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‘Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.’ -Charles Dickens
Introduction
Review of the Book in One Word:
ORPHIE - Mysterious and Entrancing; Beyond Ordinary Understanding
Book’s Name - Great expectations
Author’s Name - Charles dickens
Genre - Bildungsroman (a category of literature that focuses on the progression of a central character as he or she matures into an adult and experiences significant psychological growth along the way)
Language - English (British Literature)
Synopsis - Spoiler Alert!
The story has well-notched characters, hot steamy swings between the sheets, and an implosion of feelings. Out of the Charles Dickens' novels, I have read, it is certainly the one I enjoyed the most and found the easiest to read and relate to. So think of most life stories or rather most personal narratives: Shouldn't they also be called Great Expectations?
For what are our lives but our attempts to realize our visions about what we might become, and to either pull up or console ourselves if we don’t? And rest don’t I know how to bolt my Saturday?
Great Expectations is one of Dickens's most tightly plotted novels as there is much to admire: it's intelligent, has brilliant characters, and brings out an intenser side in Dickens's writing. It may certainly also enjoy another special distinction – ‘Best Title for Any Novel Ever’ as the critic G. K. Chesterson took my notice to: ‘All of his books are full of an airy and yet ardent expectation of everything … of the next event, of the next ecstasy; of the next fulfillment of any eager human fancy,’ writes Chesterson.
So here I suggest you think of all the works of Jane Austen or in that case of Charlotte Bronte, with the various expectations that so many characters in all of their books have about who should marry whom. And on and on.
Book Blurb
Picture Credit: Wikipedia
The novel is plaited with mystery and secrets and Dickens uses symbolism throughout; contrasting light and darkness, tying meals and food with divergent forms of love. Thus in what may be Dickens's best novel, the humble, orphaned Pip is a beginner to the dirty work of the forge but dares to dream of suiting a gentleman — and one day, under unexpected and enigmatic circumstances, he finds himself in possession of ‘great expectations.’
In this clutching tale of crime and guilt, Gothic and romance, revenge and reward, the places too are important; from the misty marshes to London around Newgate prison, with a gradient of the compelling characters which include Magwitch, the fearful and fearsome yet the father figure convict.
Estella, whose charm is excelled only by her haughtiness and vanity; the embittered, mysterious and troubled Miss Havisham, a bizarre jilted bride; the simple, unswervingly good, Joe; the officious Jaggers; the chucklesome Herbert; and many more. There are, especially, some fierce female characters, which are long away from the Victorian ideal of womanhood; they are powerful, dominating, mad.
As ever these are some great characters, who collide hastily with one another; thoroughly original and yet timeless, and as readers, you may wonder how the symbolism is rich and tasty, and how the narrative itself is juicy and chock-full of complexity and intricacy.
The combination of Gothicism, realism and romanticism of the plot turns to form a pleasure to explore.
A Glimpse of ‘Gothicism’
In the very first chapter, readers are frozen with horror because the scene is started in a graveyard and alongside a fearful man. The convict's intentions to cut Pip's throat as he moved, gives the impression of a Gothic novel.
Correspondingly, Miss Havisham is a character in Great Expectations whose Gothic effects triumph in the novel. Her personality, her lifestyle, her screams, her hair, makeup and clothing, even the setting of Satis House, everything is presented in a Gothic and grotesque way.
Picture Credit: Gutenberg
A Glimpse of ‘Realism’ and ‘Romanticism’
Now in Pip, we have a character who seems something of a combination of a Gatsby and an Austen heroine. He is hell-bent on attaining a romantic union that will, he believes, quiet his persistent feelings of self-loathing and inadequacy; and as said by a canonical critic, ‘he is also all too painfully aware that he is not of the proper class to draw in that person.’
Nonetheless, the magic of Dickens’s narrative is worth adhering to, through the turn of fate that seems quite plausible in the world of the novel, Pip does mysteriously come into money.
And yet, despite his newfound wealth and standing, he can’t “get the girl” – the girl who isn't simply the person with the facility to cure Pip of his terrible sickness of the soul, but the same girl who inflicted him thereupon psychological malady.
Omniscient Narrative
As the novel’s protagonist, Pip, whilst not the foremost fascinating character within the novel, is that the perfect tool for Dickens’s purpose. His first-person point of view (split between naive Pip, a young kid, who participates in the events of spectacle and affection, and mature Pip who narrates the story and reflects with maturity upon it), whilst limiting, allows the bildungsroman genre to develop the social criticism subtly as Pip’s morality is formed and reshaped.
However, whilst allowing more sophisticated story development, that all the events are seen through Pip’s eyes seems limiting, and one may miss the humor that comes from having Dickens as the omniscient third-person narrator.
Personal Opinion
Perhaps the thing I love best about this novel is the log of characters - be it their names or their personalities. For instance, Miss Havisham's name is another exasperatingly fantastic aspect of her character: like the majority of Dickens' characters, you pretty much know what you're in for when you first read her name- she is full of tricks, lies and deceits (or "sham"s). One doesn’t get this type of characterization much of anywhere else in the literary scene.
The reason why I love this novel so much is its plot. The plot of Great Expectations is winding, unforeseen, and quite bizarre at points. Carrying first things first, figure out the characters, and then, once you've gotten to know and even care for them (or hate them), you will be hooked on the plot because you will want to know what happens to these people who you've invested so much feeling into.
Psychological Analysis
With a tide of aspirational literature washing over the reading public, through Great Expectations, Dickens questions the impulse towards self-improvement and smirks at the common understanding of improvement as being linked to wealth, rather than to become a better person.
Pip’s moral development throughout the novel is heart-trenching and, through his evolving relationship with his father figure Magwitch, he is able to put to rest the cycle of injustice and revenge that pervades the novel’s many threads; an optimistic conclusion then, to one of Dickens’s fiercest social critiques.
Famous Quotes
‘I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.’
‘You are in every line I have ever read.’
‘Love her, love her, love her! If she favors you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces – and as it gets older and stronger, it will tear deeper – love her, love her, love her!’
‘Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they rain upon the blinding dust of the earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried than before--more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle.’
The Bottom Line
So, if you read Great Expectations in middle school, high school, or college, but haven't picked it up since, I urge you to do so. With a more patient and experienced set of eyes, you just might surprise yourself.
My Ratings for the book - 4 on 5
Get your copy from Amazon - The Great Expectations
Written By - Prakriti Chaudhary
Edited By - Pavas Shrigyan
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