high hopes of a better life--an education, a good home, plenty to eat, nice clothes to wear.  But the greatest hope of all was the love of Estella, who spurned him constantly.  It was always his greatest dream that she could love him and in the end, after much suffering, she finally did.

The story of Great Expectations follows Pip, a lower-class orphan raised by his abusive sister and her kindhearted blacksmith husband, Joe. The novel opens with a significant episode in Pip's life: he brings food and a file to an escaped convict he encounters in a graveyard, terrified the man will kill him if he does not.

As a boy, Pip is also introduced to Miss Havisham, a wealthy spinster jilted at the altar in her youth, and Estella, her lovely ward. Estella is cold and snobby, but Pip falls madly in love with her. However, due to his lowly status, Pip has little hope of ever winning her hand.

Years later, Pip gains a stroke of luck when he learns that he has a mysterious benefactor. Though originally intended to become Joe's apprentice, he decides instead to go to London to become a gentleman. He believes his benefactor is Miss Havisham and that her intention is to make him good enough to marry Estella. Unfortunately, Pip becomes snobby toward his low-born loved ones, and he carelessly runs up debts while living with his new friend Herbert Pocket.

In time, Pip reencounters the escaped convict from his childhood. He learns that the man's name is Abel Magwitch and that Magwitch is his benefactor. After gaining a fortune in Australia, Magwitch wanted to help Pip rise in life because the boy was so kind to him. He is on the run from the authorities and his former accomplice, Compeyson (who Pip learns is the man who jilted Miss Havisham long ago). Meanwhile, Estella marries the brutish Bentley Drummle to spite her other suitors and Miss Havisham, whom she resents for warping her into a cold, manipulative person with "no heart."

Pip and Herbert arrange for Magwitch's escape, but the ex-convict is caught by the authorities and sentenced to death. Magwitch is at peace with death, but the end of his life also marks the end of Pip's fortune. Humbled, Pip reconciles with Joe and his former friends, then learns about the mercantile business with Herbert. The story ends years later with Pip reencountering Estella, now widowed and humbled herself. It is implied that the two may finally be able to marry, just as Pip always wanted, though not in the circumstances he expected.

Great Expectations is a tale of a boy's maturation into a man as he moves from a country boy to being a gentleman.

STAGE I

In the beginning, a strange incident occurs near the graves of Pip's parents: a coarse man in grey takes hold of Pip and shakes him upside down to find whatever is in his pockets. Shivering, he orders Pip to bring him food the next day and a file so he can remove the chain on his leg. The following day Pip brings food and drink that he has stolen from the cupboard; the man eats and drinks, then he makes a strange clicking sound in his throat as he looks oddly at Pip. Shortly thereafter, the convict is recaptured, and Pip leaves his home on the marsh for the first time because his uncle Pumblechook takes him to play with the beautiful young Estella at the wealthy Miss Havisham's home, Satis House. There he is quickly made to feel inferior as Estella calls him "coarse" and "common." Hurt and ashamed, Pip returns home to view his beloved Joe in a diminished light because now he yearns to become a gentleman. But, after some time, one dark night the burly man that Pip encountered at Satis House appears to inform Pip that he has "great expectations." Pip now has a benefactor who will finance his education, so he says good-bye to Joe and his sister and travels to London.

STAGE II

In London Pip meets his roommate, Herbert Pocket, the son of his tutor, Matthew Pocket. Pip and Herbert become fast friends, but they soon get into financial trouble. Even so, Pip becomes haughty and when the good and kind Joe visits, Pip is embarrassed by Joe's backward ways. So, Joe leaves a note for Pip and departs; after reading it, Pip feels guilty, but he does not contact Joe or visit his home on the marshes. Instead, he continues to try to impress Estella who is still cruel to him. Estella goes to France to study; when she returns she is even colder, and Pip learns that Estella has not been groomed for him, but only to be cruel to all men. Sadly, Estella is also cruel to Miss Havisham, whose heart is broken a second time. "But to be proud and hard to me!" she tells her ward in disbelief after she has doted upon Estella for years. 

One night a dangerous-looking man appears at Pip's lodging and reveals that he is the convict Provis (really Magwitch), and it is he who has been financing Pip's evolution to a gentleman. Having believed that Miss Havisham has been his benefactor all this time, Pip is appalled to know he has been spending a criminal's money, and vows to take no more.

STAGE III

In this stage Pip begins his moral regeneration after having lost sight of his values in the second stage. He returns to Satis House and asks Miss Havisham for some money in order to put Herbert in business; while there, he learns that Estella will marry the brutal Bentley Drummel. Pip begs her not to, but she will not listen. So, Pip departs but returns to check on Miss Havisham, who has moved too close to the fire, causing her decaying dress to be consumed in flames. Pip rescues her, but she dies and he is badly burned himself. While he is delirious with fever, Joe sits beside Pip's bed speaking to him lovingly about old times. 

Some time later, Magwitch tells Pip his life story, and Pip begins to feel pity for the ophaned boy who had to survive by stealing and was exploited by Compeyson; so, he and Herbert devise a plan to get Magwitch out of the country. On the day they rent the rowboat, Compeyson, who was a second convict that night on the marsh, is in another boat and points Magwitch out to the police. In the ensuing struggle, Magwitch is hurt and never recovers, but Pip is able to tell him of his daughter, who is, ironically, Estella. 
Since the money Magwitch possessed is that of a convict, it is confiscated by the British crown, so Pip returns for a time to the forge where Joe and Biddy have married. Like the prodigal son, Pip begs forgiveness of his true friend Joe, who merely replies, "Ever the best of friends, Pip." Later, Pip is offered a job with Herbert and returns to London; back on the marsh Biddy gives birth to a boy that she and Joe christen Pip. Some years later, Pip and the tragic Estella meet and reconcile.

I would expect a book with this title to be about someone who expects great things.  I would expect an ambitious, and possibly greedy, main character.  Since life is full of disappointments, I would expect that this character does not get straight to his great expectations, but rather stumbles some along the way.

Great Expectations is the story of one young man's great expectations.  He expects to be a gentleman, to be wealthy and educated, and to be married to the woman of his dreams.  You can expect many twists and turns in the plot.  Pip has no reason to expect any of this from his life (he is an orphan living with his sister and brother-in-law) in relative poverty.  He is rescued by a benefactor who sends him to school, etc.

The importance of reality as opposed to mere appearance is arguably the most significant theme in Great Expectations. Most of the characters on display are not quite what they seem, their true characters being radically at odds with their appearances. For instance, when we first encounter Abel Magwitch—along with Pip—we immediately take him for a violent, psychopathic convict—a dangerous, scary man who looks like he could do some serious harm. In actual fact, however, it turns out that old Abel has a real heart of gold, as can be seen in his generous patronage of Pip.

Then there’s Estella, who devotes herself to the shallow world of high society, with its obsession with how people act, dress, and behave. Yet despite her superior airs and graces, Estella is in fact the daughter of two criminals, one of whom, as we will discover in due course, is none other than Abel Magwitch. Once we are apprised of the particulars of Estella’s lowly background we gain a much more rounded portrait of her than the cruel, snobby young lady who greeted young Pip with such cold contempt when he used to come round to Satis House to play.

But no discussion of the theme of reality’s superiority over appearance would be complete without mentioning the story’s protagonist, Pip. He’s spent most of his life trying to be someone he isn’t. He wants to escape from the humble blacksmith’s cottage on the bleak Romney Marshes and head off to London to establish himself as a gentleman.

In due course, and thanks to Magwitch’s largesse, that’s precisely what he does. But in the process he becomes separated from his true self, a humble, decent young man possessed of deep love and loyalty for the people he cares about. Pip comes to realize that his single-minded obsession with becoming a gentleman turned him into a crashing snob towards Joe, the person who means more to him than anyone else in the world. And he feels truly ashamed of himself for it.

But thankfully he eventually comes to his senses and realizes that what he really is, deep down inside him, cannot be captured by any amount of wealth, fine clothing, or high social status.

The idea of "expectations" relates to Dickens's overarching theme in this and many other of his works:  the haves vs. the have-nots and the social classes they inhabit.  Pip spends much of the novel trying to overcome his poor childhood and the scorn with which society views him.  He wants to be what Englishmen at that time called a "gentleman", a term that basically meant you inherited some money, went to the best schools, and owned property.  As Pip struggles to attain his dreams of success and love, Dickens portrays society's elite as being those who have simply inherited wealth, but have little or nothing else to offer, while he gives his characters who have worked hard a certain wisdom and character.  The underlying premise is that in stark contrast to English values and beliefs, in fact social status has nothing to do with a person's value or character, a lesson Pip finally learns as he discovers the unexpected nobility of Magwitch's character.