thesis on great expectations

Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Literature › Analysis of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations

Analysis of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on January 29, 2021 • ( 0 )

Dickens’s 13th novel, published in 36 weekly parts in All the Year Round (December 1, 1860–August 3, 1861), unillustrated. Published in three volumes by Chapman & Hall, 1861. A Bildungsroman narrated in the first person by its hero, Great Expectations recalls David Copperfield, but Pip’s story is more tightly organized than David’s and Pip is more aware of his shortcomings. Pip tells his story in three equal parts, casting his life as a journey in three stages: his childhood and youth in KENT, when he wishes he could overcome his humble origins and rise in the world; his young manhood in London after he receives his great expectations; and his disillusionment when he learns the source of his good fortune and realizes the emptiness of his worldly values. The novel’s concise narration, balanced structure, and rich symbolism have made it the most admired and most discussed of Dickens’s works.

SYNOPSIS Stage I

Part 1 (december 1, 1860).

(1) Philip Pirrip, known as “Pip,” remembers the day when he was seven and gained his “first most vivid and broad impression of the identity of things.” Then, while visiting the graves of his parents in the churchyard on a dreary Christmas Eve, the child Pip is surprised by an escaped convict who threatens to kill him if he does not bring him food and a file. (2) Back at the house of his sister, who has brought him up “by hand,” Pip is punished for getting home late for supper, but he has the sympathetic companionship of his sister’s husband, Joe Gargery the blacksmith. At supper Pip secretly saves his bread, and early on Christmas morning, after taking a pork pie and some brandy from the larder and a file from the forge, he slips out of the house and onto the marshes.

Part 2 (December 8, 1860)

(3) There he is surprised by another escaped convict, a young man with a scar on his face. When he finds the ragged man who scared him the day before, Pip watches compassionately as he devours the food and files the manacle from his leg, but he arouses the convict’s anger when he tells him of the other escapee on the marshes. (4) At Christmas dinner, while he guiltily awaits the discovery of the theft from the larder, Pip is admonished by his Uncle Pumblechook and the other guests to “be grateful” and to overcome the tendency of boys to be “naterally wicious.” As his sister goes to the larder to fetch the pork pie that he stole for the convict, a troop of soldiers appears at the door.

Part 3 (December 15, 1860)

(5) The soldiers ask Joe to repair some handcuffs. Then Joe and Pip follow them as they pursue the convicts. The two escapees are captured as they fight with each other on the marshes. Before he is returned to the prison ship anchored in the Thames, Pip’s convict confesses to stealing some food from Mrs. Joe’s larder. Joe forgives him, saying, “We don’t know what you have done, but we wouldn’t have you starved to death for it, poor miserable fellow-creatur.—Would us, Pip?”

Part 4 (December 22, 1860)

(6) Pip is unable to tell Joe the truth about the theft from the larder. (7) As he awaits the time when he will be apprenticed to Joe, Pip gets some rudimentary education from Mr. Wopsle’s great aunt and her granddaughter Biddy, enough to realize that Joe cannot read. Then, about a year after the convict episode, Mrs. Joe announces that her Uncle Pumblechook has arranged for Pip to play at the house of Miss Havisham, a rich recluse in the nearby market town.

Part 5 (December 29, 1860)

(8) Pumblechook delivers the boy to Satis House the next morning. There Pip meets Estella, a supercilious young woman not much older than he, and Miss Havisham, an old woman in a tattered bridal dress, inhabiting rooms in the ruined house where everything is yellowed with age and all the clocks have stopped at 20 minutes to nine. Miss Havisham orders Pip and Estella to play cards and urges Estella to break Pip’s heart. Pip fights back tears when Estella ridicules him as coarse and common, and he escapes into the garden to cry. There he has a sudden vision of Miss Havisham in the abandoned brewery, hanging from a beam and calling to him.

Part 6 (January 5, 1861)

(9) When Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe ask about Miss Havisham, Pip caters to their imaginings by telling them a fantastic tale about a black velvet coach, four dogs, and a silver basket of veal cutlets. Later he confesses to Joe that he made up the story because he felt “common,” but Joe assures him that he is “oncommon small” and an “oncommon scholar.” (10) Pip enlists Biddy’s help in teaching him to be “uncommon.” One Saturday evening, Pip finds Joe at the Jolly Bargeman with a “secret-looking” stranger who stirs his drink with a file and gives Pip a shilling wrapped up in two one-pound notes. Pip fears that his connection with the convict will come to light.

Part 7 (January 12, 1861)

(11) When Pip returns to Miss Havisham’s, her relatives have gathered at Satis House for her birthday. Estella insults him, slaps him, and dares him to tell. Miss Havisham shows him a table spread with a decaying feast, including the remains of a wedding cake, where she will be laid out when she dies. She points out the places her relatives will occupy at this table when she is dead. Again she orders Pip to play cards with Estella and to admire her beauty. When he goes out into the garden, Pip meets a pale young gentleman there who challenges him to fight. Pip reluctantly enters the match, but he knocks the young man to the ground and gives him a black eye. After the fight, Estella invites him to kiss her.

Part 8 (January 19, 1861)

(12) Pip’s visits to Satis House become more frequent. He pushes Miss Havisham around her rooms in a wheelchair and plays cards with Estella as the old lady murmurs, “Break their hearts, my pride and hope!” One day, Miss Havisham, noting that Pip is growing tall, asks him to bring Joe Gargery to Satis House. (13) Two days later, in his Sunday clothes, Joe accompanies Pip to Miss Havisham’s. She asks Joe whether Pip has ever objected to becoming a blacksmith and if Joe expects a premium for taking Pip on as an apprentice. Joe, speaking through Pip, replies no to both questions, but she gives him 25 guineas anyway to pay for Pip’s apprenticeship. The Gargerys celebrate the occasion with a dinner at the Blue Boar, but Pip is wretched, convinced he will never like Joe’s trade.

Part 9 (January 26, 1861)

(14) Pip does not tell Joe of his unhappiness, but as he works at the forge he remembers his former visits to Satis House and sees visions of Estella’s face in the fire. (15) Although Joe advises against it, Pip takes a half-holiday to visit Miss Havisham. His fellow worker, Dolge Orlick, a surly and contrary man, envies Pip and demands equal time off, but when he offends Joe with some derogatory remarks about Mrs. Joe, the blacksmith knocks him to the ground. At Satis House, Pip learns that Estella has gone abroad to be educated. Miss Havisham tells him that he can visit her each year on his birthday, but he is to expect nothing from her. Back at the forge, he discovers that someone has broken into the house and Mrs. Joe has been knocked senseless by an unknown assailant.

Part 10 (February 2, 1861)

(16) The weapon was an old convict’s leg-iron. Convinced that it is the manacle from his convict’s leg, Pip feels guilty, as if he struck the blow himself. Mrs. Joe is left unable to speak and partly paralyzed, but she changes character and becomes good-tempered. Although Orlick is suspected of the crime, Mrs. Joe is conciliatory to him. Biddy, Pip’s schoolmate and teacher, moves to the forge to take over housekeeping duties. (17) On his birthday Pip visits Miss Havisham, receives a guinea, and is told to come again next year. It becomes his regular custom. Meanwhile, Pip and Biddy develop a close friendship and he confesses to her his desire to become a gentleman “on Estella’s account.” She wisely asks him whether he wants “to be a gentleman, to spite her or to gain her over?” As Pip and Biddy walk through the countryside, Orlick follows them.

Part 11 (February 9, 1861)

(18) In the fourth year of his apprenticeship, Pip is surprised by Mr. Jaggers, Miss Havisham’s lawyer from London, who announces that Pip has “great expectations.” If Joe will release him from his apprenticeship, Pip is to move to London and become a gentleman. He is to be known as Pip and not to ask the identity of his benefactor. Joe refuses any compensation for Pip’s release, but there is a touch of sadness in his celebration of Pip’s good fortune. (19) After they burn the apprenticeship papers, Pip talks of what he will do to raise Joe up. He bids farewell to Pumblechook, who takes credit for Pip’s good fortune, and to Miss Havisham. After an awkward parting from Joe, Pip sets out for London.

Part 12 (February 23, 1861)

(20) In London, Jaggers, a criminal lawyer, is to act as the representative of Pip’s unnamed benefactor. At Jaggers’s office near Smithfield Market, Pip finds a host of shady characters clamoring for the lawyer’s attention. While he waits, Pip visits Newgate Prison nearby. (21) Jaggers has his clerk, John Wemmick, take Pip to Barnard’s Inn, where he is to stay with Herbert Pocket, the son of his tutor. When he meets Herbert, Pip recognizes him as the pale young gentleman he fought in Miss Havisham’s garden.

Part 13 (March 2, 1861)

(22) Herbert teaches Pip the manners of a gentleman and nicknames him “Handel” (in honor of the composer’s “Harmonious Blacksmith”). Herbert tells Pip of Estella, adopted by Miss Havisham to wreak vengeance on men. He also recounts the story of Miss Havisham’s own past: The daughter of a wealthy brewer, she, with her half-brother, inherited their father’s business. She fell in love with a fast-talking con-man who proposed to marry her and convinced her to buy her brother’s share in the brewery at a high price. Then he split the proceeds with her brother and jilted her on her wedding day, the day she stopped the clocks at 20 minutes to nine and withdrew into Satis House.

Part 14 (March 9, 1861)

(23) At the home of Matthew Pocket, Herbert’s father, who is to act as Pip’s tutor, Pip meets his fellow pupils: Drummle, a disagreeable young man from a wealthy family, and Startop, a delicate and friendly fellow. The Pocket household is in disarray. Matthew, educated at Harrow and Cambridge, is impractical and a poor manager; his wife Belinda, daughter of a knight, is obsessed with social position and pays no attention to housekeeping. (24) When Pip goes to secure Jaggers’s approval for his plan to live at Barnard’s Inn with Herbert, he has an opportunity to watch the lawyer’s intimidating courtroom manner and to become further acquainted with Wemmick, Jaggers’s clerk. Wemmick shows Pip the death masks of some of their former clients; advises him to “get hold of portable property”; and tells him, when he goes to Jaggers’s house for dinner, to observe the housekeeper, whom he describes as “a wild beast tamed.” He also invites Pip to visit his home in the suburbs.

Part 15 (March 16, 1861)

(25) Although some of the Pockets resent Pip, thinking that he has intruded on their rightful portion of Miss Havisham’s fortune, Matthew, who has refused to curry favor with Miss Havisham, bears him no ill will. Pip’s studies progress nicely. When he visits Wemmick at his home in Walworth, he finds him very different from the hard and materialistic clerk he met in the City. Wemmick lives in a bucolic little castle, surrounded by a moat, gardens, and animal pens, and he maintains a domestic establishment with his Aged Parent. Jaggers knows nothing of Wemmick’s private life, for Wemmick’s policy is to keep office and home totally separate. (26) When Pip goes to Jaggers’s house for dinner with Startop and Drummle, the lawyer makes his housekeeper, Molly, display her strong and scarred wrists. Fascinated with Drummle, Jaggers calls him “the Spider” and provokes him to boast of his strength and to reveal his dislike for Pip. As they leave Jaggers advises Pip to keep clear of Drummle.

Part 16 (March 23, 1861)

(27) Joe visits Pip in London. Dressed uncomfortably in his best clothes and intimidated by Pip’s formality and servant boy, he addresses his old companion as “sir.” He tells Pip that Wopsle has come to London to be an actor, that Estella has returned to Satis House and would be glad to see him, and that Pip is always welcome at the forge. Then he leaves. (28) Pip immediately sets out to see Estella. On the coach going to his hometown, he rides with two convicts, one of whom talks of once delivering two one-pound notes to a boy in the town. Pip is shaken by this coincidence. Once he is home, Pip decides to stay at the Blue Boar Inn rather than at the forge.

Part 17 (March 30, 1861)

(29) Pip is disturbed to find Orlick working as the porter at Satis House, but Estella is more beautiful than ever. She warns him that she has “no heart,” but Miss Havisham urges him to “Love her, love her, love her!” Pip is convinced that Miss Havisham has chosen him for Estella. He is uneasy that he has not gone to visit Joe.

Part 18 (April 6, 1861)

(30) As Pip walks through town, the tailor’s boy mocks his snobbery and elegance in the street by pretending not to know him. Pip warns Jaggers about Orlick, and the lawyer promises to dismiss him from Miss Havisham’s service. Back in London, Pip confesses to a dubious Herbert that he loves Estella. Herbert reveals that he is secretly engaged to Clara Barley, the daughter of a ship’s purser. (31) Pip and Herbert see Mr. Wopsle, the parish clerk from Pip’s village who has ambitions for the stage, perform Hamlet. After the wretched but hilarious production, they invite the actor, whose stage name is Waldengarver, to dinner.

Part 19 (April 13, 1861)

(32) When Estella asks Pip to meet her coach in London, he arrives hours early. While he is waiting, Wemmick takes him through Newgate Prison. He returns just in time to see Estella’s hand waving to him in the coach window. (33) She tells him that she is going to be introduced into society and that he may visit her in Richmond. Pip takes this as part of Miss Havisham’s plan for them (33).

Part 20 (April 20, 1861)

(34) Pip falls into lavish spending habits. He and Herbert list their debts, but then, with the other members of their club, the Finches of the Grove, they get even further into debt. When Pip learns that his sister has died (35), he returns home for the funeral. There Biddy tells him that his sister’s last words were “Joe,” “Pardon,” and “Pip.” Pip is annoyed when Biddy doubts his promise to come often to see Joe.

Part 21 (April 27, 1861)

(36) On his 21st birthday, Pip receives £500 from Jaggers to pay his debts. Jaggers says that he will receive the same sum each year until his benefactor reveals himself. Pip asks Wemmick to help him use some of the money to advance Herbert’s prospects. When Wemmick gives his “deliberate opinion in this office” against doing so, Pip asks to solicit his opinion at home. (37) There Wemmick suggests that Pip buy Herbert a position with Clarriker, an up-and-coming shipping broker. Wemmick has Skiffins, his fiancée’s brother, arrange it so that Herbert will not know the source of his good fortune.

Part 22 (May 4, 1861)

(38) Pip visits Estella frequently. Although she warns him to beware of her, she also drives him to jealous distraction. When the two of them visit Satis House, Miss Havisham delights to hear of Estella’s conquests, but she accuses her of being cold and indifferent to her. “I am what you have made me,” Estella replies, proud and hard. Unable to sleep that night, Pip observes Miss Havisham walking the halls of Satis House moaning. Back in London, he is outraged when Drummle toasts Estella at a meeting of the Finches. Pip warns her against him; she says that she is simply out to “deceive and entrap” him. Pip tells the story of the sultan who, at the height of his power, is crushed by a great stone from the roof of his palace, and Pip says that “the roof of [his] stronghold” is about to fall on him.

Part 23 (May 11, 1861)

(39) A week after his 23rd birthday, late on a stormy night while Herbert is away, Pip is surprised by someone calling his name on the stairs outside his door. It is a man about 60 years old with irongrey hair, dressed like a sea voyager. When the man holds out his hands, as if to embrace him, Pip recognizes the convict from the marshes. He has been a sheep farmer in New South Wales and reveals that he is the source of Pip’s expectations. The convict looks about Pip’s rooms with the pride of ownership, especially at his gentleman. “I’m your second father,” he tells Pip, but Pip is horrified and speechless and troubled by knowing that the convict will be hanged if he is discovered in England. Gradually he realizes that all his ideas about Miss Havisham and Estella were a dream and that he deserted Joe and Biddy to be linked with a criminal.

Stage III Part 24 (May 18, 1861)

(40) The next morning Pip learns that his benefactor is Abel Magwitch, going by the name Provis, and that he has returned to England for good, even though he will be sentenced to death should he be caught. Pip dresses him like a prosperous farmer and secures rooms for him in a nearby lodging house. Jaggers confirms Magwitch’s identity as Pip’s benefactor by not denying it; the lawyer says that he warned Magwitch not to return to England. When Herbert returns to London, Magwitch swears him to silence.

Part 25 (May 25, 1861)

(41) Pip and Herbert agree that Pip should take no more of Magwitch’s money and that Magwitch must be gotten out of England. (42) Magwitch tells them the story of his life: about 20 years earlier he became an accomplice of a gentleman named Compeyson, a forger and swindler who, with a Mr. Arthur, had just bilked a rich lady of her fortune. Arthur, near death at the time, had nightmares about a woman in white who tried to cover him with a shroud. When Magwitch and Compeyson were arrested and tried for their crimes, Magwitch was sentenced to 14 years. Compeyson, presenting himself as a gentleman, received a light sentence, and Magwich resentfully vowed revenge. Finding himself on the same prison ship with Compeyson, he struck him, scarring his face, and then escaped from the ship, only to learn that Compeyson had also escaped. In ensuring Compeyson’s recapture, Magwitch was also taken and sentenced to transportation for life. He does not know what happened to Compeyson. After hearing the story, Herbert tells Pip that Arthur was Miss Havisham’s brother and Compeyson her lover.

Part 26 (June 1, 1861)

(43) Pip returns home to see Estella. At the Blue Boar, he finds Drummle attended by Orlick. Drummle is also there to see Estella. (44) Pip accusingly tells Miss Havisham and Estella of his benefactor. Miss Havisham admits to leading him on, but tells him he made his own snares. She justifies her actions as a way of tormenting her avaricious relatives. Pip pours out his love for Estella, but she says he touches nothing in her breast and tells him that she plans to marry Drummle. Distraught, Pip walks back to London, arriving late at night. The watchman at the gate to his rooms has a note for him from Wemmick. It reads, “Don’t go home.”

Part 27 (June 8, 1861)

(45) After a restless night in a hotel, Pip learns from Wemmick that his rooms are being watched by Compeyson and that he must get Provis out of the country. (46) Pip arranges with Provis, now known as Mr. Campbell, to watch for him as he rows on the river. He and Herbert plan to keep a boat at the Temple stairs and to make a regular practice of rowing up the Thames. When the time is right, they will get the convict from his hiding place and take him to the Continent.

Part 28 (June 15, 1861)

(47) As Pip waits for the signal from Wemmick that the time has come to take Magwitch out of the country, he and Herbert regularly row down the river. One evening after attending one of Wopsle’s dramatic performances, Pip learns from the actor that the second convict taken on the marshes was sitting behind him in the theater. Pip knows that Compeyson is watching him, and he writes to Wemmick of the growing danger.

(48) During dinner at Jaggers’s house, Pip notices Molly’s hands. They remind him of Estella’s hand as she waved from the coach window on her arrival in London. Wemmick tells him what he knows of Molly’s story: that she was tried for the strangulation murder of a woman much larger than herself; that Jaggers concealed the strength of her hands during the trial and argued that she was physically incapable of the crime; that she was suspected of destroying her three-year-old daughter at the time of the trial to avenge herself on the father; and that, after her acquittal, she went to work for Jaggers.

Part 29 (June 22, 1861)

(49) Pip goes to Satis House to learn more of Estella’s story. A remorseful Miss Havisham tells Pip how she took the child supplied by Jaggers and turned the girl’s heart to ice, that she knows nothing of Estella’s parentage, and that Estella is now married and in Paris. She supplies Pip with money to pay for Herbert’s position with Clarriker’s and asks him to forgive her. As he walks in the ruined garden outside the house, Pip again sees the vision of Miss Havisham hanging from a beam. When he returns to bid her farewell, her dress is suddenly set afire by the flames in her grate. Pip extinguishes the flames, burning his hands in the process. That evening, as he leaves for London, the seriously injured old woman mutters distractedly, “What have I done?” (50) Herbert cares for Pip’s burns and tells him what he has learned of Magwitch’s story: Magwitch had a daughter of whom he was fond, but he lost touch with her when he went into hiding during the trial of the child’s mother. Compeyson controlled him by threatening to reveal his whereabouts to the authorities. The child, had she lived, would be about Pip’s age. Pip is sure that Magwitch is Estella’s father.

Part 30 (June 29, 1861)

(51) Pip challenges Jaggers to confirm his suspicion about Estella’s parentage. Jaggers obliquely does so, telling Pip that he hoped to save one of the many lost children by giving Estella to Miss Havisham. Jaggers asserts that it will do no one any good—not Molly, nor Magwitch, nor Estella—to reveal the truth now, and he advises Pip to keep his “poor dreams” to himself. (52) When Wemmick signals that the time has come to smuggle Magwitch to the continent, Pip’s hands are still too badly burned to row the boat. He enlists Startop’s aid. Before they can set out, however, Pip receives a mysterious letter telling him to come that evening to the limekiln on the marshes near his former home if he wants “information regarding your uncle Provis.”

Part 31 (July 6, 1861)

(53) In the dark sluice house, Pip is suddenly attacked and bound by a noose. The attacker is Orlick, who plans to kill him. Orlick accuses Pip of causing him to lose his job with Miss Havisham and of coming between him and Biddy. He admits that he struck Mrs. Joe with the manacle, but claims “it warn’t Old Orlick as did it; it was you.” He knows about Magwitch. As he is about to strike Pip with a hammer, Startop, Herbert, and Trabb’s Boy come to the rescue. Exhausted and ill from the ordeal, Pip is now very concerned about Magwitch’s safety.

Part 32 (July 13, 1861)

(54) The next morning, Pip, Startop, and Herbert set out on the river. After picking up Magwitch, they go to an isolated inn to spend the night before rowing out to meet the Hamburg packet steamer the next morning. Pip is uneasy when he sees two men examining their boat. The next morning, they are followed by another boat and ordered to turn over Abel Magwitch. Compeyson is in the other boat. In the confusion that follows, Compeyson and Magwitch go overboard, locked in struggle. Only Magwitch surfaces. Afterward, Pip accompanies Magwitch, injured and having difficulty breathing, back to London. He no longer feels any aversion to the wretched man who holds his hand in his. Pip knows that all Magwitch’s property will be forfeited to the Crown.

Part 33 (July 20, 1861)

(55) Magwitch’s trial is set for a month from the time of his arrest. Meanwhile, Herbert, now a shipping broker, prepares to go to Egypt, where he will be in charge of Clarriker’s Cairo office. He offers Pip a clerk’s position there. Jaggers and Wemmick both deplore Pip’s failure to secure Magwitch’s property. Wemmick invites Pip to breakfast at Walworth. Afterward, they walk to a country church, where Wemmick and Miss Skiffins are married in an apparently impromptu ceremony. (56) Pip visits Magwitch daily in the prison hospital and holds his hand at the trial when he is condemned to hang. But Magwitch is gravely ill and dies with Pip at his side before the sentence is carried out. On his deathbed, he thanks Pip for not deserting him. Pip tells him that his daughter lives and that he loves her.

Part 34 (July 27, 1861)

(57) Pip, deeply in debt, is very ill. When the arresting officers come, he is delerious and loses consciousness. He awakens from the fever to discover Joe, gentle as an angel, caring for him. As he slowly recuperates he learns from Joe that Miss Havisham has died, leaving all of her property to Estella except for £4,000 left to Matthew Pocket. He also learns that Orlick is in jail for assaulting Pumblechook. As Pip recovers, Joe becomes more distant. After Joe returns home, Pip learns that Joe has paid his debts. Pip considers his options: to return to the forge and ask Biddy to take him back or to go to Cairo to work with Herbert.

Part 35 (August 3, 1861)

(58) No longer a man of property, Pip gets a cool reception at the Blue Boar and from Pumblechook. When he returns to the forge, he discovers that it is Joe and Biddy’s wedding day. He asks their forgiveness, promises to repay the money that Joe spent to pay his debts, and goes off to Egypt. There he lives with Herbert and Clara and rises to become third in the firm. Only then does Clarriker tell Herbert that Pip had originally paid for his position. (59) After 11 years in Egypt, Pip returns home to visit Joe, Biddy, and their son Pip. At the ruins of Satis House, he finds Estella, a widow who suffered at the hands of an abusive husband. She asks Pip’s forgiveness “now, when suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be.” They vow friendship, and as they leave the ruined garden, Pip takes her hand and sees “no shadow of another parting from her.”

Although Dickens’s original plan seems to have been to publish Great Expectations in monthly numbers, he opted to write it as a weekly serial for All the Year Round when the magazine’s sales slipped during the run of Charles Lever’s tedious A Long Day’s Ride . Expectations restored the audience for the magazine, but it changed Dickens’s novel from what it would have been in monthly parts. Each weekly number comprised only one or two short chapters, and like the other novels in the magazine, it was unillustrated. This format forced Dickens to adopt concise and focused chapters, to concentrate on a single story line, and to work out, almost mathematically, the overall structure of the novel. He divided the story into three equal “stages,” with 12 of the 36 weekly parts devoted to each. The threestage structure reinforces the underlying metaphor of the novel, which casts life as a journey.

As he began work on the novel, Dickens wrote to John Forster that “the book will be written in the first person throughout, and during these first three weekly numbers, you will find the hero to be a boy-child, like David.” Dickens reread Copperfield just to make sure that there were “no unconscious repetitions” of the earlier novel. There are many similarities. Both boys are essentially orphans and both suffer from a feeling of hopelessness as they labor at pasting labels on bottles or working at a forge. Blacksmithing is the later novel’s version of the Blacking Warehouse, for both novels are essentially autobiographical.

The first-person narrator of Great Expectations is more fully identified than the narrator of David Copperfield . Philip Pirrip, a middle-aged businessman who has spent several years in Egypt, tells the story of his earlier life. He also has an ironic perspective and greater awareness of his shortcomings than David, but his growth does not alter his situation. Whatever happens after the novel is over, in the final chapter he is still an outsider.

Expectations is more realistic than its autobiographical predecessor. Written at a time when novels like George Eliot’s Adam Bede (1859) were in vogue, Expectations is more restrained stylistically and more consistent in tone than many of the earlier novels. George Gissing (1898) defined its difference from earlier works by comparing Joe Gargery and Daniel Peggotty: “if we compare the two figures as to their ‘reality,’ we must decide in favor of Gargery. I think him a better piece of workmanship all round; the prime reason, however, for his standing out so much more solidly in one’s mind than Little Em’ly’s uncle, is that he lives in a world, not of melodrama, but of everyday cause and effect.”

Although Expectations has no Daniel Peggotty and no Mr. Micawber, it is not lacking humorous scenes or memorable characters. The descriptions of Pip’s Christmas dinner (4), Wopsle’s Hamlet (31), or Wemmick’s wedding (55) are among the great comic scenes in the novels. Its unforgettable characters include the lawyer Jaggers, with his intimidating forefinger, his habit of washing his hands with scented soap, and his conversation by cross-examination; the divided Wemmick, at the office smiling mechanically with his “post-office” mouth as he advises Pip to secure “portable property,” and at home in his castle a loving son who refuses to talk business; and Miss Havisham, the bizarre recluse who lives in a ruined mansion, dressed in the tattered bridal gown that she has worn since she was left standing at the altar many years before. Neither the comic scenes nor the eccentric characters are independent of the story. They are absolutely organic to the plot and theme of the novel.

Great Expectations achieved realism in spite of its status as one of the sensation novels of the 1860s, novels that relied on melodrama, sensational incidents, and surprises to achieve their “special effects.” Dickens advertises these attractions with the title of his story, promising that he will fulfill his readers’ expectations for the sensational. He begins by surprising them—and Pip—in the very first chapter, when Magwitch appears like a ghost in the churchyard, and surprise forms the center of the story, when Magwitch reappears. Even a bizarre character like Miss Havisham expresses the uncanny dimensions of Pip’s illusions, exaggerated to surreal surprise in Pip’s visions of her as the hanging woman.

In Copperfield, David defines himself by establishing his difference from the other characters in his life. Although he sees himself as a victim of others’ cruelty—of Murdstone’s tyranny and neglect, for example—he is more industrious than Pip in pursuing a career and establishing a place for himself in society. David admires Steerforth’s genteel indolence, but he does not adopt it as a way of life. When the tempest comes, he is able to view Steerforth’s body on the beach with only a twinge of regret. He does not consciously connect his own undisciplined heart with Steerforth or link Steerforth’s death to Dora’s. Implicitly, the novel suggests that David survives and is successful because he is not Steerforth.

Pip’s is a more interior story. His expectations make him passive, waiting to discover what others have in store for him. He adopts a life of idleness and is frequently made aware of his connections with Drummle, Orlick, and the convict. He is also more present in the narrative as an older and wiser man judging the mistakes of his past. The stormy night that brings Magwitch to Pip’s door in the Temple forces Pip to acknowledge his connection with the convict, to abandon his illusions, and to reconstruct his life on totally different assumptions. David seems unconscious of the losses and rejections that have been necessary to secure his respectable position as a successful novelist; Pip is painfully aware of what he has left behind or lost, and Great Expectations has a pervasive mood of disillusionment. Joe articulates one of the central themes of the novel when he tells Pip that “life is made of ever so many partings welded together” (27). If David’s story is truer to the outward facts of Dickens’s life, Pip’s may be more revealing of Dickens’s inner autobiography.

The difference is apparent in the opening chapters of the two novels. Copperfield begins with an account of David’s birth; Expectations opens with Pip’s psychological “birth,” when, at age seven or so, he comes to his “first most vivid and broad impression of the identity of things.” The setting is bleak: an empty churchyard at dusk on a cold and grey winter day, a “wilderness,” “overgrown with nettles,” where the only distinguishing features are a gibbet and a beacon. A “small bundle of shivers,” Pip is delivered into consciousness by an escaped convict who picks him up, turns him upside down, places him on a tombstone, fills him with fear and terror, and makes him promise to bring food and a file. Every detail in this short chapter simultaneously contributes to the realistic picture of the marsh country on a bleak December evening and to the primal story of Pip’s psychological birth.

Appropriately, this encounter takes place on Christmas Eve, and together the first five chapters of the novel—the first three numbers published in the first three weeks of December 1860—form a kind of Christmas story, similar to the Christmas books that Dickens published in the mid 1840s. It includes Pip’s stealing the Christmas pie from the larder and delivering it to the convict, and a wonderfully humorous Christmas dinner at which the guilty child awaits exposure while the adults at the table lecture him about the ingratitude and natural viciousness of boys. This Christmas story culminates with the pursuit on the marshes, which ends with Pip’s being exonerated by the captured convict, who confesses to stealing the pie himself. Joe states the Christmas theme of the story when he assures the convict, “we don’t know what you have done, but we wouldn’t have you starved to death for it, poor miserable fellow-creature.—Would us, Pip?” (5).

This Christmas story and its message of empathy and compassion is pushed into the background as Pip goes on to tell the main story of his life, which begins with his introduction to Satis House (8). Although he is occasionally reminded of the odd and terrifying incident in his childhood—by the man who stirs his drink with a file (10), for example—Pip treats the Christmas story as if it were an unusual and bizarre event, part of the story of his life but unconnected with its plot.

Pip divides his life between external reality and interior wishes. The realities include his abuse by Mrs. Joe, who brings him up “by hand”; his apprenticeship to Gargery, the blacksmith, and the likelihood of his becoming Joe’s partner and successor; and his humiliating visits to the decaying Satis House, where he is taunted and abused. His wish is to be a gentleman, and in his fantasies he is Miss Havisham’s heir, chosen to inherit her money and to marry Estella, her adopted daughter. By the time Jaggers announces Pip’s “great expectations” (18), Pip has so internalized these wishes and elaborated their implications in his mind, that he is not surprised. He accepts his elevation to gentility as inevitable and deserved, and he rejects his humble beginnings, the forge, and Joe and represses his memory of the traumatic Christmas on the marshes.

Pip’s wishes so control his consciousness that he is unable to see the truth. Joe appears to him an illiterate country bumpkin, and Pip condescendingly tells Biddy how he will educate Joe and “remove [him] into a higher sphere” (19). Only much later does Pip recognize Joe for the “gentle Christian man” (57) he is. While Pip is unable to see the depths in Joe’s character, he cannot see the surfaces in Miss Havisham’s either. In spite of the decay, ruin, and madness at Satis House and the harsh teaching that makes Estella his tormentor, Pip wishes for the old woman’s riches and hopes to be selected, like Estella, as her protégé. By rejecting Joe’s true gentility and idealizing Miss Havisham’s sham, Pip abandons himself to illusions.

This division indicates Pip’s fractured sense of self. In Wemmick, Pip can observe someone who divides his life into public and private parts, surviving in both worlds by keeping them separate. Pip is unable to do so. He attempts to repress the dark and humble sides of his life, but Orlick and Drummle shadow him, and criminals remind him of the “taint of prison and crime” (32) that seems to cling to him. When he rejects Joe and avoids the forge on his visits to his hometown, Trabb’s boy follows him in the streets and taunts him as a snob with the refrain, “Don’t know yah” (30). In the novel’s psychological parable, many of the characters in the story can be seen as fragments of Pip’s self that he has failed to integrate into a full understanding of who he is.

Herbert Pocket acts as Pip’s foil during his years in London. Although he is not Pip’s equal in strength or expectations, he has a more realistic view of the world. He recognizes Miss Havisham’s madness and Estella’s cruelty, and he has no unwarranted hopes of inheriting Miss Havisham’s money, even though he is related to her. His modest ambition is based on a realistic view of his situation and expectations.

The story reaches its crisis in chapter 39 when Pip, alone in his apartment on a stormy winter evening, is forced in a way to reenact the traumatic Christmas Eve on the marshes. Suddenly the story that seemed merely a curious and disconnected episode in his childhood becomes the defining text for his life. Pip’s surprise mirrors that of the reader, who has also constructed Pip’s rags-to-riches tale as a fairy-tale romance. The convict’s revelation redirects the reader’s expectations in this sensational turn of events in the novel. By making our reading of the story mirror Pip’s self-understanding, Dickens engages our wishes and expectations. The romance that Pip has imagined his life to be is the romance that we wish for him—and for ourselves. But Magwitch’s revelation strips Pip of his wishes and of the fairy-tale scenario he has constructed for himself. In the final stage of his life, Pip must redefine the relationships that he has taken for granted, such as his friendship with Herbert, his business relationship with Jaggers, and, especially, his relationships with Miss Havisham and Estella; he must also come to terms with those parts of himself that he has repressed and rejected—with Drummle, Orlick, Magwitch, and Joe.

In the novel’s psychological theme, Pip’s reconciliation with Joe is linked with his acceptance of Magwitch. They represent two related aspects of the father that have both contributed to Pip’s identity. When he denied his criminal father, he also rejected Joe, the companion with whom he could share “larks.” Pip’s acceptance of Magwitch has several stages: At first Pip hopes to get him out of the country; then he plans to go with him to the continent; after the failed escape attempt, Pip accompanies him back to London, appears beside him in court, and attends him as he dies. Critics debate just how complete Pip’s final acceptance of Magwitch is; his refusal to secure Magwitch’s money seems to indicate that he still believes that he can be free of the taint of Newgate, and his final prayer at Magwitch’s bedside, “O Lord, be merciful to him a sinner!” (56), can be read as the condescending words of a Pharisee. But Pip also publicly acknowledges his connection with Magwitch by holding the convict’s hand as he is sentenced to hang (56). By such acts Pip gives up his great expectations and can be reconciled with Joe. Though he is no longer young enough or innocent enough to share larks with the blacksmith, he can recognize Joe’s true gentility and prepare to start life on his own in Egypt.

Jaggers, the novel’s third father figure, embodies aspects of both Joe and Magwitch and represents a darkly realistic assessment of the human condition. As a criminal lawyer, he knows that the taint of Newgate is pervasive and that darkness and violence define the human psyche. Cynical, secretive, and pessimistic, he has abandoned whatever illusions, or, as he calls them, “poor dreams,” that he may once have had. Nevertheless, he acts in ways to redress injustice and impose order. He “saves” Magwitch’s daughter from abandonment, for example, and controls Molly’s violent strength. Yet his cynical realism, his lack of expectations, makes him a discomfiting and morally ambiguous figure.

Pip’s relationships with the women in his life are, if anything, even more complicated than those with the men. Just as Joe, Magwitch, and Jaggers represent for Pip various aspects of the father, Mrs. Joe, Miss Havisham, Estella, and Biddy represent various aspects of the feminine. Mrs. Joe’s harsh abuse may teach Pip resentment and cause him subconsciously to wish for the blow that Orlick inflicts on her, as Orlick suggests when he is taunting Pip in the sluice house (53). She also has a share in introducing Pip to Miss Havisham and encouraging him to think of the madwoman in white as a potential benefactress, thus prompting both his illusions and his masochism as Pip seeks the pain of his visits to Satis House as exquisite testimony to his desires. Pip may wish that Mrs. Joe and Miss Havisham suffer for the pain they cause him. He is indirectly implicated in both of their deaths and painfully burned while attempting to extinguish the fire that mortally injures Miss Havisham (49). Only Estella survives the suffering that Pip may subconsciously wish for her. At their final meeting she acknowledges a changed understanding of him; “suffering has been stronger than all other teaching,” she tells him, “and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be” (59).

Estella’s statement appears in both versions of the final chapter that Dickens wrote for the novel and would seem to be central to his final thematic point. Dickens changed the original ending after Edward Bulwer Lytton read the proofs and urged him to do so. In the original ending, which is included as an appendix in many editions of the novel, Pip returns to England after eight years in Egypt, and while he is walking with little Pip, Joe and Biddy’s child, on a street in London, he meets Estella, who has married a Shropshire doctor after her unhappy marriage to Drummle. She assumes that the child is Pip’s, and he does not tell her otherwise; then she confides that suffering has changed her. Pip concludes the original ending by remarking, “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.” This tough ending has seemed to many readers more consistent with the tone of the novel than the revised ending. John Forster described it as “more consistent with the drift, as well as natural working out, of the tale.”

Forster does not take note of the imagery in the second ending, however, that makes it, as George Bernard Shaw put it, “artistically much more congruous than the original.” In many ways, Great Expectations is a poetic novel, constructed around recurring images: the desolate landscape of the marshes; twilight; chains binding us to home, the past, and painful memories; fire; hands that manipulate and control; wishes as remote and distant as stars; the river linking past, present, and future. In the second ending, Dickens changed the meeting place from London to Satis House at twilight as evening mists are rising, mists that recall the mists as Pip left for London at the end of stage one, an allusion to the rising mists in Milton’s Paradise Lost as Adam and Eve leave Eden. The imagery in the altered ending, then, seems to suggest a new beginning for Pip and Estella, and many readers consider it a “happy” ending, promising the union of the two lovers. But Dickens’s words are more ambiguous than that. The imagery of rising mists and the broad expanse of light may suggest a new beginning, but Pip only concludes that at that moment, “I saw no shadow of another parting from her.” Even if Pip and Estella remain together, the ending seems to suggest that the human condition, so aptly symbolized in the bleak graveyard of the opening chapter, will remain bleak in the ruined garden that was once Satis House. Shaw, who recognized that the atmosphere that Dickens added to the second ending improved it, nevertheless objected to the happy, marital implication. The perfect ending, he suggested, would consist of a sentence added to the revised ending, “Since that parting I have been able to think of her without the old unhappiness; but I have never tried to see her again, and I know I never shall.” If, as the ambiguity in the final sentence allows, Pip and Estella make a final parting as they leave Satis House, never again to see each other—or part from each other—then the second ending confirms the disillusioning note with which the novel began and is the novel’s final statement of Joe’s theme, that “life is made of ever so many partings welded together.” In either case, the final sentence does not describe a historical fact but rather an expectation: “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” (59). This concluding sentence confirms a central truth in the novel, that humans, in spite of all suffering, survive by expectation.

CHARACTERS AND RELATED ENTRIES

“the aged p”.

Short for the Aged Parent. Wemmick’s father, who lives with his son in the castle at Walworth; “a very old man in a flannel coat: clean, cheerful, comfortable, and well cared for, but intensely deaf” (25). Wemmick entertains him with the sound of a cannon, which he can hear in spite of his deafness. Wemmick’s kindness and solicitude for the old man exemplify his Walworth persona.

The wife of Bill, a criminal defendant being represented by Jaggers. She is so persistent in pleading with Jaggers for his help that the lawyer threatens to drop her husband as his client if she does not stop bothering him (20).

Barley, Clara

Herbert Pocket’s fiancée, a “pretty, slight, dark-haired girl of twenty or so” (30), who arranges to hide Magwich, under the name of Campbell, in her father’s house until he can be smuggled abroad. “A captive fairy whom that truculent Ogre, Old Barley, had pressed into his service” (46), Clara does not marry Herbert until after her father, who objects to her marrying for fear she will stop taking care of him, has died.

Barley, Old Bill

Clara’s invalid father, a retired ship’s purser who is “totally unequal to the consideration of any subject more psychological than Gout, Rum and Purser’s Stores” (46). He speaks in nautical language, comparing his bedridden situation “lying on the flat of his back” to “a drifting old dead flounder” (46).

Barnard’s Inn

One of the Inns of Cour t , now defunct. Located in Hol bor n, it is “the dingiest collection of buildings ever squeezed together in a rank corner as a club for Tom Cats”; where Herbert Pocket and Pip share rooms when Pip first arrives in London (21).

Wopsle’s great aunt’s granddaughter. An orphan like Pip, she assists in the dame school where Pip receives his earliest education: “her hair always wanted brushing, her hands always wanted washing, and her shoes always wanted mending and pulling up at heel” (7). After Pip’s sister is injured, Biddy comes to look after the Gargery house and Mrs. Joe. She becomes Pip’s close friend and confidante, but Pip does not recognize her love for him and treats her with snobbish condescension (17–19). “She was not beautiful—she was common, and could not be like Estella—but she was pleasant and wholesome and sweet-tempered” (17). She gently reprimands Pip for his condescending treatment of Joe. After losing his fortune, Pip plans to propose to her, but he arrives home to discover that she has just married Joe Gargery (57–58).

Biddy and Joe Gargery define the ideals of simplicity, honesty, and love in the novel. Jerome Meckier (2002) describes her as the true Cinderella figure in the book and contrasts her to Estella and Miss Havisham as false Cinderellas. Blinded by his relationships to these two pretenders, Pip is unable to appreciate Biddy until too late in the novel.

Criminal defended by Jaggers, husband of Amelia (20).

Bill, Black

Inmate of Newgate Prison among Jaggers’s clients visited by Pip and Wemmick on their tour of the prison (32).

Brandley, Mrs.

Society woman with whom Estella stays in Richmond and who sponsors her coming out in London. She has a daughter, Miss Brandley, who is considerably older than Estella. “The mother looked young, and the daughter looked old; the mother’s complexion was pink, and the daughter’s was yellow; the mother set up for frivolity, and the daughter for theology” (38).

Camilla, Mrs.

Matthew Pocket’s sister and one of the parasitic Pocket relatives who gather at Miss Havisham’s, hoping for inclusion in her will (11). She claims that her concern for Miss Havisham keeps her awake at night, so she receives £5 in the will “to buy rushlights to put her in spirits when she wake[s] in the night” (56).

Young shipping broker who is looking for a partner and from whom Pip buys the place for Herbert Pocket (52). After his own loss of expectations, Pip himself joins the firm (58).

Coiler, Mrs.

Neighbor to Matthew and Belinda Pocket, “a widow lady of that highly sympathetic nature that she agreed with everybody, blessed everybody, and shed smiles and tears on everybody, according to circumstances” (23).

Fast-talking forger, swindler, and con man, the arch-villain of the novel. He escapes from the prison ship on the same day as Magwitch and is captured on the marshes as he fights with Magwitch, whose desire for vengeance overcomes his will to escape (5). As Magwitch describes him, “He set up fur a gentleman, this Compeyson, and he’d been to a public boarding-school and had learning. He was a smooth one to talk, and was a dab at the ways of gentlefolks. He was good-looking too” (42). When they are caught, Compeyson uses his boarding-school polish and good looks—in spite of the scar on his face—to cast blame on Magwitch and get himself a lighter sentence, thus prompting Magwitch’s vengeance and desire to create a gentleman of his own. It is Compeyson, in a scheme with Arthur Havisham, who deceives Miss Havisham to secure her money and then jilts her on the day of the wedding. Compeyson learns of Magwitch’s return to England and aids the police in capturing him, though he drowns in the struggle with Magwitch (53–55). He is married to Sally, whom he physically abuses.

Compeyson is central to the plot of the novel, for he has driven Miss Havisham into angry seclusion and inspired Magwitch’s desire for revenge. Scarred on his face, he plays Cain to Magwitch’s Abel, though, in a reversal of the biblical story, he dies in the struggle between them. Self-serving, cruel, with “no more heart than an iron file” (92), Compeyson represents a totally materialistic version of the “gentleman.” Lacking feeling for others and any capacity for friendship, he is wholly defined by money.

Drummle, Bentley (“The Spider”)

Pip’s fellow student at Matthew Pocket’s; from a rich family in Somersetshire, “the next heir but one to a baronetcy” (23), he is “heavy in figure, movement, and comprehension . . . idle, proud, niggardly, reserved, and suspicious” (25). To Jaggers, who cultivates those in the criminal underworld, he seems one of “the true sort” (26), and he names him “the Spider.” Estella marries him for his money, but he beats and abuses her. He is, in turn, kicked and killed by a horse that he has illtreated (58).

Born a gentleman and a member of the aristocracy, Drummle helps articulate the theme that true gentility is not something one is born with. Described by Julian Moynahan (“The Hero’s Guilt: The Case of Great Expectations,” Essays in Criticism, 1960) as “a reduplication of Orlick at a point higher on the social-economic scale,” Drummle expresses the dark, vengeful side of Pip and is contrasted to Startop, the idealist.

During Christmas dinner Pumblechook describes this village butcher’s especially adept method of killing a pig as a good reason for Pip to be glad that he was not born a pig (4).

Essex Street

The street between the Strand and the river where Pip finds lodgings for Magwich (40).

The child provided by Jaggers whom Miss Havisham adopts to be the agent of her vengeance against men. When Pip is recruited as a child to play with her (8), Estella, “beautiful and self-possessed,” taunts and humiliates him, mocking his “coarse hands” and “thick boots.” She inspires Pip’s desire to be “oncommon.” When Pip receives his expectations (18), he believes that Miss Havisham is their source and that she also plans for him to marry Estella. While Pip lives as a gentleman in London, Estella continues to tantalize and torment him (32, 33, 38), though at the same time warning him that she has “no heart, . . . no softness there, no—sympathy—sentiment—nonsense” (29). Proud, cold, and disdainful, she also denies Miss Havisham’s request for love, reminding her, “I am what you have made me” (38). Even after he learns that she is not his intended, Pip remains masochistically devoted to her, and he tells Magwitch, after learning that Estella is his and Molly’s daughter, that he loves her (56). Pip is distressed when she plans to marry Bentley Drummle (44), who abuses her so that she separates from him. In the revised ending that Dickens wrote for the novel (59), Estella meets Pip at the ruins of Satis House, and as they leave “the ruined place,” Pip says that he sees “no shadow of another parting from her.” But in the suppressed original ending, Pip and Estella meet and part on a London street with no suggestion that they will meet again.

Estella’s name, from the Latin for “star,” places her as the remote ideal on which Pip hangs his desires. In many ways her story parallels Pip’s: Both are tainted by Newgate as “children” of Magwitch; both of their lives are manipulated by the expectations of others. We know of Pip’s suffering because he tells his own story, but we know Estella’s story only in Pip’s version and must question its reliability. The two endings, as Hilary Schorpoints out, suggest that Pip and Estella emerge from their ordeals with very different understandings of their relationship. Edmund Wilson’s (1941) suggestion that Ellen Ternan was the inspiration for Estella has been seconded by many later biographers and critics, but Doris Alexander (1991) makes a persuasive case that she was based on Maria Beadnell.

Finches of the Grove

Dining club to which Pip, Herbert Pocket, Drummle, and Startop belong. “The object of which institution I have never divined, if it were not that the members should dine expensively once a fortnight, to quarrel among themselves as much as possible after dinner, and to cause six waiters to get drunk on the stairs” (34).

One of Mrs. Pocket’s nursemaids who cares for the distracted mother’s seven children (22, 23).

Gargery, Georgiana Maria (Mrs. Joe)

Pip’s older sister, “tall and bony” with “such a prevailing redness of skin, that I sometimes used to wonder whether it was possible she washed herself with a nutmeg-grater instead of soap” (2), she resentfully brings up Pip “by hand” and indulges in “Rampages” at the boy and her husband Joe. With Joe’s Uncle Pumblechook, she arranges Pip’s visitations to Miss Havisham and encourages his false expectations. Her meanness is stilled after she is struck over the head by an unknown assailant (16), a wound that partly paralyzes her, leaves her speechless, makes her much more patient, and leads to her early death (34).

Gargery, Joe

Blacksmith and husband of Pip’s older sister Georgiana: “a fair man, with curls of flaxen hair on each side of his smooth face, and with eyes of such a very undecided blue that they seemed to have somehow got mixed with their own whites. He was a mild, good-natured, sweet-tempered, easy-going, foolish, dear fellow—a sort of Hercules in strength, and also in weakness” (2). “This gentle Christian man” (57) is ruled by his shrewish wife, who makes him and Pip “fellow-sufferers” (2). He befriends Pip as a boy and speaks of the “larks” they will share together as they grow older, “ever the best of friends.” Pip confesses to Joe his lies about Miss Havisham (9), and as Joe’s apprentice he regretfully learns the trade of blacksmith (13). Although Pip is snobbish and condescending to him, Joe remains loyal to Pip (27) and nurses him when he falls ill after Magwitch’s death (57). After his wife’s early death, Biddy takes over Mrs. Joe’s duties as housekeeper and eventually marries Joe (58). They have one son, Pip.

Joe defines the moral message of the novel, representing the ideal of the “gentle Christian man” (57) in contrast to the false ideal of the gentleman that Pip pursues in London. Although he is illiterate and inarticulate, repeating his apologetic “which I meantersay,” he speaks directly and honestly many of the home truths in the novel. Using the language of a blacksmith, he tells Pip that “life is made of ever so many partings welded together,” a theme traced through to the last sentence of the book in images of chains and the motif of life as a journey. Joe’s love and friendship forms one of the chains of gold in Pip’s life, binding the two of them together just as the iron chain from the leg iron symbolically binds Pip to Magwitch.

Havisham, Miss

Eccentric old woman who lives as a recluse in Satis House and who hires Pip to play with her adopted protégée, Estella. “She was dressed in rich materials—satins, and lace, and silks—all of white. Her shoes were white. And she had a long white veil dependent from her hair, but her hair was white. . . . I saw that everything within my view which ought to be white, had been white long ago, and had lost its lustre, and was faded and yellow” (8). She retreated into seclusion after being jilted by Compeyson, stopping all the clocks there at 20 minutes before nine, the hour of her betrayal; leaving the wedding feast to decay on the table; and wearing her tattered wedding gown. She is training Estella to carry out her revenge by despising and spurning men. She brings Pip to Satis House as a victim for Estella to practice on (8), and she also uses him to taunt her relatives into thinking him a rival for her money (11). She pays for his apprenticeship (13), leading Pip to believe that she is the source of his great expectations. After he learns otherwise, she asks for his forgiveness and gives him £900 to pay for Herbert’s position at Clarriker’s. Pip rescues her from burning (49), but her injuries prove fatal. She leaves most of her money to Estella (57).

Miss Havisham’s name suggests her contributions to the illusions (have a sham) that Pip harbors and to the guilt (have a shame) that troubles him. Encouraged by his sister and Pumblechook, Pip takes her for the godmother in the fairy-tale version of his life, ignoring the decay and misery at Satis House. Dorothy Van Ghent (1953) describes Estella and Miss Havisham as “not two characters but a single one, or a single essense with dual aspects. . . . For inevitably wrought into the fascinating jewel-likeness of Pip’s great expectations, as represented by Estella, is the falsehood and degeneracy represented by Miss Havisham.”

Many sources have been suggested for Miss Havisham: William Wilkie Collins’s novel The Woman in White (1860) and the White Woman of Dickens’s essay “Where We Stopped Growing” have been proposed by several commentators. Doris Alexander (1991) proposes Dickens’s godmother and great aunt Elizabeth Charlton as his inspiration for both Miss Havisham and David Copperfield’s aunt Betsey Trotwood.

The village in Kent which, along with Chal k, was the original for the village of Joe Gargery and his forge in Great Expectations .

Hubble, Mr. and Mrs.

Friends of the Gargerys who attend Christmas dinner at the blacksmith’s house. Mr. Hubble is the village wheelwright “with his legs extraordinarily wide apart: so that in my short days I always saw some miles of open country between them when I met him coming up the lane” (4). Pip describes his wife as “a little curly sharpedged person in sky-blue, who held a conversationally junior position, because she had married Mr. Hubble . . . when she was younger than he” (4).

The man of all work at the riverside inn where Pip and Magwich stay as Pip attempts to spirit Magwich out of England. His shoes, “taken . . . from the feet of a drowned seaman,” and his certainty about the Custom House officers make his brief appearance in the novel memorable (54) and led Algernon C. Swinburne (1913) to describe him “as great among the greatest of the gods of comic fiction.”

Lawyer with offices in Little Britain who serves both Miss Havisham and Magwitch. “He was a burly man of an exceedingly dark complexion, with an exceedingly large head and a corresponding large hand. . . . His eyes were set very deep in his head, and were disagreeably sharp and suspicious” (11). As a lawyer with an extensive criminal practice, he carries on conversations through crossexamination and questioning. He also has a habit of washing his hands frequently with scented soap. Pip first meets him at Miss Havisham’s house (11). Later, Jaggers announces to Pip his great expectations (18) and represents Pip’s secret benefactor. After successfully defending Molly, Estella’s mother, on a murder charge, he hired her as his maid. He explains his decision to place Estella in the care of Miss Havisham as a way of saving at least one child from a life in the criminal underworld (51). Jaggers is wholly defined by his professional life. Unlike Wemmick, he has no private domestic world separate from the office. A bully with his clients, Jaggers avoids knowing the truth about their crimes. He adopts an intimidating and aloof manner to control every situation and escape being tainted by the evil he manipulates daily.

The ambivalences in Jaggers’s character provoke contradictory responses to him. Nicholas Bentley, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis (1988), for example, describe him as “a humane man made cynical by his professional experience”; Bert G. Hornback (1987) characterizes him as “a sinister and intellectually selfish man.” Lazarus, Abraham Thief whom Jaggers is engaged to prosecute for stealing a plate; his brother tries unsuccessfully to bribe Jaggers to represent him (20). Little Britain Street in the Cit y where Jaggers’s office is located (20).

Magwitch, Abel (a.k.a. Provis and Campbell)

Unnamed escaped convict for whom Pip steals the Christmas pie from his sister’s larder (2): “a fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who limped and shivered; glared and growled; and whose teeth chattered in his head” (1). He is recaptured on Christmas Day with Compeyson, another escapee who is Magwitch’s former accomplice and now his enemy (5). Out of gratitude to the boy and a desire to get even with the gentlemen who imprisoned him, Magwitch, who has been transported to Australia for life, secretly uses his earnings as a sheep farmer to provide Pip’s great expectations. When he illegally returns to England to see his gentleman, he surprises Pip and repels him with his commonness and his claim to be Pip’s “second father” (39). While Pip makes plans to smuggle him out of England, he takes the aliases Provis and Campbell and tells Pip the story of his life (42), of his entanglement with Compeyson, of his relationship with Molly, and of their daughter, who turns out to be Estella. He is arrested during Pip’s abortive attempt to escape with him to the continent (54). Sentenced to hang, he dies in the prison hospital before the sentence can be carried out (56).

In the novel’s inversion of the Cinderella story, Magwitch, whose name suggests magic and witchery, is the dark fairy godmother, or, as J. Hillis Miller (1958) describes him, “a nightmare permutation of Mr. Brownlow and Mr. Jarndyce,” the benefactors in Oliver Twist and Bleak House. Magwitch’s harsh treatment and hardships as a child have led to his criminality, just as Pip’s mistreatment by Mrs. Joe has left him with a guilty conscience and a self-image as naturally vicious. The similarities between the lonely, shivering man and the orphaned, shivering boy in the opening chapter establish the identification between Magwitch and Pip. Magwitch’s crass assumption that money can make a gentleman embodies Dickens’s criticism of the money society that fails to appreciate the true gentility of a common man like Joe Gargery. Mary Anne Wemmick’s “neat little” maidservant (25). Mike “Gentleman with one eye, in a velveteen suit and knee-breeches” who is one of Jaggers’s clients (20). Millers One of Belinda Pocket’s nursemaids (22).

Jaggers’s maid, “a woman of about forty . . . [whose] face looked to me as if it were all disturbed by fiery air, like the faces I had seen rise out of the Witches’ caldron [in Macbeth]” (26). Jaggers had successfully defended her in a murder case and then taken her as his maid. She is very strong and has deeply scarred wrists. Jaggers relishes his control over this powerful woman, whom Wemmick describes as “a wild beast tamed” (24). After Pip notices a likeness between Molly’s hands and Estella’s, he confirms that Molly is Estella’s mother (48).

Orlick, Dolge

Joe Gargery’s journeyman blacksmith, “a broad-shouldered loose-limbed swarthy fellow of great strength, never in a hurry, and always slouching” (15). He holds grudges against Pip, whom he thinks Joe favors, and against Mrs. Joe, who has called him a fool and a rogue. He secretly attacks and maims her (16), and these injuries lead to her early death (35). When Miss Havisham hires him as a porter, Pip has him dismissed (29–30). Finally, he falls in with Compeyson and plots to murder Pip by luring him to the limekiln on the marshes, a scheme foiled by Herbert Pocket, Startop, and Trabb’s Boy (53).

While the evil machinations of Compeyson and Drummle are explained in the plot of the novel, Orlick’s attempts to destroy Pip are more mysterious. He appears as a kind of evil alter ego to Pip, expressing the resentment or violence that Pip suppresses. Like Pip, he seems to have named himself, for the narrator tells us that the name Dolge is a “clear impossibility” (15). His first role is as the “idle apprentice” in contrast to Pip’s “industrious apprentice,” a traditional folk-story motif that is developed in George Lillo’s play, The London Merchant (1731), with which Wopsle taunts Pip (15). In this role, Orlick fights with Joe and maims Mrs. Joe. He shadows Pip and Biddy, an apparent rival for Biddy’s attentions, and later becomes the doorkeeper to Satis House, symbolically blocking Pip’s access to Estella, his presence there a reminder to Pip of his unsuitability as a former blacksmith’s apprentice. Orlick makes explicit his role representing Pip’s suppressed anger at the limekiln, when he admits to killing Mrs. Joe but blames Pip: “But it warn’t old Orlick as did it. You was favoured, and he was bullied and beat. . . . You done it” (53). In a more comic vein, his treatment of Pumblechook—“tied him up to his bedpost, and . . . stuffed his mouth full of flowering annuals” (57)—also carries out Pip’s desire for revenge on this hypocritical relative. In light of all his crimes, Orlick’s punishment—imprisonment in the county jail—seems unusually indulgent.

Pepper (“The Avenger”)

Pip’s servant boy. “I had even started a boy in boots—top boots—in bondage and slavery to whom I might be said to pass my days. For, after I had made this monster (out of the refuse of my washerwoman’s family) and had clothed him with a blue coat, canary waistcoat, white cravat, creamy breeches, and the boots already mentioned, I had to find him a little to do and a great deal to eat” (27).

Name by which Philip Pirrip Jr. is generally known. His “infant tongue” could make of his given name “nothing longer or more explicit than Pip” (1). His benefactor later makes keeping the name a condition for receiving his great expectations (18). It is a name Pip gives himself, suggesting his orphan status and the necessity to make his own way in the world. The name also suggests that Pip is a “seed” or a “hatchling.”

Pirrip, Philip, Jr. (Pip)

Narrator and protagonist of Great Expectations. He is the orphan son of Philip Sr. and Georgiana, who are buried in the local churchyard with five of their children, Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias, and Roger. Pip is raised by his sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery. Pip’s story begins on a Christmas Eve when he is about seven and befriends an escaped convict by stealing for him some food from his sister’s larder and a file from the forge (3). Pip assumes that this episode was simply something unusual that happened to him, and he represses his memory of the convict and his sense of identification with him. Sometime later he is taken to play with Estella, rich Miss Havisham’s ward, who scorns him, makes him discontented with his common life and prospects, and inspires his hopeless adoration (8). While he serves his apprenticeship to his brother-in-law the blacksmith, Pip wishes for a better life, a wish that seems to come true when he is notified that he is the recipient of “great expectations” (18). His unnamed benefactor—assumed by Pip to be Miss Havisham—supports his life as an idle gentleman in London. Pip also assumes that Miss Havisham has chosen him to marry Estella. When his benefactor reveals his identity several years later, he turns out to be Abel Magwitch, the convict Pip befriended as a child (38). At first Pip is repelled, but as he plans Magwitch’s escape from London and then witnesses his arrest, trial, and death, he realizes the shallowness of his expectations and the value of the life he rejected when he left Joe and the forge and went to the city. By the time of Magwitch’s death, Pip has learned to love the convict who gave so much of himself to advance Pip’s fortunes. In the end, Pip gives up Magwitch’s money, works for his living, and is reconciled with Joe (59).

Pip’s character is complicated by the fact that there are at least two Pips—Pip the narrator and Pip the character at the center of the story. Although the narrator does not reveal a great deal about his present life, we do know that he is a moderately successful, middle-aged businessman who has spent several years in Egypt. His ability to laugh at some of his earlier foolishness and to achieve ironic distance on his mistakes, as well as his occasional comments on his former short-sightedness, suggests that the narrator has become wiser and has realized the emptiness of his former expectations and the value of the forge. There are also, however, several reasons to conclude that Pip may not have learned as much as he thinks he has. His confession to the dying Magwitch that he loves Estella (56), his prayer identifying the convict and not himself as the sinner in need of mercy (56), and his final sentence in the novel, in which he still harbors expectations (59), suggest that Pip may not have overcome his condescension and his habit of “expecting.” These ambivalences in the narration seem to indicate that Philip Pirrip cannot be taken as a wholly reliable narrator.

The ambivalences also reveal a tension in the novel between the conventional Bildungsroman, in which Pip grows and learns of his mistaken values, and a satiric novel in which Pip fails to overcome his illusions. The ambiguities in the ending, especially the revised ending that Dickens chose at the urging of Edward Bulwer Lytton, and the shifting point of view that moves between that of Philip Pirrip the middle-aged businessman and that of the younger Pip present a multifaceted character developed with psychological complexity who has both strengths and weaknesses.

The psychological portrait of Pip, nicely analyzed by Bernard J. Paris in Imagined Human Beings (1997), presents a guilt ridden, imaginative boy who harbors suppressed anger, especially toward his sister. The events of his childhood—his orphanhood, his association with criminals, his mistreatment by Mrs. Joe—make him secretive and susceptible to Miss Havisham’s illusions and Estella’s humiliations. By suppressing his guilt and projecting his violent anger onto characters like Orlick and Drummle, Pip is able to maintain the illusion that he is worthy of his elevation to the status of young gentleman. But he is not able, like Wemmick, to keep the two sides of his bifurcated character separated, and he is frequently troubled by reminders of criminality, guilt, and violence. His acceptance of Magwitch and his rejection of Magwitch’s money suggest that he finally comes to terms with this separation and integrates disparate parts of himself, but he does not seem fully able to achieve psychological wholeness. He still has not come to terms with his feelings about Estella. In the original ending, his satisfaction in Estella’s suffering and in her mistaken assumption that young Pip is his child suggests that he has not overcome his resentment at her earlier humiliations. The revised ending implies that Pip still harbors expectations that involve Estella, however one reads the ambiguities in the final sentences of the novel. In both endings the voice is that of a chastened middle-aged bachelor, still a lonely outsider and a psychological orphan.

Pocket, Belinda

Matthew’s wife, a knight’s daughter, “had grown up highly ornamental, but perfectly helpless and useless” (23). She is so obsessed with social position that she pays no attention to housekeeping or to her young children Alick, Jane, Charlotte, Fanny, Joe, and an unnamed baby, who “tumble” in the care of two neglectful nursemaids. Doris Alexander (1991) suggests that she was based on Catherine Hogarth Dickens.

Pocket, Herbert

Pip’s roommate at Barnard’s Inn after Pip comes into his expectations. Son of Matthew Pocket, Herbert is the “pale young gentleman” who fought with Pip over Estella (11). He has “a frank and easy way” and “a natural incapacity to do anything secret and mean” (22). He names Pip “Handel,” reflecting Pip’s background as a blacksmith and celebrating their harmonious relationship, and he instructs Pip in manners (22). He helps Pip hide Magwitch and plan the escape. Pip secretly secures a position for Herbert with Clarriker’s (37). Herbert marries Clara Barley after a long engagement, manages the Cairo office for the firm, and hires Pip as his clerk there (58).

Pocket, Matthew

Miss Havisham’s cousin, Herbert’s father, and Pip’s tutor when he comes to London to become a gentleman. A graduate of Harrow and Cambridge, he was “a young-looking man, in spite of his perplexities and his very grey hair, and his manner seemed quite natural. I use the word natural, in the sense of its being unaffected; there was something comic in his distraught way, as though it would have been downright ludicrous but for his own perception that it was very near being so” (23). He is kind and unselfish but feckless and impractical, and he has a habit of pulling his hair as a sign of frustration. He is the only one of Miss Havisham’s relatives who speaks honestly to her, so he has been banished from her presence. Pip later tells Miss Havisham of Matthew’s good character, and she leaves Matthew £4000 in her will (59).

Pumblechook, Uncle

Joe Gargery’s uncle, a prosperous and hypocritical corn chandler and seed merchant: “a large hard-breathing middle-aged slow man, with a mouth like a fish, dull staring eyes, and sandy hair standing upright on his head, so that he looked as if he had just been all but choked” (4). He arranges Pip’s initial meeting with Miss Havisham and Estella (7) and subsequently takes credit for being the founder of Pip’s great expectations (19), toadying to Pip’s new-found wealth. But when Pip loses his prospects, Pumblechook treats him with patronizing pity, suggesting that Pip’s downfall is a result of his ingratitude to him, his “earliest benefactor” (58). He receives his comeuppance when Orlick breaks into his house, ties him to a bedpost, and stuffs his mouth full of flowers (57).

As a seed merchant, Pumblechook is responsible for selling Pip (a seed) to Miss Havisham and introducing him to the materialistic illusions that she fosters. Doris Alexander (1991) connects Pumblechook with John Willett in Barnaby Rudge and suggests that both characters are based on John Porter Leigh, the father of Mary Ann Leigh.

Wemmick, John, Jr.

Jaggers’s clerk, “a dry man, rather short in stature, with a square wooden face, whose expression seemed to have been imperfectly chipped out with a dull-edged chisel. . . . He wore at least four mourning rings . . . [and] several rings and seals hung at his watch chain, as if he were quite laden with remembrances of departed friends” (21). These items of “portable property” are gifts from the firm’s executed former clients. With his “post office of a mouth,” Wemmick hides his feelings behind a mechanical smile as he advises Pip repeatedly to value “portable property.” At his home in Walworth, Wemmick has a personal life that he keeps totally separated from his business life. There he cares for his deaf and aged father in a castle complete with a moat and a cannon (25) and courts Miss Skiffins, his fiancée whom he marries in a wonderfully comic ceremony (55). He aids Pip in secretly setting up Herbert Pocket in business (37), warns him of Compeyson (45), and aids him in planning Magwitch’s escape (48).

Wemmick’s response to the corruption of the world is to live two separate lives, a solution he recommends to Pip. But Pip is unable to hide or deny Magwitch’s presence and importance in his life. When Pip sits by Magwitch holding his hand at the trial and when he makes no attempt to secure Magwitch’s money, he implicitly rejects Wemmick’s “split personality” solution and follows the example of Joe, who refuses to take money for releasing Pip to Jaggers. Although Wemmick does much to aid Pip, especially in the attempt to get Magwitch to the Continent, he is, as Bert G. Hornback (1987) points out, “finally corrupted by his preference for money.” Whimple, Mrs. Landlady of the house where old Bill Barley and his daughter lodge and where Magwitch hides (46).

Parish clerk and friend of the Gargerys, he unites “a Roman nose, . . . a large shining bald forehead, . . . [and] a deep voice which he was uncommonly proud of” (4). He aspires to enter the church, but he ends up in the theater where he takes the stage name of Waldengarver. Pip sees him perform Hamlet in an obscure London theater (31), and later, when he has been reduced to playing miscellaneous bit parts, Pip sees him at an even more obscure venue along the river (47). Wopsle’s desires to escape his provincial origins and seek success in the theater in London act as a comic parody of Pip’s similar pretensions to gentility.

FURTHER READING The criticism on Great Expectations is voluminous. Several collections bring together significant critical essays on the novel: Richard Lettis and W. E. Morris, Assessing Great Expectations (1960), includes Dorothy Van Ghent’s (1953) classic discussion of the novel’s modes of characterization and Julian Moynahan’s “The Hero’s Guilt: the Case of Great Expectations” (Essays in Criticism, 1960), a psychological analysis of Pip and his doubles. Edgar Rosenberg’s (1999) authoritative edition supplements its carefully established text and thorough explanatory footnotes with a selection of critical essays, among them Peter Brooks’s (1984) Freudian analysis of the plot, “Repetition, Repression, and Returns: The Plotting of Great Expectations.” Janice Carlisle’s (1996) edition also includes Brooks’s essay, as well as others illustrating several contemporary approaches to the novel. Of particular interest among them is Hilary Schor’s feminist reading, “ ‘If He Should Turn to and Beat Her’: Violence, Desire, and the Woman’s Story in Great Expectations .” Harold Bloom’s (2000) volume in the Modern Critical Interpretations series is a good selection of recent essays. The autobiographical roots of the story are discussed by Ada Nisbet in “The Autobiographical Matrix of Great Expectations” (Victorian Newsletter, 1959). F. R. Leavis and Q. D. Leavis (1970) provide a close reading of the novel as an example of psychological realism. Many commentators write on Pip as narrator, including Robert B. Partlow, “The Moving I: A Study of Point of View in Great Expectations” (College English, 1961), Robert E. Garis (1965), and Steven Connor (1985). Beth Herst (The Dickens Hero: Selfhood and Alienation in the Dickens World, 1990) discusses Pip as an example of the alienated hero in Dickens’s later novels. Three book-length discussions of the novel are especially noteworthy: Bert G. Hornback (1987) and Anny Sadrin (1988) provide extended critical introductions to the novel; Jerome Meckier (2002) considers the novel in comparison to other works of Victorian fiction.

Great Expectations was first published as a serial in Al the Year Round and, consistent with the format of that magazine, was unillustrated. Some critics, most notably F. R. Leavis and Q. D. Leavis (1970), have suggested that the realism of the novel made illustrations—especially caricatures in the manner of Hablot Knight Browne—inappropriate. However, there have been many successfully illustrated later editions of the novel. The first American edition—the serial published in Harper’s Weekly—was illustrated by John McLenan. Since it was printed from advance proofs sent from England and appeared a week before the English serial, this edition could be said to be the first edition of the novel. Dickens had Marcus Stone illustrate the Library Edition of the novel in 1862. Especially noteworthy among later illustrators of the novel are F. W. Pailthorpe (1885), Harry Furniss (1910), and Gordon Ross (1937). Source: Davis, P. (2007). Critical companion to Charles Dickens. New York: Facts On File.

Share this:

Categories: Literature , Novel Analysis

Tags: Analysis of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations , Characters of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations , Charles Dickens , Criticism of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations , Essays of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations , Great Expectations , Great Expectations Analysis , Great Expectations Essays , Great Expectations Notes , Great Expectations Summary , Great Expectations Themes , Literary Criticism , Notes of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations , Plot of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations , Scholarly articles of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations , Summary of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations , Themes of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations , Victorian Literature

Related Articles

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

• Search Menu
• Browse content in Arts and Humanities
• Browse content in Archaeology
• Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Archaeology
• Archaeological Methodology and Techniques
• Archaeology by Region
• Archaeology of Religion
• Archaeology of Trade and Exchange
• Biblical Archaeology
• Contemporary and Public Archaeology
• Environmental Archaeology
• Historical Archaeology
• History and Theory of Archaeology
• Industrial Archaeology
• Landscape Archaeology
• Mortuary Archaeology
• Prehistoric Archaeology
• Underwater Archaeology
• Urban Archaeology
• Zooarchaeology
• Browse content in Architecture
• Architectural Structure and Design
• History of Architecture
• Residential and Domestic Buildings
• Theory of Architecture
• Browse content in Art
• Art Subjects and Themes
• History of Art
• Industrial and Commercial Art
• Theory of Art
• Biographical Studies
• Byzantine Studies
• Browse content in Classical Studies
• Classical History
• Classical Philosophy
• Classical Mythology
• Classical Literature
• Classical Reception
• Classical Art and Architecture
• Classical Oratory and Rhetoric
• Greek and Roman Epigraphy
• Greek and Roman Law
• Greek and Roman Papyrology
• Greek and Roman Archaeology
• Late Antiquity
• Religion in the Ancient World
• Digital Humanities
• Browse content in History
• Colonialism and Imperialism
• Diplomatic History
• Environmental History
• Genealogy, Heraldry, Names, and Honours
• Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing
• Historical Geography
• History by Period
• History of Emotions
• History of Agriculture
• History of Education
• History of Gender and Sexuality
• Industrial History
• Intellectual History
• International History
• Labour History
• Legal and Constitutional History
• Local and Family History
• Maritime History
• Military History
• National Liberation and Post-Colonialism
• Oral History
• Political History
• Public History
• Regional and National History
• Revolutions and Rebellions
• Slavery and Abolition of Slavery
• Social and Cultural History
• Theory, Methods, and Historiography
• Urban History
• World History
• Browse content in Language Teaching and Learning
• Language Learning (Specific Skills)
• Language Teaching Theory and Methods
• Browse content in Linguistics
• Applied Linguistics
• Cognitive Linguistics
• Computational Linguistics
• Forensic Linguistics
• Grammar, Syntax and Morphology
• Historical and Diachronic Linguistics
• History of English
• Language Acquisition
• Language Evolution
• Language Reference
• Language Variation
• Language Families
• Lexicography
• Linguistic Anthropology
• Linguistic Theories
• Linguistic Typology
• Phonetics and Phonology
• Psycholinguistics
• Sociolinguistics
• Translation and Interpretation
• Writing Systems
• Browse content in Literature
• Bibliography
• Children's Literature Studies
• Literary Studies (Asian)
• Literary Studies (European)
• Literary Studies (Eco-criticism)
• Literary Studies (Romanticism)
• Literary Studies (American)
• Literary Studies (Modernism)
• Literary Studies - World
• Literary Studies (1500 to 1800)
• Literary Studies (19th Century)
• Literary Studies (20th Century onwards)
• Literary Studies (African American Literature)
• Literary Studies (British and Irish)
• Literary Studies (Early and Medieval)
• Literary Studies (Fiction, Novelists, and Prose Writers)
• Literary Studies (Gender Studies)
• Literary Studies (Graphic Novels)
• Literary Studies (History of the Book)
• Literary Studies (Plays and Playwrights)
• Literary Studies (Poetry and Poets)
• Literary Studies (Postcolonial Literature)
• Literary Studies (Queer Studies)
• Literary Studies (Science Fiction)
• Literary Studies (Travel Literature)
• Literary Studies (War Literature)
• Literary Studies (Women's Writing)
• Literary Theory and Cultural Studies
• Mythology and Folklore
• Shakespeare Studies and Criticism
• Browse content in Media Studies
• Browse content in Music
• Applied Music
• Dance and Music
• Ethics in Music
• Ethnomusicology
• Gender and Sexuality in Music
• Medicine and Music
• Music Cultures
• Music and Religion
• Music and Media
• Music and Culture
• Music Education and Pedagogy
• Music Theory and Analysis
• Musical Scores, Lyrics, and Libretti
• Musical Structures, Styles, and Techniques
• Musicology and Music History
• Performance Practice and Studies
• Race and Ethnicity in Music
• Sound Studies
• Browse content in Performing Arts
• Browse content in Philosophy
• Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art
• Epistemology
• Feminist Philosophy
• History of Western Philosophy
• Metaphysics
• Moral Philosophy
• Non-Western Philosophy
• Philosophy of Science
• Philosophy of Language
• Philosophy of Mind
• Philosophy of Perception
• Philosophy of Action
• Philosophy of Law
• Philosophy of Religion
• Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic
• Practical Ethics
• Social and Political Philosophy
• Browse content in Religion
• Biblical Studies
• Christianity
• East Asian Religions
• History of Religion
• Judaism and Jewish Studies
• Qumran Studies
• Religion and Education
• Religion and Health
• Religion and Politics
• Religion and Science
• Religion and Law
• Religion and Art, Literature, and Music
• Religious Studies
• Browse content in Society and Culture
• Cookery, Food, and Drink
• Cultural Studies
• Customs and Traditions
• Ethical Issues and Debates
• Hobbies, Games, Arts and Crafts
• Lifestyle, Home, and Garden
• Natural world, Country Life, and Pets
• Popular Beliefs and Controversial Knowledge
• Sports and Outdoor Recreation
• Technology and Society
• Travel and Holiday
• Visual Culture
• Browse content in Law
• Arbitration
• Browse content in Company and Commercial Law
• Commercial Law
• Company Law
• Browse content in Comparative Law
• Systems of Law
• Competition Law
• Browse content in Constitutional and Administrative Law
• Government Powers
• Judicial Review
• Local Government Law
• Military and Defence Law
• Parliamentary and Legislative Practice
• Construction Law
• Contract Law
• Browse content in Criminal Law
• Criminal Procedure
• Criminal Evidence Law
• Sentencing and Punishment
• Employment and Labour Law
• Environment and Energy Law
• Browse content in Financial Law
• Banking Law
• Insolvency Law
• History of Law
• Human Rights and Immigration
• Intellectual Property Law
• Browse content in International Law
• Private International Law and Conflict of Laws
• Public International Law
• IT and Communications Law
• Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law
• Law and Politics
• Law and Society
• Browse content in Legal System and Practice
• Courts and Procedure
• Legal Skills and Practice
• Primary Sources of Law
• Regulation of Legal Profession
• Medical and Healthcare Law
• Browse content in Policing
• Criminal Investigation and Detection
• Police and Security Services
• Police Procedure and Law
• Police Regional Planning
• Browse content in Property Law
• Personal Property Law
• Study and Revision
• Terrorism and National Security Law
• Browse content in Trusts Law
• Wills and Probate or Succession
• Browse content in Medicine and Health
• Browse content in Allied Health Professions
• Arts Therapies
• Clinical Science
• Dietetics and Nutrition
• Occupational Therapy
• Operating Department Practice
• Physiotherapy
• Radiography
• Speech and Language Therapy
• Browse content in Anaesthetics
• General Anaesthesia
• Neuroanaesthesia
• Browse content in Clinical Medicine
• Acute Medicine
• Cardiovascular Medicine
• Clinical Genetics
• Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics
• Dermatology
• Endocrinology and Diabetes
• Gastroenterology
• Genito-urinary Medicine
• Geriatric Medicine
• Infectious Diseases
• Medical Toxicology
• Medical Oncology
• Pain Medicine
• Palliative Medicine
• Rehabilitation Medicine
• Respiratory Medicine and Pulmonology
• Rheumatology
• Sleep Medicine
• Sports and Exercise Medicine
• Clinical Neuroscience
• Community Medical Services
• Critical Care
• Emergency Medicine
• Forensic Medicine
• Haematology
• History of Medicine
• Browse content in Medical Dentistry
• Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
• Paediatric Dentistry
• Restorative Dentistry and Orthodontics
• Surgical Dentistry
• Browse content in Medical Skills
• Clinical Skills
• Communication Skills
• Nursing Skills
• Surgical Skills
• Medical Ethics
• Medical Statistics and Methodology
• Browse content in Neurology
• Clinical Neurophysiology
• Neuropathology
• Nursing Studies
• Browse content in Obstetrics and Gynaecology
• Gynaecology
• Occupational Medicine
• Ophthalmology
• Otolaryngology (ENT)
• Browse content in Paediatrics
• Neonatology
• Browse content in Pathology
• Chemical Pathology
• Clinical Cytogenetics and Molecular Genetics
• Histopathology
• Medical Microbiology and Virology
• Patient Education and Information
• Browse content in Pharmacology
• Psychopharmacology
• Browse content in Popular Health
• Caring for Others
• Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• Self-help and Personal Development
• Browse content in Preclinical Medicine
• Cell Biology
• Molecular Biology and Genetics
• Reproduction, Growth and Development
• Primary Care
• Professional Development in Medicine
• Browse content in Psychiatry
• Addiction Medicine
• Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Forensic Psychiatry
• Learning Disabilities
• Old Age Psychiatry
• Psychotherapy
• Browse content in Public Health and Epidemiology
• Epidemiology
• Public Health
• Browse content in Radiology
• Clinical Radiology
• Interventional Radiology
• Nuclear Medicine
• Radiation Oncology
• Reproductive Medicine
• Browse content in Surgery
• Cardiothoracic Surgery
• Gastro-intestinal and Colorectal Surgery
• General Surgery
• Neurosurgery
• Paediatric Surgery
• Peri-operative Care
• Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
• Surgical Oncology
• Transplant Surgery
• Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery
• Vascular Surgery
• Browse content in Science and Mathematics
• Browse content in Biological Sciences
• Aquatic Biology
• Biochemistry
• Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
• Developmental Biology
• Ecology and Conservation
• Evolutionary Biology
• Genetics and Genomics
• Microbiology
• Molecular and Cell Biology
• Natural History
• Plant Sciences and Forestry
• Research Methods in Life Sciences
• Structural Biology
• Systems Biology
• Zoology and Animal Sciences
• Browse content in Chemistry
• Analytical Chemistry
• Computational Chemistry
• Crystallography
• Environmental Chemistry
• Industrial Chemistry
• Inorganic Chemistry
• Materials Chemistry
• Medicinal Chemistry
• Mineralogy and Gems
• Organic Chemistry
• Physical Chemistry
• Polymer Chemistry
• Study and Communication Skills in Chemistry
• Theoretical Chemistry
• Browse content in Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Computer Architecture and Logic Design
• Game Studies
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Mathematical Theory of Computation
• Programming Languages
• Software Engineering
• Systems Analysis and Design
• Virtual Reality
• Browse content in Computing
• Business Applications
• Computer Security
• Computer Games
• Computer Networking and Communications
• Digital Lifestyle
• Graphical and Digital Media Applications
• Operating Systems
• Browse content in Earth Sciences and Geography
• Atmospheric Sciences
• Environmental Geography
• Geology and the Lithosphere
• Maps and Map-making
• Meteorology and Climatology
• Oceanography and Hydrology
• Palaeontology
• Physical Geography and Topography
• Regional Geography
• Soil Science
• Urban Geography
• Browse content in Engineering and Technology
• Agriculture and Farming
• Biological Engineering
• Civil Engineering, Surveying, and Building
• Electronics and Communications Engineering
• Energy Technology
• Engineering (General)
• Environmental Science, Engineering, and Technology
• History of Engineering and Technology
• Mechanical Engineering and Materials
• Technology of Industrial Chemistry
• Transport Technology and Trades
• Browse content in Environmental Science
• Applied Ecology (Environmental Science)
• Conservation of the Environment (Environmental Science)
• Environmental Sustainability
• Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Environmental Science)
• Management of Land and Natural Resources (Environmental Science)
• Natural Disasters (Environmental Science)
• Nuclear Issues (Environmental Science)
• Pollution and Threats to the Environment (Environmental Science)
• Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Environmental Science)
• History of Science and Technology
• Browse content in Materials Science
• Ceramics and Glasses
• Composite Materials
• Metals, Alloying, and Corrosion
• Nanotechnology
• Browse content in Mathematics
• Applied Mathematics
• Biomathematics and Statistics
• History of Mathematics
• Mathematical Education
• Mathematical Finance
• Mathematical Analysis
• Numerical and Computational Mathematics
• Probability and Statistics
• Pure Mathematics
• Browse content in Neuroscience
• Cognition and Behavioural Neuroscience
• Development of the Nervous System
• Disorders of the Nervous System
• History of Neuroscience
• Invertebrate Neurobiology
• Molecular and Cellular Systems
• Neuroendocrinology and Autonomic Nervous System
• Neuroscientific Techniques
• Sensory and Motor Systems
• Browse content in Physics
• Astronomy and Astrophysics
• Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
• Biological and Medical Physics
• Classical Mechanics
• Computational Physics
• Condensed Matter Physics
• Electromagnetism, Optics, and Acoustics
• History of Physics
• Mathematical and Statistical Physics
• Measurement Science
• Nuclear Physics
• Particles and Fields
• Plasma Physics
• Quantum Physics
• Relativity and Gravitation
• Semiconductor and Mesoscopic Physics
• Browse content in Psychology
• Affective Sciences
• Clinical Psychology
• Cognitive Psychology
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Criminal and Forensic Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Educational Psychology
• Evolutionary Psychology
• Health Psychology
• History and Systems in Psychology
• Music Psychology
• Neuropsychology
• Organizational Psychology
• Psychological Assessment and Testing
• Psychology of Human-Technology Interaction
• Psychology Professional Development and Training
• Research Methods in Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Browse content in Social Sciences
• Browse content in Anthropology
• Anthropology of Religion
• Human Evolution
• Medical Anthropology
• Physical Anthropology
• Regional Anthropology
• Social and Cultural Anthropology
• Theory and Practice of Anthropology
• Browse content in Business and Management
• Business Strategy
• Business Ethics
• Business History
• Business and Government
• Business and Technology
• Business and the Environment
• Comparative Management
• Corporate Governance
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Entrepreneurship
• Health Management
• Human Resource Management
• Industrial and Employment Relations
• Industry Studies
• Information and Communication Technologies
• International Business
• Knowledge Management
• Management and Management Techniques
• Operations Management
• Organizational Theory and Behaviour
• Pensions and Pension Management
• Public and Nonprofit Management
• Strategic Management
• Supply Chain Management
• Browse content in Criminology and Criminal Justice
• Criminal Justice
• Criminology
• Forms of Crime
• International and Comparative Criminology
• Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice
• Development Studies
• Browse content in Economics
• Agricultural, Environmental, and Natural Resource Economics
• Asian Economics
• Behavioural Finance
• Behavioural Economics and Neuroeconomics
• Econometrics and Mathematical Economics
• Economic Systems
• Economic History
• Economic Methodology
• Economic Development and Growth
• Financial Markets
• Financial Institutions and Services
• General Economics and Teaching
• Health, Education, and Welfare
• History of Economic Thought
• International Economics
• Labour and Demographic Economics
• Law and Economics
• Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics
• Microeconomics
• Public Economics
• Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics
• Welfare Economics
• Browse content in Education
• Adult Education and Continuous Learning
• Care and Counselling of Students
• Early Childhood and Elementary Education
• Educational Equipment and Technology
• Educational Strategies and Policy
• Higher and Further Education
• Organization and Management of Education
• Philosophy and Theory of Education
• Schools Studies
• Secondary Education
• Teaching of a Specific Subject
• Teaching of Specific Groups and Special Educational Needs
• Teaching Skills and Techniques
• Browse content in Environment
• Applied Ecology (Social Science)
• Climate Change
• Conservation of the Environment (Social Science)
• Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Social Science)
• Natural Disasters (Environment)
• Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Social Science)
• Browse content in Human Geography
• Cultural Geography
• Economic Geography
• Political Geography
• Browse content in Interdisciplinary Studies
• Communication Studies
• Museums, Libraries, and Information Sciences
• Browse content in Politics
• African Politics
• Asian Politics
• Chinese Politics
• Comparative Politics
• Conflict Politics
• Elections and Electoral Studies
• Environmental Politics
• European Union
• Foreign Policy
• Gender and Politics
• Human Rights and Politics
• Indian Politics
• International Relations
• International Organization (Politics)
• International Political Economy
• Irish Politics
• Latin American Politics
• Middle Eastern Politics
• Political Methodology
• Political Communication
• Political Philosophy
• Political Sociology
• Political Behaviour
• Political Economy
• Political Institutions
• Political Theory
• Politics and Law
• Public Administration
• Public Policy
• Quantitative Political Methodology
• Regional Political Studies
• Russian Politics
• Security Studies
• State and Local Government
• UK Politics
• US Politics
• Browse content in Regional and Area Studies
• African Studies
• Asian Studies
• East Asian Studies
• Japanese Studies
• Latin American Studies
• Middle Eastern Studies
• Native American Studies
• Scottish Studies
• Browse content in Research and Information
• Research Methods
• Browse content in Social Work
• Addictions and Substance Misuse
• Adoption and Fostering
• Care of the Elderly
• Child and Adolescent Social Work
• Couple and Family Social Work
• Developmental and Physical Disabilities Social Work
• Direct Practice and Clinical Social Work
• Emergency Services
• Human Behaviour and the Social Environment
• International and Global Issues in Social Work
• Mental and Behavioural Health
• Social Justice and Human Rights
• Social Policy and Advocacy
• Social Work and Crime and Justice
• Social Work Macro Practice
• Social Work Practice Settings
• Social Work Research and Evidence-based Practice
• Welfare and Benefit Systems
• Browse content in Sociology
• Childhood Studies
• Community Development
• Comparative and Historical Sociology
• Economic Sociology
• Gender and Sexuality
• Gerontology and Ageing
• Health, Illness, and Medicine
• Marriage and the Family
• Migration Studies
• Occupations, Professions, and Work
• Organizations
• Population and Demography
• Race and Ethnicity
• Social Theory
• Social Movements and Social Change
• Social Research and Statistics
• Social Stratification, Inequality, and Mobility
• Sociology of Religion
• Sociology of Education
• Sport and Leisure
• Urban and Rural Studies
• Browse content in Warfare and Defence
• Defence Strategy, Planning, and Research
• Land Forces and Warfare
• Military Administration
• Military Life and Institutions
• Naval Forces and Warfare
• Other Warfare and Defence Issues
• Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution
• Weapons and Equipment

• < Previous chapter
• Next chapter >

19 Great Expectations

Mary Hammond is Professor of English and Book History at the University of Southampton, UK, and founding Director of the Southampton Centre for Nineteenth-Century Research. Her books include Reading, Publishing and the Formation of Literary Taste in England, 1880–1914 (Ashgate, 2006), Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations: A Cultural Life 1860–2012 (Ashgate, 2015), and a number of co-edited collections including Publishing in the First World War (Palgrave, 2007), Books Without Borders (2 volumes, Palgrave, 2008), Rural–Urban Relationships in the Nineteenth Century: Uneasy Neighbours (Routledge, 2016), and The Edinburgh History of Reading: A World Survey from Antiquity to the Present (2 volumes, Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming in 2019).

• Published: 09 October 2018
• Cite Icon Cite
• Permissions Icon Permissions

This chapter examines how Great Expectations , often characterized as Dickens’s ‘best-loved’ novel, has also become one of his most frequently adapted, and suggests that the relationship is not as straightforward as it might appear. Recently, Rachel Malik (2012) has provided us with a promising new avenue for enquiry, attributing the novel’s enduring power and adaptability to its unusual ‘capsularity’, by means of which particular storylines or even paragraphs can be easily extracted for remediation elsewhere. This chapter demonstrates through an analysis of several different—and often lesser-known—examples of such extractions and remediations that situating Great Expectations in a nascent Victorian version of multiplatform publishing of which Dickens was well aware as he was writing offers enormous potential for a better understanding, both of his main creative preoccupations in 1860–1, and of the novel’s power over time and space.

The Struggle for Life

On the first page of the handwritten manuscript of Dickens’s 13th novel Great Expectations (1860–1), almost buried under the tangled thicket of black ink corrections and crossings out from which the famous story of Pip the blacksmith’s boy finally emerged, one small but vital addition to the final sentence of the third paragraph is faintly visible. 1 In the paragraph as readers now know it, the young orphan Pip, shivering in a bleak Kent churchyard one Christmas Eve in the late 1800s or 1820s, muses on the stones marking the remains of his late parents, alongside: ‘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’ ( GE I:1, 3). 2

K. J. Fielding claims that the phrase ‘universal struggle’ provides hard evidence (rare in Dickens) of the influence of Charles Darwin, who had used it in the third paragraph of chapter 3 of his famous work On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life , published in November 1859, just a year before the serialization of Great Expectations began. 3 While there might be disagreement over the extent of Dickens’s engagement with Darwin, few critics would argue with the underlying claim here. It is true that we have no evidence that Dickens actually read On the Origin of Species (though we know he had a copy in his library), but the pervasive influence of Darwinian thought on Victorian fiction has become something of a critical truism. In 1983 Gillian Beer made it the subject of her seminal work Darwin’s Plots , which, while it deals more comprehensively with Dickens’s influence on Darwin rather than the other way around, provides a vital backdrop to the literary marketplace in which he was working. As she explains, after On the Origin of Species emerged, ‘[e]veryone found themselves living in a Darwinian world in which old assumptions had ceased to be assumptions, could be at best beliefs, or myths, or, at worst, detritus of the past. So the question of who read Darwin, or whether a writer had read Darwin, becomes only a fraction of the answer’. 4 Darwin’s influence, in this view, was out there in the ether, and Dickens had no choice but to breathe it in.

Was this particularly true in the case of Great Expectations , which arrived on the scene so soon after Darwin’s ground-breaking work? It would seem so. George Levine, while not explicitly citing Darwin, has observed that even ‘communication in the novel is “primitive and basic rather than full, complex, or rich in nuance” ’, and has seen brute nature—the complete failure of civilized rationality—as central to the structuring of the plot. 5 For Goldie Morgentaler, there is evidence throughout Dickens’s 13th novel of Darwin’s influence, in particular ‘the ceaseless and inevitable moving into the future without a glance back to the reassuring reanimation of the past’. 6

Taking the judicious use of that phrase ‘universal struggle’ at face value, then, the claim that there is a full thematic engagement in this novel with Darwinian ideas about natural selection in a harsh environment is persuasive, and (despite its pre-industrial setting in the 1810s and 1820s) might even help to explain some of its topicality in its own industrial mid-century moment, and some of its enduring power in the postmodern capitalist Western world. Pip’s retrospective narrative is, after all, largely an exploration of the extent to which a human being is formed by his or her environment, or able to transcend it, and with what potential effects. And the very name ‘Pip’ surely suggests that Dickens had in mind a sort of petri dish plot in which a nascent human seed might be observed developing in response to various conditions. Estella’s journey, similarly—a journey which results in her being brutally ‘bent and broken … into a better shape’ ( GE III:20, 480)—raises key questions about the extent to which her cruelty is a result of Miss Havisham’s destructive nurturing, or of her nature, which is the consequence of an ill-starred union between a convict and a murderess. On a larger scale too, of course, this is a story about roads taken or not taken, and their consequences, and the extent to which one has free will about such things or is fashioned by one’s circumstances. The metaphor of forging (and forcing) matter, human and otherwise, into particular shapes pervades this novel.

But if we return to the manuscript, we might follow a different line of enquiry. The original sentence read ‘who gave up trying to get a living exceedingly early in that struggle’. The word ‘universal’ is added as an afterthought in a lighter ink, using a much finer quill; and quite possibly, therefore, at a later time—or even on a different day (though it is still unmistakably in Dickens’s hand). This small correction on the manuscript—insignificant though it might seem—highlights two of the main preoccupations of this chapter. First, though speed was of the essence here Dickens was an obsessive returner to and perfecter of his own creations. In going back to add that word ‘universal’, arguably to move readers away from a Malthusian-inflected understanding of struggle as pertaining mostly to the labouring poor, he surely knew exactly what he was doing: tapping into powerful prevailing post-Darwinian discourses about the potentially corrosive influence of environment on all classes of society. In this period, as Pam Morris suggests, the ‘[p]ublic perception of a criminal underside to wealth disturbed [the] … ideological construction of a golden haze of general prosperity interweaving the whole nation into unified contentment’. 7 Struggle, it was becoming clear, defined and affected everyone, and as Chris R. Vanden Bossche argues in Chapter 34 of this volume, for Dickens class was something troublingly unstable. 8

Second, the novel ‘evolved’ in Dickens’s hands in much the same way as an organism does in nature: as a response to a particular environment; and in this case the environment was not just formed out of mysteriously circulating ideologies but empirical and keenly self-aware. The novel, that is, does not just reflect the contemporary influence of Darwin, as Fielding, Beer, Morgentaler, and others argue, or the dark side of the supposed ‘golden age’ of the 1850s and 1860s, 9 or ‘a personification of the false values of the Victorian dream’, 10 or even the fantasy of a ‘way out … and escape from debt or shame’ in the colonies 11 —though it almost certainly does all of those things. If we know where to look, it also reflects its author’s consummate professionalism in the first multimedia age, giving us a rare insight into what a self-made mid-Victorian middle-class man thought was important, saleable, and topical. Great Expectations might even be a special case among Dickens’s late works: in 1860 he badly needed a hit if his new journal All the Year Round was to weather an alarming recent drop in sales, so he conceived, wrote, and corrected it with multiple different audiences in mind in order to maximize its profits, and as a result it managed to appeal (and continues to appeal) in contexts even he could not have predicted. This was a remarkably modern and prescient way of constructing a work of fiction, and the myriad possibilities it provides for readers (and viewers, and listeners) are a marker of the sophistication of Dickens’s mature style, steeped as it was in the Victorian version of what we now call multiplatform publishing.

Proliferating Lives

The novel had an enormous amount of work to do on several different levels almost simultaneously if it was to succeed in the way Dickens desired. First, it had to work for the readers of both the English-language serial versions—illustrated in Harper’s Weekly in the USA, unillustrated for simultaneous publication in All the Year Round in Britain. That means it needed not just a small cliff-hanger every three chapters or so to keep readers interested between instalments, but sufficient comic potential to enable its American illustrator to create some convincing caricatures (since American audiences preferred their Dickens funny) 12 and sufficient verbal colour and complexity to enable it to work without them (at least temporarily) for the British. Next came the three-volume English first edition, released in July 1861 just before the serialization ended on 3 August and aimed at subscription library patrons, closely followed by a two-volume illustrated edition overseen by Dickens in 1862, then various one-volume English-language editions which appeared in the UK, USA, and Europe after that. He was aware also that all these versions were likely to have groups of listeners as well as individual readers, as the novel was read aloud in the home, the school, the pulpit, or the workplace. Simultaneously the novel appeared in authorized translations to readers in several European countries including Russia (1861), Denmark (1861), Sweden (1861), France (1862), Holland (1862), Germany (1862), and Poland (1863), so it needed a certain appeal beyond Britain and the USA. 13 Then there were the listeners who, potentially, might one day hear Dickens read it aloud to them; Dickens’s reading version was never performed, but the fact that he prepared one indicates that he was at least toying with the idea. In 1860, also, there was always the possibility (ultimately unrealized in the UK in Dickens’s lifetime) that an audience might one day watch it performed on stage. Finally—less often, if ever, sanctioned by Dickens, though equally known to and hardly ever prevented by him—there were the readers of regional newspapers in both the UK and the USA who might come across short pirated extracts of little more than a paragraph or so in length among the factual articles in their daily paper.

In fact, Dickens’s 13th novel emerged into a marketplace in its own way as diverse and sophisticated as our own: one which its author understood better than almost any of his contemporaries. Traces of his remarkable professional skill and his address to contemporary readers’ concerns are recoverable through his masterly structure and his skilful corrections to the manuscript, as I have shown; but thanks to new digital technologies which have enabled us to track the novel across time and space, we can now also understand much more about the variety of contexts and forms in which it managed to appeal, and analyse how they may have worked. What Rachel Malik has called its ‘capsularity’—by which she means the ways in which the novel’s several ‘relatively autonomous stories … can be lightly coupled or decoupled by the addition or subtraction of a sentence or even a phrase’ 14 —has meant that it is among his most readily adaptable for other formats and other media. This has been particularly true since the advent of film, radio, and television, and much recent scholarship has understandably focused on the ways in which, long after Dickens’s death, various segments of the novel have offered themselves for dramatization and rewriting ranging from the reverential to the parodic. But if we consider the capsularity to be an integral part of Dickens’s original design, rather than an incidental opportunity for hit-and-run raids by pirates and media producers, new readings of the text itself may become available to us.

Disappearing Lives

A good example of the way in which ‘decoupling’ works at the level of the plot can be demonstrated by tracking what happens to the novel’s themes if we ‘decouple’ the Estella/romance plotline and privilege the male friendship narrative. If we are to believe both the first mention of Dickens’s initial ‘very fine, new, and grotesque’ yet also ‘singular and comic’ idea as he described it in a letter to John Forster in September of 1860, and also the evidence provided by the reading version which sidelines Miss Havisham and cuts Estella out completely, the male friendship storyline was Dickens’s preferred focus. 15 But which one? According to this letter, it could either be the Pip/Joe relationship which first appeared in Dickens’s imagination in a ‘singular and comic’ fashion, or it could be Pip and Magwitch, whose relationship opens the published story and closes the reading version, which ends with Magwitch’s death in prison. 16 It is impossible to tell now which male friendship Dickens had in mind, or which he preferred; the first ‘grotesque’ germ of the story as he described it to Forster could just as easily have referred to the superficially grotesque character of Magwitch, or to the grotesque behaviour of Pip towards Joe. Perhaps the most important things to note are that Estella was considered utterly dispensable in the reading version, and that each male plot line is capable of sustaining the story without undue emphasis on the other. Their intertwining thickens the brew, certainly, because in some ways the two men are initially dark mirror images of each other: the one homely, honest, and reassuring, the other menacing, criminal, and terrifying, and their temporary reversal in Pip’s mind (money and status in the dangerous metropolis temporarily trumping rural familial affection) is part of the point. But in the end the mirror dissolves: Pip realizes he loves them both in different ways, and that means one of them is always fairly dispensable by the end since each is equally capable of rendering the moral lesson that goodness is not always apparent to the naked eye (or purchasable), and that a rough exterior is not always synonymous with wickedness (or poverty).

Without Estella, though, Pip’s motivations are very different: they spring not from romantic love liberally seasoned with social shame, but from pure greed; and they thus bring into the spotlight Dickens’s harsh judgement on social aspiration. In the Estella-less reading version it is Pip’s naive and covetous early misreading of Miss Havisham as an example of gentility which makes him want to be a gentleman, and it is his early misreading of Joe’s example of true gentlemanliness which leads him to dismiss it contemptuously as brute ignorance. Magwitch’s job is simultaneously to provide his fortune (and in so doing to remind him how dirty money can be) and to pick up and develop the ‘rough diamond’ theme: in Dickens’s reading version, Joe disappears after Pip moves to London at the end of Stage 1 and thereafter the plot focuses exclusively on the relationship between Pip and Magwitch.

What happens to what Julian Moynahan has called ‘one of the guiltiest consciences in literature’ if we remove completely (or prematurely) the constant reminders of Pip’s guilt and shame, Joe and Estella? 17 Moynahan himself acknowledges that they are central to this sense of what he calls Pip’s inexplicable sense of ‘criminality’, and there are certainly key moments in the novel in which Pip explicitly juxtaposes his association with criminals with his feelings for one or the other or both of them (not to mention with other frequently excised minor characters such as Biddy and Wemmick). When Joe visits him in London and Pip is so ashamed of his lack of refinement ( GE II:8, 217–22), the subsequent narrative is shot through with retrospective guilt: ‘I lived in a state of chronic uneasiness respecting my behaviour to Joe’, he tells us; and, further, that ‘[m]y conscience was not by any means comfortable about Biddy’ ( GE II:15, 271). We can neither despise nor sympathize with Pip to the same extent without the presence of these characters, and must focus on his actions—his debts, his initial revulsion when he meets Magwitch again, and the snobbish or foolish society he chooses to keep—rather than the interior workings of his conscience.

Where Estella is concerned, too, in losing her we do not simply lose the love interest, but one of Pip’s main instruments of self-torture (and one through which or because of which he often also tortures or neglects others). She is crucial to his guilt. While waiting for Estella’s coach to arrive after he has been with Wemmick on an idle visit to Newgate prison, for example, he muses:

I thought of the beautiful young Estella, proud and refined, coming towards me, and I thought with absolute abhorrence of the contrast between the jail and her … So contaminated did I feel, remembering who was coming, that the coach came quickly after all, and I was not yet free from the soiling consciousness of Mr. Wemmick’s conservatory, when I saw her face at the coach window and her hand waving at me. What was the nameless shadow which again in that one instant had passed? ( GE II:13, 263)

Neither the brooding sense of his own guilt, nor the final self-awareness that he has been selfish and shallow are quite the same without Joe and Estella. Yet—as Dickens was well aware—even without them there are still drama and pathos and lessons learned aplenty in the remaining capsules. Selfish greed is compounded by—but not dependent on—deliberate cruelty to others.

Plenty of remediators have found this inbuilt capsularity useful. Several stage versions have also—probably quite independently of knowledge of Dickens’s reading version—made Pip and Magwitch their central focus and ended with Magwitch’s death, among them the first British version by W. S. Gilbert in 1871, and an unperformed version, ‘My Unknown Friend’, by Shafto Scott in the USA in 1872, though these two did at least put Estella back. 18 A later version, ‘Pip’s Patron’, cut out Miss Havisham as a stage presence instead, and thus—radically diluting the Darwinist subtext—removed from the plot any real sense of the influence on either Pip or Estella of the poisonous environment she creates. Later still, in 1939, Alec Guinness staged a ground-breaking theatrical version in London which also foregrounded the male relationships: this novel seems to have given Guinness an opportunity to write out troublesome women and to posit male relationships as the most natural ones. Miss Havisham is an offstage presence in this adaptation, as in Dickens’s own reading version, and while Estella does have a role she disappears to get married after she gets tired of being told what to do, leaving Magwitch to die, Joe and Pip to resolve their differences, and the plot to come to rest full circle with Pip happily resuming his old life as a blacksmith in a comfortable world inhabited exclusively by men. The idea of relentless Darwinian time bending human creatures to its will is entirely lacking in this version, though it did utilize Pip’s guilt-ridden introspective narration and was so influential that it was restaged many times in the next two decades and prompted David Lean to create perhaps the most successful film version (albeit with a restored romantic ending) in 1946.

The fact that adaptors—Dickens included—can so easily fade the main female characters in and out in this way is extraordinary. It is difficult to imagine David Copperfield (1849–50) without Dora or Aunt Betsey; or even A Tale of Two Cities (1859) without Lucie. In Great Expectations , Dickens seems to be predominantly concerned with ‘man’s business’: the public worlds of money, social status, character, human (for which read male) destiny as well as with guilt. Like most mid-Victorian men—among them the best-selling author Samuel Smiles, whose books titled Self-Help (1859) and Character (1871) straddled Great Expectations in their publication and associated such desirable traits almost exclusively with men—he probably saw women as equal parts diversion and encumbrance, and was unable to conceive of female power as detachable from sexual desirability. This—arguably—is one of the reasons why Miss Havisham, a rich, powerful, and influential woman too old to be a sex object (and, indeed, bearing the deep scars of a previous male rejection), is so monstrous. Without philanthropy, motherhood, or sex there is nothing left in Dickens’s plots for women to do. And perhaps now, at this point in his life more than many others, he was feeling deeply ambivalent about their necessity. He had separated from his wife in 1858 and in 1860 was, possibly, frustrated and annoyed by the reluctance of an 18-year-old actress with whom he was smitten to become his mistress. 19 He was, in addition, reflecting soberly on whether his enormous fame and financial success had made him happy. All these things may have found their way into the very loose ‘links’ he embedded between the various capsules of the novel, and which enabled them to be so easily detached, jettisoned, and rendered obsolete.

Other characters—usually the minor ones—have suffered similar fates in remediation, and their absence challenges some of our longest-established critical insights. Karl P. Wentersdorf, for example, has offered a reading of the motif of the ‘mirror-images’ in the novel through which, he explains, since Pip is the ‘outstanding example’ of a Faustian hero in Dickens, the dark sides of his personality and experience are configured. Such a construction, the dominant means through which Dickens ‘gives structure and meaning to his novel’, relies on character pairings and contrasts: ‘Joe with Orlick, Estella with Biddy, Magwitch with Miss Havisham, Herbert with Drummle, Estella with Clara, Magwitch with Compeyson, Compeyson with Miss Havisham, Miss Havisham with Matthew Pocket, and Jaggers with Wemmick’. 20 So what happens to the Faustian motif—and the related psychological complexity—if most of these pairings are excised or their roles reduced, as they are in many versions (including Dickens’s own rewritings) for reading aloud, or for the stage, and later for the screen and the radio? The answer, remarkably, is not much. These characters underline the major themes like visual flourishes of colour and light and shade; they add comic episodes (Wopsle and Trabb’s boy) and reinforcement of the main characters’ hopes and problems (Wemmick, the Pockets, Clara, Drummle, Compeyson) but they do not in themselves constitute its essential fabric. Even Orlick, who—despite his apparent necessity for Wentersdorf and others as Pip’s ‘dark double’—is one of the most excised characters from twentieth- and twenty-first-century adaptations, is rarely missed. This is largely because in visual and aural remediations, unlike in the two-dimensional material book (even the illustrated book) and during the moment of silent private reading, adaptors have recourse to mood lighting, gesture, facial expression, music, costume, and set design through which to render the complexity of the main characters and mark the twists and turns of their emotional and psychological journeys. Well-placed shadows can provide sufficient menace in place of Orlick (as they do in David Lean’s 1946 film and Mike Newell’s 2012 film). A comical musical flourish, a few cartoonish costumes, and a bit of character acting can potentially replace pages of Pumblechook and Wopsle (as they do in numerous TV and radio adaptations). Set and costume designs can suggest the psychological damage and malevolent influence of Miss Havisham, and bind the characters’ fates together without the need for all her plot machinations and dialogue (as in Jo Clifford’s 2013 London West End adaptation, in which Miss Havisham had little to say but was never offstage, and all the characters’ costumes carried a cobweb motif. In several film versions, too, her costume ‘functions semiotically to convey to audiences Miss Havisham’s situation: that is, the life of an ageing woman who is trapped in, and fixated on, the past’). 21

Another method when one is short of air time is simply to take one strand of the plot and make it central. The earliest film version—made during a period when technology was too rudimentary for a story to last more than two or three reels—focused solely on Pip’s encounter with Magwitch (‘The Boy and the Convict’, 1909). Moving forward in time, the love story was so essential to Hollywood film versions struggling to appeal to female audiences that Estella and Pip constitute the plot’s main relationship, with Miss Havisham reduced to performing the role of disapproving, class-obsessed guardian. In these versions (1917 and 1936) Magwitch’s escape attempt, recapture, and deathbed scene simply provide the means through which Pip can prove to everyone that he is a good and honourable man despite his class, and enable the happy heterosexual union between Pip and Estella to end the story.

All these capsules and their potential for being de- and re-coupled to create new forms pre-exist in Dickens’s version, which was always intended to be far more than ‘a book’. While he might not have known the specifics of the entertainment technologies of the future, Dickens, as we have seen, was so well aware of the need for his novels to be adaptable and so visually intuitive himself that, as Grahame Smith suggests, he could even be said to have ‘dreamed’ cinema some 25 years before its invention. 22 Arguably, Great Expectations is one of his most perfect realizations of this talent.

But large-scale remediations such as these are by no means the only—or even the main—ways in which the novel’s capsularity enables it to serve new purposes and offer up new readings. As Malik suggests, the capsules can work at the level of the sentence as well as the phrase, the character, or the storyline.

One good—though surprisingly under-explored—example of this practice occurs in the short extracts which appeared in many regional newspapers both during and after the serialization’s first run. These are seldom just fillers or adverts for Dickens’s novels, though they do sometimes perform those functions. But in many non-metropolitan papers, extracts from Great Expectations are also often adopted in the service of the proud expression of regional, and specifically non-London, social identities. The use of extracts from Great Expectations in this way in the 1860s serves to highlight the novel’s use of London—which was the beating heart of the nation’s legal and economic systems and for many people constituted the main drain on rural resources—as a moral problem; and these are things with which regional readers could clearly easily identify. In this period, just a few years after the 1851 census showed that the migration of people from the country to the towns had reached a tipping point, and when rural poverty was just as severe as the far more often publicly discussed urban variety, Great Expectations ’ thematic ambivalence about London, along with its remarkable structural capsularity, were absolute gifts to struggling regional communities looking for some humorous anti-metropolitan ammunition.

There are many examples of extracts reprinted in local papers and they draw on many different parts of the novel, but it might be significant that one of the most commonly reprinted is titled ‘Tea at a London Hotel’. It is the episode immediately following the one I have quoted, from chapter 13 . Pip, having experienced ‘the nameless shadow which again in that one instant had passed’ just as Estella arrives in London, is immediately instructed to take her to tea before they travel on together to her new home in Richmond. In the novel, Dickens uses the episode of waiting agonizingly for tea to be served by a reluctant and surly London waiter to underscore through humour Pip’s painful sense of his own social inadequacy, powerlessness, and shame in all his dealings with Estella. The shadow of the prison he has just visited hangs over the encounter, exacerbating his sense of nameless guilt. The passage is meant to be funny and painful in equal measure:

I rang for the tea, and the waiter, reappearing with his magic clue, brought in by degrees some fifty adjuncts to that refreshment, but of tea not a glimpse. A teaboard, cups and saucers, plates, knives and forks (including carvers), spoons (various), salt-cellars, a meek little muffin confined with the utmost precaution under a strong iron cover, Moses in the bullrushes typified by a soft bit of butter in a quantity of parsley, a pale loaf with a powdered head, two proof impressions of the bars of the kitchen fireplace on triangular bits of bread, and ultimately a fat family urn: which the waiter staggered in with, expressing in his countenance burden and suffering. After a prolonged absence at this stage of the entertainment, he at length came back with a casket of precious appearance containing twigs. These I steeped in hot water, and so from the whole of these appliances extracted one cup of I don’t know what, for Estella. The bill paid, and the waiter remembered, and the ostler not forgotten, and the chambermaid taken into consideration—in a word, the whole house bribed into a state of contempt and animosity, and Estella’s purse much lightened—we got into our post-coach and drove away. Turning into Cheapside and rattling up Newgate-street, we were soon under the walls of which I was so ashamed. ‘What place is that?’ Estella asked me. I made a foolish pretence of not at first recognising it, and then told her. As she looked at it, and drew in her head again, murmuring ‘Wretches!’ I would not have confessed to my visit for any consideration. ( GE II:14, 267–8)

There is no reason for Pip’s sense of shame here apart from that niggling feeling that he could have been fairer to Biddy and Joe. He has not yet been made acquainted with the source of his fortune, he has not yet told us that he is living beyond his means, and Estella has not yet started preferring other men. He is hardly a criminal, for whom the very sight of Newgate prison should be fearful and painful. But the shame and the hovering criminality seem integral to the scene, building to the moment—six chapters later—when Magwitch reappears to shatter all his illusions and confirm his worst suspicions about himself as a sham.

What happens to this scene when it is taken out of context and reprinted in a newspaper? A closer look at one example reveals the extraordinary potential of Dickens’s writing to furnish multiple different meanings according to their contexts. The Hampshire Advertiser , serving England’s south coast sea-port and rural farming communities, reprinted this ‘Tea at a London Hotel’ episode on Saturday 10 August 1861. No introduction, illustrations, or preamble warned readers what they were about to encounter; the extract comprises one small column of about three inches in length among many others, mostly factual, some humorous, on the same page. It is attributed to Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations only at the end, and the editor’s decision about how much of it to print profoundly affects the work it is able to do. This extract cuts off Pip’s mention of passing under the walls ‘of which I was so ashamed’ and instead ends with the line: ‘We got into our post-coach and drove away.’ The extract is still amusing, but now entirely at the expense of Londoners: Pip’s squirming shame, Estella’s unwittingly painful dialogue, and the looming prison are all entirely absent. In fact, Pip is here a mere observer, sharing with readers a wry smile at the crooked and incompetent ways of London hoteliers. Yet the extract works; standing alone, detached from its original purpose, and reclaimed by the newspaper in support of their mild contempt for strange metropolitan ways, it is still nonetheless an important thematic capsule, crystallizing for us Dickens’s complex feelings about London in this period.

The unobtrusive but potentially enormously revealing appearances of little pirated snippets of Dickens in many regional newspapers between the 1830s and about 1875 is a phenomenon deserving of much more sustained research, one which recent rapid developments in the digitization of nineteenth-century newspapers should encourage, though to date little advantage has been taken of it and what there is remains speculative. 23 Did some readers encounter Dickens only in this way? How did these extracts help to shape cultural knowledge of the Dickens phenomenon? To what other political purposes were they put? All these and other intriguing questions remain as yet unanswered, and in the meantime, the absorption with whole-text analysis continues. Sambudha Sen is only the most recent of those who feel that Great Expectations works best as a whole: ‘In the final analysis’, Sen suggests, ‘it is [the] … bringing together of the gentleman and the criminal, refinement and corruption, the fairy godmother and the witch, which enables Dickens to destabilize the official belief not only in the idea of self-improvement but also in the existence of an internally consistent society capable of sustaining such an improvement.’ 24 But as we have seen, the real power of this novel might well lie in its remarkable ability to perform social critique and arouse a smile or a tremor no matter how one slices it: the oppositions are present in essence in each of the capsules. In aggregate they might increase its power, but in this story of a small boy’s fairy-tale wish gone horribly wrong in a world from which all magic has faded, Dickens embedded them at the cellular level. Each capsule is a recognizable representative of the whole, yet each is capable of working alone or with a slight mutation in a new environment. This novel has adaptation in its genes; Dickens’s last-minute removal at proof stage of the two-word reference to death in the final line of the manuscript’s famous rewritten ‘happy’ ending, ‘I saw no shadow of a parting from her [but one]’, seems entirely fitting, presaging the remarkable capacity of this novel to survive in environments Dickens would never see. 25

Further Reading

Jonathan H. Grossman , ‘Living the Global Transport Network in Great Expectations ’, Victorian Studies 57, 2 (Winter 2015 ): 225–50

Rachel Malik , ‘ Horizons of the Publishable: Publishing in/as Literary Studies ’, English Literary History 75 ( 2008 ): 707–35

Google Scholar

Laurence W. Mazzeno , The Dickens Industry: Critical Perspectives 1836–2005 (Rochester, NY, and Woodbridge: Camden House, 2011 )

Google Preview

Ankhi Mukherjee , ‘Missed Encounters: Repetition, Rewriting, and Contemporary Returns to Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations ’, Contemporary Literature 46 (Spring 2005 ): 108–33

Robert L. Patten , Charles Dickens and ‘Boz’: The Birth of the Industrial-Age Author (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012 )

Charles Dickens, manuscript of Great Expectations , Townshend Collection, Wisbech and Fenland Museum.

Charles Dickens , Great Expectations , ed. Margaret Cardwell (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), I:1 , 3. Subsequent references are inserted parenthetically in the text by GE volume:chapter, page.

K. J. Fielding , ‘Dickens and Science?’, Dickens Quarterly 13, 4 (December 1996): 200–16 , 201–3.

Gillian Beer , Darwin’s Plots: Evolutionary Narrative in Darwin, George Eliot and Nineteenth-Century Fiction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 3 .

George Levine , ‘Communication in Great Expectations ’, Nineteenth-Century Fiction 18, 2 (September 1963): 175–81 , 176 and 181.

Goldie Morgentaler , ‘Meditating on the Low: A Darwinian Reading of Great Expectations ’, Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900 38, 4, Nineteenth Century (Autumn 1998): 707–21 , 720.

Pam Morris , Dickens’s Class Consciousness: A Marginal View (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1991), 106 .

See also John H. Hagan, Jr , ‘Structural Patterns in Dickens’s Great Expectations ’, ELH 21, 1 (March 1954): 54–66 .

Morris, Dickens’s Class Consciousness , 103.

Karl P. Wentersdorf , ‘Mirror-Images in Great Expectations ’, Nineteenth-Century Fiction 21, 3 (December 1966): 203–24 .

Raymond Williams , The Country and the City (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973), 281 .

The first American illustrations by John McClellan can be found on the Victorian Web: < http://www.victorianweb.org />.

See Mary Hammond , Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations: A Cultural Life, 1860–2012 (Basingstoke and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2015), 151–66 and appendix B.

Rachel Malik , ‘Stories Many, Fast and Slow: Great Expectations and the Mid-Victorian Horizon of the Publishable’, ELH 79 (2012): 477–500 , 479.

Letter to John Forster, mid-September 1860. The Letters of Charles Dickens , ed. Madeline House , Graham Storey , et al., Pilgrim/British Academy Edition, 12 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965–2002), 9:310 .

Jean Callahan , ‘The (Unread) Reading Version of Great Expectations ’, in Charles Dickens , Great Expectations , ed. Edgar Rosenberg (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), 546 .

Julian Moynahan , ‘The Hero’s Guilt: The Case of Great Expectations ’, Essays in Criticism 10, 1 (1960): 60–79 , 60.

W. S. Gilbert, Great Expectations: A Drama in Three Acts with Prologue (1871). British Library, MS. c.132.g.20; Charles Augustus Shafto Scott, My Unknown Friend: A Drama, in Three Acts. Being a Dramatized Version of the Novel ‘Great Expectations’, by the Late Charles Dickens , Dicks’ Standard Plays, Number 412 (London, no date). British Library, X.908.4370.

Michael Slater , Charles Dickens (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009), 492 .

Wentersdorf, ‘Mirror-Images in Great Expectations ’ , 203–4.

Amber K. Regis and Deborah Wynne , ‘Miss Havisham’s Dress: Materialising Dickens in Film Adaptations of Great Expectations ’, Neo-Victorian Studies 5, 2 (2012): 35–58 , 36.

Grahame Smith , Dickens and the Dream of Cinema (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012) .

See Mary Hammond , ‘Tracking Pirates Through the Digital Archive: The Case of Dickens’, in The Yearbook of English Studies , Vol. 45, The History of the Book (2015), 178–95 .

Sambudha Sen, introduction to Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (Dorling Kindersley: Pearson Longman, 2007), xxxviii.

For an excellent discussion of the six different endings, see Edgar Rosenberg, ‘Putting an End to Great Expectations ’, in Charles Dickens, Great Expectations , ed. Edgar Rosenberg, 491–527.

• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Institutional account management
• Rights and permissions
• Get help with access
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

CHARLES DICKENS’ GREAT EXPECTATIONS: A REFLECTION OF THE VICTORIAN ERA’S SOCIAL DYNAMICS

2022, Journal of English Language and Literature (JELLC)

Great Expectations is considered one of the most outstanding works of Charles Dickens. The novel takes place in Victorian era Britain and it is, therefore functions as a medium to mirror the social dynamics of this respected era including class-divided social hierarchy, social mobility, and the concept of morality which manifest themselves more explicitly with the effects of the industrial revolution. Through its main character and protagonist Pip, the reader witnesses the course towards the ‘myth’ of upward mobility. In this regard, the present paper aims to foreground the dynamics of Victorian society that are reflected in the novel.

Related Papers

International Journal of Scientific Research in Engineering and Management (IJSREM)

prabhat chourasia

Great Expectations is an eternal masterpiece of Charles Dickens. He shows how circumstances compel us to mold our expectations in various hues. He is an ace delineator of character and Great Expectations is no exception. It reflects Victorian England in its truest sense. Pip, Joe, Estella, Miss Havisham, Jaggers, Wemmick, Mrs. Joe, and all other characters present the truth and reality of the contemporary time. Pip, the protagonist of this novel is overwhelmed by various expectations. He wants to become rich, notable and one of the most important personalities of England. For this research paper, both the primary and the secondary sources of information are analyzed and used. Let's see how various characters of this novel represent contemporary Victorian Society? The main focus of this article is to bring into consideration the process of maturation and self-discovery, from childhood to adulthood is simply be shown through the character of Pip. Charles Dickens once said, "I love my novels because they are the means to express my experience in contemporary society and the action of its people.

Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi Dergisi - DTCF Dergisi

Melisa Bayraktar

In conclusion, the effects of class differences can be seen throughout the whole novel with characterizations and plot arrangement just as it affected the Victorian era. His language and characters both made him the most popular writer of the Victorian age and his books are still popular all around the world. Owing to his plot and character development in Great Expectations, he portrays the dark side and negative aspects of class difference in addition to his experiences that occurred during his childhood like deprival of education. Furthermore, he depicts the reversing relationships between people on account of class differences. Hence, his novel mirrors the changing status of people due to social classes and shows the power of the Industrial Revolution in Victorian England.

SSRN Electronic Journal

Isam Shihada

Lisa-Marie Teubler

This paper addresses the issue of a rising class-consciousness in the mid-nineteenth century, which threatened to challenge formerly stable power positions. The focus lies specifically on parts of Charles Dickens’s literary production as several early as well as contemporary critics, such as G.K. Chesterton and Andrzej Diniejko, have ascribed his works a rather critical position in the representation of inequalities as related to this newfound class-consciousness. By analysing patterns of social mobility in David Copperfield (1849-50), Little Dorrit (1855-57), and Great Expectations (1860-61), this paper argues that all three narratives stabilize rather than disrupt prevailing social hierarchies. They do so specifically by obscuring class, and thus socio-economic inequalities; by rendering narratives of successful or unsuccessful mobility individual rather than collective destinies; by naturalizing positions and presenting them as unchangeable; and by alleviating unsuccessful mobili...

Stephanie Polsky

CaLLs (Journal of Culture, Arts, Literature, and Linguistics)

fatimah muhajir

This study deals with the portrayal of English gentleman in the 19th century as seen in Charles Dickens&#39; Great Expectations. The purpose of this study is to describe a portrait of the English gentlemen that are represented by the characters such as Pip, Herbert Pocket, Dumble, Mattew Pocket, Mr. Jaggers and Compeyson as illustrated by Dickens. This research uses descriptive qualitative method and sociology of literature theory by Diana Lawrenson and Alan Swingewood in analyzing the relationship between the portrayal of English gentelman and its social conditions in at the time. The results of this study shows that there are several categories of gentelman title that represented by the characters in the story, namely: Drummle is gentleman by birth (aristocrats), Pip is gentleman by wealth, Gentleman by education or the gentleman students include Pip, Herbert Pocket, and Dummle. The gentleman by profession represented by Mr. Matthew and Mr.Jaggers. While moral code ethics of th...

Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi Dergisi

Lydia Christoph

Charles Dickens&#x27; Great Expectations (1861) stands apart from his other works as a powerful expression of his later social and theological views. Rife with rich characterizations, fairy-tale elements, grotesque and bizarre plot twists, Victorian social issues, and a beautifully thoughtful and imaginative commentary on the universal human themes of loss, guilt, abuse, identity, money, social status, and love, this novel remains an outstanding example of truly great art, both popular and classic. This story of identity formation in a nineteenth-century English context demonstrates how Dickens&#x27; life and writings, influenced by spurious and inconsistent theological beliefs, express the idea that sin is largely social rather than personal, and that therefore redemption is a secular rather than a religious concept, illustrated in two different ways in the multiple endings to Great Expectations. In this bildungsroman of epic proportions, Dickens uses the young protagonist Pip to e...

Published in the Conference Proceedings of the 2nd Annual International Conference on Language, Literature and Linguistics (L3 2013), 17-18 June, 2013, Singapore. (Print ISSN: 2251-3566, E-Periodical ISSN: 2251-3574)

Mohammad Moniruzzaman Miah

Charles Dickens (1802-1870), the quintessential Victorian author and Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhay (1896-1950), one of the luminaries of Bengali literature and an eminent early 20th century writer have dealt with the recurrent social concerns of their times, especially in their novels Great Expectations and The Ballad of the Road (Pather Panchali). Both these novels exhibit domestic and social realities through the portrayal of various characters from the impoverished common class, and come alive particularly with the vibrant and thoroughly growing ordinary child characters like Pip, Apu and others. Their outward life and the layered sensitibity and human emotions in them are simultaneously striking and soul-stirring, and bear testimony to eternal human aspiration for a better life and position in the society. The Ballad of the Road gives its readers an insight into the Bengali rural society of the 1930s whereas Great Expectations takes them back to the pastoral and urban life and society of the 19th century England. The paper discusses how these authors have conveyed their ideology of ‘realism’ offering social commentary and reflecting the values and attitudes of people of the then English and Bengali societies respectively. Keywords: reality, struggle, poverty, suffering, aspiration, prospect, disillusion, mystical

RELATED PAPERS

Annisa Tafwida

Thomas Collett

Journal of applied health sciences

Vedrana Iveta

Developmental …

Thomas Drysdale

Revista Científica …

Alberto Azuara

Olenici Nicolai

Archivo médico Camagüey

Juan Carlos Mirabal Requena

European journal of clinical microbiology & infectious diseases : official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology

Stig Harthug

Maria Wurzinger

Francisco Enríquez Bermeo

Neuro-Oncology

ravi kumar , S. Nederend , R. Enting

Quarterly Reviews of Biophysics

Roland Benz

European Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Reproductive Biology

Research, Society and Development

Simone de Araújo Medina Mendonça

Imagens da Educação

João Malheiro Malheiro

Hypertension

Gwendolyn Pincomb

Jurnal ilmu Komunikasi

Edwi Arief Sosiawan

JOURNAL OF INDONESIAN TROPICAL FISHERIES (JOINT-FISH) : Jurnal Akuakultur, Teknologi Dan Manajemen Perikanan Tangkap, Ilmu Kelautan

Asbar Asbar

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe)

wahnich sophie

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Stephen Beverley

Ioachim Romanovich Chabibullin

Ramya Suresh

Acta reumatologica portuguesa

Marco Sarmento

arXiv: Cellular Automata and Lattice Gases

Sugata Mitra

Anca Ralescu

See More Documents Like This

RELATED TOPICS

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

Great Expectations

Introduction of great expectations.

Great Expectation by Charles Dickens , is about a young, orphaned kid, Pip. It was his 13 th novel published in a weekly periodical in episodes weekly from 1860 to 1861. The story is written in the first-person point of view , through the voice of Pip, the primary character , and his coming of the age situation in England. The story starts from his childhood to adulthood including his relationship and a highly challenging life adventure . The book was published in three volumes in 1861.

Summary of Great Expectations

The story starts on the Christmas Eve of 1812. Philip Pirrip, known as Pip in his family and friends, is a seven-year-old boy and the protagonist of the story. Pip accidentally meets an escaped criminal, Abel Magwitch, in the churchyard of the village. Pip is at the graves of his parents. Magwitch scares Pip and convinces him into bringing some food from his sister and brother-in-law’s house. Although Joe Gargery, Pip’s brother-in-law, is quite loving and caring, Pip is fearful of his bad-tempered sister. When he returns in the morning, he brings some tools, bread , and brandy with him despite fears of being caught. When dinner time arrives in the evening, Joe is visited by soldiers asking help for mending shackles. Later, Pip realizes that it is for arresting Magwitch. However, to his surprise, he does not involve Pip in the food-stealing case.

Living with the sister and Joe soon comes to an end when Pip is sent to Miss Havisham, a reclusive spinster. She asks Mr. Pumblechook for a boy to be at her home and as an acquaintance. Hence, Pumblechook convinces Joe Gargery to let Pip go. Later, they plan and send Pip, who begins to visit Miss Havisham. There he must comply with her instructions. Pip also meets Estella, a beautiful girl about his age. At first, he instantly falls in love with her. Pip learns that Estelle is Miss Havisham’s adopted daughter. Miss Havisham discourages Estelle to be kind to Pip or have a friendship. Despite the bad experience, Pip continues visiting Miss Havisham for odd tasks at home and learns enough to get ready for the future.

Finally, she relieves him by giving him some money after which Joe thinks that he can learn the trade to be a blacksmith. One day, Dolge Orlick who doesn’t like his sister attacks her when, Joe and Pip, are not present at home, paralyzing her. After this attack, Joe does his best to look after his wife and Pip. Also, previously aggressive Mrs. Joe becomes kindhearted. Biddy, Pip’s friend and a teacher, helps them to take care of his sister. Having four years in apprenticeship, Pip learns the trade quite well when he finds Mr. Jaggers, a lawyer, informing him about the inherited amount he received from some unknown benefactor on the condition that he must be an educated gentleman. Pip, immediately meets Miss Havisham first, considering her benefactor, and then leaves for London to become an educated young man. Thus starting his adventure alone .

Pip is tutored by Matthew Pocket, Miss Havisham’s cousin. He lives at Barnard’s Inn with Matthew’s son, Herbert Pocket. They recall meeting when Pip was visiting Miss Havisham. They laugh about Estella who then, rejected him as her playmate. Knowing the past details of Miss Havisham, Herbert discloses the strange life of Miss Havisham. A few years before she turned to isolation, she was the victim of a fraud committed by her fiancé. When she was waiting for him on her wedding day, he never turned up. Soon Pip becomes friends with other pupils, Startop, a very social fellow, and Bentley Drummle, a snob from a noble family. Having new to London and getting money from an unknown source, Pip becomes reckless in handling his finances. After too much indulgence and parties, Pip finds himself in financial difficulty. However, every time he needs money, he approaches Mr. Jaggers, the lawyer, who provides him necessary financial assistance but with a warning.

A couple of years later, Pip is immersed in his routine when one day Joe, his brother-in-law, comes to meet him. Having influenced by city life, Pip is disgusted by Joe’s habits and makes him feel bad. Joe brings a message for him that Estella is waiting for him at Satis House, the residence of Miss Havisham. Although he goes to Miss Havisham who does not discourage him yet he feels uneasy when he sees Orlick there, serving Miss Havisham. When he meets Jaggers, the lawyer, he tells him about Orlick’s involvement in his sister’s paralytic condition. The lawyer, then, promises him that he would do something to get him removed from Satis House. After this, he comes back to London and meets Herbert, his roommate, and tells him about his romance . This story continues when he goes to Richmond to meet Estella.

Living together, Pip and Herbert soon face the dilemma of rising debts. To add fuel to the fire, Mrs. Joe breathes her last. Pip returns home for the funeral. When he comes back, he has come of age finding that his fixed income is enough to support Herbert with a shipbroker. Meanwhile, he meets Estella where he finds Miss Havisham taunting Estella for her coldness. On the other hand, when he meets Estella in London, he becomes furious at Bentley Drummle for offering her a toast, though, she meets him on her own desire despite Pip’s warning to her.

When Pip turns 23 and comes to know about the convict, Magwitch, as his real benefactor. He also comes to know about his release and exile including the fear of death, though, he returns to meet him. After learning this, Pip is ashamed to know that he has been misusing Magwitch’s money. However, he does not want to turn him over to the police for which he takes help from Herbert and other friends to help him escape. During the rescue mission, Pip hears the rest of the story and exposes the real criminal, Compeyson, who had deceived Miss Havisham, too.

When Pip goes to meet Estella at Satis House, he finds Orlick serving Bentley. When he confronts Miss Havisham about the money he has been receiving, she admits on the pretext that it was to tease her relatives but when he confronts Estella, she openly declares that she is going to marry Drummle. On the other hand, he comes to know that Compeyson is on the lookout for him while they are trying to arrange Magwitch’s escape from the police. When Pip learns about Molly’s rescue by Jaggers, he feels that he could also do such kind acts.

As the story goes further, Pip also comes to know that Miss Havhsim and how she has brought up Estella in a way that she became heartless. As Jaggers has given Estella to her, she is unaware of her parental lineage. However, she continues with the money for Pip to seek for him a position at Clarriker’s. Pip goes to meet her and confronts her past. When he is about to leave, he hears her shrieks, seeing that she has caught fire. He tries his best to save her and injures himself during this struggle yet she breathes her last in this accident. It is at this point he comes to know about Estella’s parents and she is Magwitch’s daughter. He tries to get more of the story from Jaggers who knows all the details. However, he refuses to give full details to Pip.

When Magwitch is almost about to escape, Orlick tricks Pip into visiting a sluice house to kill him. However, it turns out that Herbert and Startop have been tipped about regarding the plan. They immediately arrive to save him. Then, they take Magwitch to Hamburg in a boat but a police boat impedes their departure. However, they come to know that Compeyson is also in that boat to identify Magwitch. When both come face to face, there ensues a scuffle of the convicts with the police in which Magwitch is fatally hurt and Compeyson is drowned.

After this incident, Magwitch is imprisoned and heartbroken, Pip finds it hard to work on his business plans with Herbert, hence continues to work with Clarriker. Meanwhile, he tries to save Magwitch from recovering from his injuries in a prison hospital but fails to do so. However, he informs him about his daughter Estella before dying. Soon Pip himself faces arrest after the debts are not paid at which Joe comes to his rescue. When Pip comes to Biddy to woo her, he sees that Joe has already married her and they have two children. He, then, leaves for Cairo at Herbert’s invitation and joins Clara and Herbert to work with them. Almost after a decade of work in Egypt, Pip comes back, visits his relatives and Estella who has been widowed and both of them meet to discuss their future.

Major Themes in Great Expectations

• Social Class: The novel, Great Expectations , shows the theme of social class and class differences through the characters of Pip, Joe, Miss Havisham, and Magwitch. Whereas Magwitch belongs to the lesser strata, living in extreme poverty and falling to the pit of the criminal world, Pip is representing the working class that they have had to work for the elite class of Miss Havisham to improve their prospects and also has to face refusal from people born and bred up in the elite class like Estella.
• Ambition: The theme of ambition in the novel is shown through the plans and desires of Pip and Herbert. Both yearn and try to get some position where they could earn honorably. Whereas Pip gets assistance from Magwitch’s money, Herbert works very hard to make a niche in society. However, both of them help each other and work at Carriker’s and when Herbert finds a good position in Cairo for himself, he helps by inviting Pip to join him.
• Guilt and Redemption : The thematic strand of guilt is shown through the characters of Miss Havisham, Pip, and Estella at the end of the story. Miss Havisham expresses guilt in the way she had raised Estella and admits that she has brought her up as a heartless girl while Pip’s guilt is that though he was becoming a gentleman, he feels that he has learned everything from the money given to him by a criminal. However, he later treats Joe and Biddy well despite his initial shyness not to contact them. Similarly, Miss Havisham informs him when she is about to die that she has brought up Estella in that way, the reason that she has rejected Pip’s advances.
• Uncertainty: The theme of uncertainty is present throughout the novel in that Pip is uncertain about his future as well as his parents. Even when he steals food for Compeyson, he is uncertain of him. This uncertainty stays during his contact with Estella as well as Miss Havisham’s generous assistance which later proves that he was right about it.
• Deceit: The theme of deceit in the novel comes into play when some characters feel uncertainty about each other. Pip, for example, feels that Molly’s identity is not certain, hence, the deception. In the case of Estella, Mr. Jaggers entrusts her over to Miss Havisham to bring her up. Though with good intentions, the lawyer successfully deceives Pip and hides Estella and her parent’s past. Pip later comes to know that Estella is the daughter of Molly and Magwitch.
• Desires: The novel shows the desires of different characters in different ways. Pip desires to be a gentleman and improve his social and educational prospects, while Magwitch desires him to be a gentleman worthy of living in Victorian England. Although some characters fulfill their desires such as Herbert who wins Clara. At first, Pip fails and does not fulfill his desire of marrying Estella. However, later it proves that he has been right as Drummle leaves her.
• Illusions: The thematic strand of illusion has been shown through Pip who has created this illusion for him that he is a gentleman and deserves a better lifestyle. However, he comes to know the reality when he faces the question of Estella as she rejects him outright in the favor of Drummle. In fact, Pip has created this illusion for him that he would be leading a good life of the upper class but does not face the truth that he is not from that class and have to stay humble in spite of his riches.
• Innocence: The theme of innocence appears in the characters of Joe, Pip, Estella, and Biddy. Joe is innocent in that he suffers due to the arrogance of Mrs. Joe and yet helps Pip, while Pip is innocent in understanding Estella who harbors high dreams about life. The same goes for Estella that she thinks Drummle from the high class yet finds him unworthy of such a good opinion while Biddy is innocent not only in her dealings but also in her words.
• Hints of Colonialism : The mentioning of jobs in Egypt and sending of the convicts or criminals to America show the colonialism of the Victorian period in that the people think that they could find good markets for their products and skills such as Herbert and Pip go to Egypt. They also know that the government exiles criminal minds to foreign lands to keep society healthy and free of crimes.

Major Characters in Great Expectations

• Philip Pirrip: Philip Pirrip is known as Pip throughout the story. He is the protagonist and the main narrator of the story. The story begins from an orphaned child’s perspective , who is very kind and loving, though he faces the wrath of his sister, Mrs. Gargery. He is so gentle and kind that he even steals food for the criminal. When having lost everything, Joe, his brother-in-law, keeps him close to his heart and almost like a father. He is later sent to Miss Havisham due to their financial constraints. After getting an anonymous reward, he, however, turns snobbish toward his family members when he lives in London to be a gentleman. Eventually, Pip learns from his mistakes and comes to his senses. Despite his love for Estella and being a gentleman, he loses her to Bentley, a purely brute, though, after learning a lesson of being left by him high and dry, Estella returns to him by the end.
• Estella: Estella lived mostly with Miss Havisham, who taught her to be discouraging toward the advancing young men. She grows up to be a rude, proud, and heartless young woman, enjoy the life of a glittery world. He is a kind-hearted and loving girl. Although she commits the mistake of marrying Bentley, she learns the lesson of ignoring a sincere friend, Pip. Later it proves that she has nothing to do with Miss Havisham and that she was the daughter of Magwitch, who rewarded Pip for his good upbringing.
• Mr. Joe Gargery: The role of Mr. Joe in the novel is important. He takes Pip into his care, as a father figure, despite his wife/Pip’s sister being short-tempered. His fatherly figure plays an important role to make him learn to confront difficult situations. When Pip becomes snobbish during his stay in London, he makes him realize his mistake by taking care of him during his illness. When Mrs. Joe is injured by Orlick and dies, he marries Biddy, Pip’s teacher.
• Mrs. Joe Gargery: She is the elder sister of Pip married to Joe Gargery. Sadly, after their parent’s death she very angry and short-tempered most of the time. She actually vents her frustration over the domestic chores. Her obsession with good status costs her when Orlick attacks her, paralyzing her to die on her bed.
• Magwitch: Magwitch is also a significant character in the novel. Though he is a convict, he wins the hearts of the readers by helping Pip to become a gentleman. Later, Pip comes to know about his benefactor as Magwitch and not Miss Havisham and Estella as his daughter and not of Miss Havisham. Also, Magwitch became a criminal due to the circumstance arisen with the main antagonist , Compeyson.
• Miss Havisham: The character of Miss Havisham appears when Pip needs financial assistance the most and calls him to be Estelle’s playmate. The revengeful Miss Havisham lives her life at Satis House, a gothic mansion after Compeyson deceives her. She, thus, teaches Estella to be deceptive and heartless toward men as she keeps Pip away from her.
• Biddy: Biddy appears when Pip needs her the most when he is ill and his sister, Mrs. Joe, is left paralyzed in the attack by Orlick. Biddy helps Pip to study before he leaves for London. She is a passionate, kind, and loving girl and becomes his teacher. When Pip returns from London to propose to her, she is already married to Joe with whom she has a son and names him Pip.
• Pumblechook: Pip’s uncle, Pumblechook is a condescending and boastful person. He becomes a self-styled role model for Pip, thinking he is playing his role in his upbringing. However, he proves very greedy and stands as a symbol of such human behavior. He is, however, a mediator between Pip’s family and Havisham’s before Pip moves to London.
• Herbert Pocket : Herbert Pip’s best friend. He first meets Pip’s opponents when they were at Miss Havisham’s. Herbert, sadly, gets a sound beating from him at Satis House. Herbert meets Pip during his stay in London. They live and study together. Later, Herbert moves to Cairo with Pip’s help. He proves an asset for him by showing his positive attitude at every step of his life. He marries Clara. Herbert also continues to work with Pip.
• Compeyson: The great convict, Compeyson is a heartless fraudster, who has played with the life of Miss Havisham, and proves a sworn enemy of Magwitch. Despite his early release, he wants to destroy Magwitch’s future. He drowns in the river during the police chase.

Writing Style of Great Expectations

Written in the first-person point of view, Great Expectations shows humor , tragedy , daily life, and simple style . The sentences, though, very long are easy to understand due to the simplicity of the language. The narrative of Pip, the major character, turns to dark humor instead of emotional language. Diction , too, is quite simple, showing a mixture of formal when the narrator is in London and informal when he is with his relatives, especially, with Joe Gargery and Herbert, or at Miss Havisham.

Analysis of Literary Devices in Great Expectations

• Action: The main action of the novel comprises Pip’s life as a child from a small town, growing up, learning to be a young gentleman living in London. The rising action occurs when Pip falls in love with Estella and then expresses it despite her coldness toward him. The falling action occurs when Magwitch is arrested and is in hospital on his death bed.
• Anaphora : Great Expectations shows the use of anaphora such as: i. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head. (V-I, Chapter-1) The sentence shows the repetitious use of “with.”
• Antagonist : Great Expectations shows the character of Miss Havisham, Compeyson, and Drummle as main antagonists on account of their bad behavior toward Pip, obstructing his love, growth as well as meeting with his benefactor.
• Allusion : There are various examples of allusions given in the novel. i. ‘Swine were the companions of the prodigal. The gluttony of Swine is put before us, as an example to the young.’ (I thought this pretty well in him who had been praising up the pork for being so plump and juicy.) (Chapter-4) ii. He never even seemed to come to his work on purpose, but would slouch in as if by mere accident; and when he went to the Jolly Bargemen to eat his dinner, or went away at night , he would slouch out, like Cain or the Wandering Jew, as if he had no idea where he was going and no intention of ever coming back. (Chapter-15) iii. ‘How did you bear your disappointment?’ I asked. ‘Pooh!’ said he, ‘I didn’t care much for it. She’s a Tartar.’ ‘Miss Havisham?’ I suggested. (V-II, Chapter-3) iv. ‘I think I shall trade, also,’ said he, putting his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, ‘to the West Indies, for sugar, tobacco, and rum. Also to Ceylon, specially for elephants’ tusks.’ (V-II, Chapter-3) The first two allusions are related to theological characters, while the other two are related to Tartars and countries; historical invasions, and colonialism.
• Conflict : The are two types of conflicts in the novel . The first one is the external conflict going on between Pip and Estella, Miss Havisham, and Compeyson including Drummle. Another conflict is in the mind of Pip about his position as a boy, his gentlemanly learning, and his behavior with his relatives.
• Characters: Great Expectations presents both static as well as dynamic characters. The young boy, Pip, is a dynamic character as he faces a huge transformation during his growth. However, the rest of the characters do not see any change in their behavior, as they are static characters like Estella, Biddy, Joe Gargery, and Miss Havisham.
• Climax : The climax takes when Miss Havisham’s house catches fire and Orlick tries to kill Pip.
• Foreshadowing : The novel shows the following examples of foreshadowing : i. She was dressed in rich materials—satins, and lace, and silks—all of white. Her shoes were white. And she had a long white veil dependent from her hair, and she had bridal flowers in her hair, but her hair was white. (V-I, Chapter-8) ii. I turned my eyes—a little dimmed by looking up at the frosty light—towards a great wooden beam in a low nook of the building near me on my right hand, and I saw a figure hanging there by the neck. (V-I, Chapter-8) iii. I derived from this speech that Mr Herbert Pocker (for Herbert was the pale young gentleman’s name) still rather confounded his intention with his execution. But I made a modest reply, and we shook hands warmly. (V-II, Chapter-3) These quotes from the book foreshadow the coming events.
• Hyperbole : Hyperbole or exaggeration occurs in the novel at various places. For example, i. He was a broad-shouldered loose-limbed swarthy fellow of great strength, never in a hurry, and always slouching. He never even seemed to come to his work on purpose, but would slouch in as if by mere accident; and when he went to the Jolly Bargemen to eat his dinner, or went away at night, he would slouch out, like Cain or the Wandering Jew. (V-I, Chapter-15) This sentence is hyperbole and it also shows how Orlick’s slouching is problematic.
• Imagery : Imagery is used to make readers perceive things involving their five senses. For example, i. It was a rimy morning, and very damp. I had seen the damp lying on the outside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all night, and using the window as a pocket handkerchief. Now , I saw the damp lying on the bare hedges and spare grass , like a coarser sort of spider’s webs; hanging itself from twig to twig and blade to blade. (V-I, Chapter-3) ii. The sun had been shining brightly all day on the roof of my attic, and the room was warm. (V-I, Chapter-18) iii. The best light of the day was gone when I passed along the quiet echoing courts behind the High-street. The nooks of ruin where the old monks had once had their refectories and gardens, and where the strong walls were now pressed into the service of humble sheds and stables, were almost as silent as the old monks in their graves. The cathedral chimes had at once a sadder and a more remote sound to me. (V-III, Chapter-10).
• Metaphor : Great Expectations shows good use of various metaphors such as, i. I coaxed myself to sleep by thinking of Miss Havisham’s, next Wednesday; and in my sleep I saw the file coming at me out of a door, without seeing who held it, and I screamed myself awake. (V-I, Chapter-11) ii. There was a door in the kitchen, communicating with the forge; I unlocked and unbolted that door, and got a file from among Joe’s tools. (V-I, Chapter-1) iii. She really was a most charming girl, and might have passed for a captive fairy, whom that truculent Ogre, Old Barley, had pressed into his service. (V-III, Chapter-7)
• Mood : The novel shows various moods in the beginning but it turns out darkly humorous when the chilling tale of Magwitch and Compeyson emerges along with the tragic and instructive story of Pip.
• Motif : Most important motifs of the novel are double examples of the convicts, double loves of Pip, Estella, and Biddy, and two invalid ladies Miss Havisham and Mrs. Joe Gargery.
• Narrator : The novel is narrated in the first-person point of view; here the narrator is Pip, the orphaned young boy taken by Joe Gargery.
• Protagonist : Pip is the protagonist of the novel. The novel starts with his entry into the world and moves forward as he grows young and becomes a gentleman.
• Rhetorical Questions : The novel shows good use of rhetorical questions at several places such as, i. ‘Sarah Pocket,’ returned Cousin Raymond, ‘if a man is not his own neighbour, who is?’. (V-I, Chapter-11) ii. When the day came round for my return to the scene of the deed of violence, my terrors reached their height. Whether myrmidons of Justice , specially sent down from London, would be lying in ambush behind the gate? Whether Miss Havisham, preferring to take personal vengeance for an outrage done to her house, might rise in those grave-clothes of hers, draw a pistol, and shoot me dead? Whether suborned boys – a numerous band of mercenaries – might be engaged to fall upon me in the brewery, and cuff me until I was no more? (V-I, Chapter-12) iii. What could I become with these surroundings? How could my character fail to be influenced by them? Is it to be wondered at if my thoughts were dazed, as my eyes were, when I came out into the natural light from the misty yellow rooms?  (V-I, Chapter-13) These examples show the use of rhetorical questions posed but different characters not to elicit answers but to stress upon the underlined idea.
• Setting : The setting of the novel spread over the village of Pip, London, Satis House, the North Kenth marshland, and Cairo.
• Simile : The novel shows the perfect use of various similes. For example, i. I knew he made himself so dreadfully uncomfortable, entirely on my account, and that it was for me he pulled up his shirt-collar so very high behind, that it made the hair on the crown of his head stand up like a tuft of feathers. (V-I, Chapter-13) ii. We walked to town, my sister leading the way in a very large beaver bonnet, and carrying a basket like the Great Seal of England in plaited straw. (V-I, Chapter-13) iii. Flopson, by dint of doubling the baby at the joints like a Dutch doll, then got it safely into Mrs Pocket’s lap, and gave it the nutcrackers to play with. (V-II, Chapter-4) These are similes as the use of the word “like” shows the comparison between different things.

Related posts:

• Great Expectations Characters
• Great Expectations Quotes
• Behind Every Great Man There Is A Great Woman
• To Be Great is to Be Misunderstood
• The Great Gatsby
• The Great Unwashed
• The Great Storm
• The Great Gatsby Quotes
• The Great Gatsby Symbolism
• 10 Great Metaphors in R&B Songs
• 10 Great Metaphors from Popular Music
• Top 6 Great Metaphors in Presidential Speeches
• After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes
• Great Metaphor Examples for Kids
• Great Allegorical Poem Examples
• 10 Great Metaphors from Popular 2000’s Songs
• 10 Great Metaphors from Popular Disney Songs
• 10 Great Metaphors from Popular 1960s’ Songs
• 10 Great Metaphors from Popular 1970’s Songs
• 10 Great Metaphors from Popular 1980’s Songs
• 10 Great Metaphors from Popular 1990’s Songs
• A Tale of Two Cities Characters
• A Tale of Two Cities Quotes
• A Tale of Two Cities Themes
• Charles Dickens
• Literary Writing Style of Charles Dickens

Post navigation

Great Expectations

Charles dickens, everything you need for every book you read..

Social Class

Great Expectations is set near the end of Industrial Revolution, a period of dramatic technological improvement in manufacturing and commerce that, among other things, created new opportunities for people who were born into "lower" or poorer classes to gain wealth and move into a "higher" and wealthier class. This new social mobility marked a distinct break from the hereditary aristocracy of the past, which enforced class consistency based solely on family lines. Great Expectations is…

Ambition and Self-Improvement

A "pip" is a small seed, something that starts off tiny and then grows and develops into something new. Pip 's name, then, is no accident, as Great Expectations is a bildungsroman , a story of the growth and development of its main character. Dickens presents the ambition to improve oneself that drives Pip along with many of the novel's secondary characters as a force capable of generating both positive and negative results. Pip's early…

Integrity and Reputation

In Great Expectations , Dickens explores pride as both a positive and a negative trait by presenting various types of pride ranging from Estella and Bentley Drummle 's snobbery to Joe and Biddy 's moral uprightness. The crucial distinction between these different varieties of pride is whether they rely on other people's opinions or whether they spring from a character's internal conscience and personal sense of accomplishment. Characters who espouse the former variety are concerned…

As the novel distrusts British culture's traditional blind faith in family lines, it also looks skeptically at the traditional family unit. Great Expectations includes very few models of healthy parent-child relations. Many of the novel's characters—including Pip , Provis , and Biddy —are orphans, and those that aren't orphans come from broken or dysfunctional families like Herbert 's, Miss Havisham 's, Estella 's, Clara 's, and Joe 's. Though Wemmick 's relationship with the Aged …

From Pip 's encounters with escaped convicts at the beginning of Great Expectations , to the grotesque courts and prisons in parts II and III, the novel casts the British legal system in a dubious light. Though Mr. Jaggers functions as an upstanding force in Pip's life by checking Pip's extravagance, it is questionable whether his law practice truly serves the law. After all, Mr. Jaggers built his reputation on successfully acquitting a murderer. Likewise…

Dickens explores many different understandings of generosity in Great Expectations . Though Pip 's initial generosity towards Provis is mostly motivated by fear, Provis understands it as true generosity and responds by selflessly devoting his life's savings towards Pip's future. Meanwhile, Mrs. Joe and Uncle Pumblechook understand generosity as a status marker and are much more interested in being considered generous than in actually acting generously. They thus constantly take credit for Joe 's generosity…

Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Books — Great Expectations

Essays on Great Expectations

Brief description of great expectations.

Great Expectations is a classic novel by Charles Dickens, following the story of an orphan named Pip as he navigates through social class, love, and personal growth. It is a timeless tale that explores themes of ambition, identity, and the impact of social status on individuals.

Importance ... Read More Brief Description of Great Expectations

Importance of writing essays on this topic.

Essays on Great Expectations are important for academic and personal exploration as they provide an opportunity to delve into the complexities of the characters, themes, and social commentary within the novel. Through writing about Great Expectations, students can develop critical thinking skills and gain a deeper understanding of the literary techniques employed by Charles Dickens.

Tips on Choosing a Good Topic

• Focus on a specific theme or character to narrow down your topic
• Consider the historical and social context of the novel for inspiration
• Look for unique angles or interpretations that have not been extensively explored

Essay Topics

• The transformation of Pip's character throughout the novel
• The significance of the marshes in Great Expectations
• How social class influences the characters' actions and choices
• The role of guilt and redemption in Great Expectations
• The portrayal of women in the novel and its impact on the plot
• The societal critique presented in the character of Miss Havisham
• The symbolism of the convict in the opening scene
• The use of foreshadowing in the narrative
• The significance of the title "Great Expectations" in relation to the characters' aspirations

Concluding Thought

Exploring Great Expectations through essay writing offers a unique opportunity to engage deeply with the themes and characters of the novel. By examining different aspects of the story, readers can gain a richer understanding of the timeless literary work and its enduring relevance. Happy writing!

The Tale of Two Cities: Chapter Summary

Biddy and orlick in great expectations, made-to-order essay as fast as you need it.

Each essay is customized to cater to your unique preferences

+ experts online

Pip’s Coming of Age Journey in The Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Great expectations: main pip’s ambitions, the building of the identity in great expectations, the betrayal of trust in great expectations, a novel by charles dickens, let us write you an essay from scratch.

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Joe Gargery: Ironical Goodness in "Great Expectations"

Human factor, guilt and crime in great expectations, the meaning of dreams in great expectations, pip’s impacts in "great expectations", get a personalized essay in under 3 hours.

Expert-written essays crafted with your exact needs in mind

Why Dickens Uses Wemmick: Living Dual Existences in The 19th Century Victorian England

The essence of characters in great expectations by charles dickens, great expectations by charles dickens: great wealth does not lead to great integrity, dramatic symmetry in a story of the poor english boy pip, the metaphor of failth in great expectations, the role of biddy in great expectations, the thread of unrequited love in charles dickens’s "great expectations", great expectations are not so great, charles dickens's "great expectations" and the monsters, significance of food and meals in the novel great expectations, setting and the elements of dickens' biography in great expectations, the bildungsroman tradition undermined: "a portrait of the artist as a young man" and "great expectations", great expectations and pride and prejudice: portrayal of social classes' structure and the role of money, literature: covered with a curtain in great expectations and jane eyre, how pip creates his evolution as a muscular character in great expectations, joe gargery’s alienation as the impersonation of the high society's values, great expectations and david copperfield: different portrayals of orphans by dickens, pip's rejection of the sacred domesticity, great expectations: all for getting benefits, corruption of innocence in ‘great expectations’ and 'pygmalion'.

August 1861

Charles Dickens

Novel, Bildungsroman, Graphic Novel, Social Criticism, Fictional Autobiography

Pip, Estella, Miss Havisham, Abel Magwitch, Joe Gargery, Jaggers, Herbert Pocket, Wemmick, Biddy, Dolge Orlick, Mrs. Joe, Uncle Pumblechook, Compeyson, Bentley Drummle, Molly, Mr. Wopsle, Startop, Miss Skiffins

Relevant topics

• A Modest Proposal
• The Great Gatsby
• Between The World and Me
• Catcher in The Rye
• Song of Solomon
• Ender's Game
• All Quiet on The Western Front
• Atticus Finch
• A Prayer For Owen Meany

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

• SUGGESTED TOPICS
• The Magazine
• Newsletters
• Managing Yourself
• Managing Teams
• Work-life Balance
• The Big Idea
• Data & Visuals
• Reading Lists
• Case Selections
• HBR Learning
• Topic Feeds
• Account Settings
• Email Preferences

Onboarding New Employees — Without Overwhelming Them

• Julia Phelan

Give people the space and time they need to thrive in their new job.

A great onboarding experience can keep new hires engaged and committed, and increase their learning and preparedness for their new role. In trying to ensure new employees feel supported and properly prepared, some organizations flood new hires with far too much information. Even if managers have the best intentions, bombarding new hires with tasks  — such as asking them to read every single page of the employee manual or requiring them to get set-up on Slack, email, Box, and all the other platforms all at once — will backfire. Three strategies can help organizations mitigate this overload and ensure employees have the space, time, and mental resources available to learn and thrive in their new job.

We know that effectively onboarding new employees has huge value. A good onboarding process — with clear information on job requirements, organizational norms, and performance expectations — not only enhances employee productivity but helps increase loyalty and engagement, and decrease s turnover .

• JP Julia Phelan , Ph.D. is a learning design consultant and expert in applying learning science principles to create effective learning experiences. She works with organizations to help build a strong workplace learning culture by improving training design, implementation, and outcomes. She is the co-founder of To Eleven , and a former UCLA education research scientist. Connect with her on LinkedIn .

Partner Center

Customer Reviews

Can I Trust You With Other Assignments that aren't Essays?

The best way to complete a presentation speech is with a team of professional writers. They have the experience, the knowledge, and ways to impress your prof. Another assignment you can hire us for is an article review. Evaluating someone's work with a grain of salt cannot be easy, especially if it is your first time doing this. To summarize, article reviews are a challenging task. Good that you've found our paper service and can now drop your worries after placing an order. If reading 100-page-long academic articles and digging into every piece of information doesn't sound like something you'd want to do on a Sunday night, hire our essay writing company to do your research proposal. Are you struggling with understanding your professors' directions when it comes to homework assignments? Hire professional writers with years of experience to earn a better grade and impress your parents. Send us the instructions, and your deadline, and you're good to go. We're sure we have a professional paper writer with the skills to complete practically any assignment for you. We only hire native English speakers with a degree and 3+ years of experience, some are even uni professors.

• Arizona Arts
• Arizona Arts Live
• Center for Creative Photography
• University of Arizona Museum of Art
• School of Art
• School of Dance
• Fred Fox School of Music
• School of Theatre, Film & Television

2024 MFA Thesis Exhibition features 7 artists

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter

Carrying on a tradition that began in 1970, seven graduate students from the School of Art will present their work in the 2024 MFA Thesis Exhibition in collaboration with the University of Arizona Museum of Art.

The exhibition, “Leaving to Arrive,” with installations in UAMA and in the school’s Joseph Gross Gallery, will run from April 15 to May 10. A public reception is scheduled for May 9 from 4 to 6 p.m. in the School of Art’s lobby and atrium.

Featured will be the work of graduating MFA students  Jacqueline Arias,   Nathan Cordova, Drew Grella, Hanan Khatoun, Tessa Laslo, Anita Maksimiuk  and  Dana Smith .

This annual MFA Thesis Exhibition, the culmination of the Master of Fine Arts Studio Degree, is presented during a graduate student’s final semester in the three-year degree program. During the last year of their coursework, graduates work closely with faculty to develop a body of original art to present to the public in lieu of a written thesis. The result offers visitors the opportunity to see new, cutting-edge art in a variety of mediums and styles.

“This is the next generation of artists who will be going out and impacting the discipline and thinking about what their next chapter looks like,” School of Art Director  Colin Blakely  said.

A look at each student’s installation and their artist’s statement:

Jacqueline Arias

• Title: “A Lived Experience”
• Gallery: UAMA

The monumental engineering feat of the Panama Canal came at great cost: 40,000 people were displaced, and their villages submerged forever. During the construction of the canal over twenty thousand men and women, brought from the West Indies, lost their lives. Decades after these tragedies, I found myself on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus, as an adoptee from Costa Rica, inhabiting foreign soil with a new identity and language. It was here where I forged a profound connection with the people and the culture of Panama.

This installation tells the story of these interconnected experiences. Utilizing rope and pulleys, I interrogate the ramifications of power structures on individual bodies and collective identities. The constructed knots reveal the ongoing legacy of imperialism. Rope and AI technologies are transformed from their roles as signifiers of power and control to find meaning and connection amid the tumultuous currents of displacement and cultural erasure. The individual strands and fibers of the dismantled rope reflect the complex paths carved by my lived experiences. My hands and body recode history both materially and digitally through embodied knowledge critiquing unethical adoption practices and labor exploitation in Panama.

“A Lived Experience” grapples with the trauma of colonial dehumanization and the yearning for reunion with one’s homeland and culture.

Nathan Cordova

• Title: “Feeling a Future Coming”
• Venue: UAMA

My project considers the potential of friendship and offers a pointed critique of institutions and our consumption of their products. Friendship is slippery and difficult to maintain. There are social and cultural taboos that attempt to constrain our friendships. This is a social experiment that breaks through the isolation we all feel. What does it say about our present moment where amidst profound loneliness, we desire visceral connections with each other to problematize the limits of our individual bodies? By inviting participation, I’m asking myself and my friends to step out of this isolation and to encounter each other anew. I’m valuing critical connections over critical mass, applying force on strategic pressure points that form the boundaries of typical friendships. There is a momentary embodiment of liberation in this act, as I re-imagine what is possible.

I appropriate and re-contextualize collections of digital images of western domination gathered from the internet. This involves engaging with both the visible architecture like the skyscraper, and the supposedly invisible infrastructure, such as data centers and military drones. Anger and pleasure play an important role, offering a means of embodiment and exploration of the collection’s emotional and sensorial dimensions. Through a material intervention, I challenge notions of fixed identity and embrace the fluidity and multiplicity of human experience. This interruption utilizes an interdisciplinary process of layered blurring that transforms their symbolisms into something elemental; liquid and flame, semen and squirting, embodied presence etching sunlight and sifting blood.

Blurring the boundaries between past and present, self, and other, I invite viewers to engage these collections on a visceral level through the presence of their own reflections in black acrylic surfaces mediated by images layered with physical ejaculate, traces of our sequential self-pleasure. Remixed marketing videos from The University of Arizona and Raytheon (now rebranded as RTX Corporation) point to their mutually beneficial relationship built on endless cycles of debt and death.

All of this works together to disrupt conventional modes of perception. Challenging the rigidity of these images as repositories of meaning and enforcers of social order, “Feeling a Future Coming” reconfigures their signifiers to a point of emergence, where all futures become possible again. Reclaiming agency over our bodies and desires is a fundamental step toward liberation, contributing to a more empathetic and introspective society that questions rigid authority and embraces the beauty of uncertainty.

Drew Grella

• Title: “No Trespassing | Passing | Trespassing”

“The world reveals itself to those who travel on foot.” Bruce Chatwin

I moved to Tucson during the Covid-19 pandemic when everything was shut down. I spent a lot of time roaming the desert and the town. Walking in the liminal space of the dry Rillito riverbed was especially surreal, strewn with trash, memorials, votive sculptures, and lost possessions. While my body moved through this new and unique place, my mind mapped my impressions of nature, waste, and the boundaries between public spaces and private property.

Deliberate walking is simple and beautiful. It is my method for collecting the imagery which emerges when I draw. Intuitive drawing is simple and beautiful. It is my method for revealing to me what I did not know, what I cannot put into words. In the studio, the walking body becomes the drawing body, continuing a contemplative stroll.

Hanan Khatoun

• Title: “Sheer”
• Gallery: Joesph Gross

My separation from culture, language, and family as a member of the Lebanese Diaspora has driven my desire to narrate the experience of what happens after the sensationalizing of war and displacement wears off. The struggle of forging and finding space for one’s identity both within and outside the structures of culture, religion, and family is a reality for those who are generations removed from another home. I am a second-generation immigrant from Lebanon, one of the smallest countries in the world, yet the diaspora population outside the country is larger than that within. Being removed from one place and living in another is common in an increasingly globalized and colonized society. In what ways do we create space for navigating these realities?

“Sheer” is a physical space representative of my search for cultural identity. I construct a space for navigating this self-conception using familial archives, trinkets, documents, photographs, and oral storytelling. These all hold unique language and memory, which in turn, become proof of experience. Woven together they create an identity which I embrace and push against. The act of weaving enables me to explore how disparate things often come together to make a chaotic but contained whole. The work is viewed only at a distance through a fabric cage, indicative of the structures and barriers against which I struggle to understand my multicultural identity.

Tessa Laslo

• Title: “Imprints”
• Gallery: Joseph Gross

In my performative drawing and video works, I delve into the intricate web of personal trauma, investigating its impact on my body, relationships, and self-perception. The lingering effects of sexual assault has left me grappling with fragmented memories and physical scars while igniting a profound anger — an emotion that pervades my work and influences my ability to engage in intimate relationships.

The emotional and physical effects of this trauma are not portrayed as overwhelming obstacles in my work, but rather as integral components of an ongoing narrative. I revisit past abuse to illuminate the resilience and strength that can emerge from a process of artistic confrontation and self-discovery. Imprints combines cyanotype and soft pastels in large-scale drawings alongside a video installation using a twin-sized bed. I’ve opted for materials that lack any semblance of preciousness. The paper is weathered, beaten, and used; worn down by time and wear. Each crease and tear are reflections of the sense of violation that still affects my body and mind. The physicality of the paper, marked by violence, serves as a tangible manifestation of my emotions and experiences, grounding them in truth.

Anger, a powerful undercurrent in my artistic expression, stems not only from what I have experienced, but from the ongoing emotional and physical ramifications that are likely to persist throughout my life. It is a visceral response to the violation of my autonomy and the enduring consequences that ripple through my existence. This anger weaves itself into the fabric of my art, becoming both a driving force and an intense element that shape the narrative of my work.

Anita Maksimiuk

• Title: “Infinity Stone: American Prawda”

As a printmaker, my work engages the symbology of migration, root-taking, rootlessness, and the urban environment. This is largely based on my experience as a first-generation American in Brooklyn, New York and beyond. Watching the city’s immigrant enclaves gentrify and lose their sense of sanctuary motivates me to document, preserve, and question the familiar through printmaking.

By creating cityscapes that deconstruct and reconfigure the iconic, I preserve both places and histories that fade along with the immigrant. As I move through this country, I keep in mind the glare of separation, the repairs I’ve made, and the fractures that remain.

“Infinity Stone: American Prawda” features primarily lithography, with screen printed elements. Historic mediums once prevalent in both fine art and advertising, these two processes challenge and contrast one another.

Methods of deletion, stencil and layer come together to form the printed image, all while honoring its ghost. These approaches allow me to subvert the traditional application of the lithography process, working the limestone surface until it becomes a source of light, color and texture. Starting with photographic images from my personal archive, I coax information out from the surface of the stone chemically. As the landscape is layered, removed and replaced, it begins to mimic the motions of an overdeveloped urban space.

I use the stone to create one-of-a-kind prints rather than producing editions. Using shifts in scale, photographic elements and a non-traditional approach to the process, I reclaim it as a tool of documentation, propaganda and mystery.

Pushing the lithograph beyond its traditional black and white, drawn image, the group of foldable posters presented here re-casts an iconic cityscape in an intimate light, worked into existence entirely by hand. Hung as banners, these images will travel, degrade, and return as I do.

Meant to be approached, the light and horizon that grounds these prints let the gaze linger while the viewer imagines, yearns, or simply remembers. This perspective alludes to an unattainable yet promising aspect of building a home, nationality and a claim to a city. The images take on an iconographic quality, representing a place that is constantly in motion. It is a horizon that is constructed over, bought, sold, and advertised as an object of desire. Here, it is reconstructed as a symbol of hope, haven, and history. It will tear but persist, both physically on paper and intangibly, within the child looking towards home.

Whether these prints become mementos or mirages, they ultimately take on the role of documents. I see my evolving work as a journey, a narrative and a documentary practice, bound within a fleeting medium.

• Title: “The Sonoran Desert: A Model for Surviving the Sixth Extinction”

Since the Cambrian explosion over 500 million years ago, an astounding variety of exotic and resilient life forms have thrived and diversified throughout the world. Starting as primitive cells in a world slammed by catastrophic events, the life forms today in the rugged Sonoran Desert have developed extraordinary physical defenses key to their survival. This beautiful yet brutal desert inspired me to investigate the world of invertebrates and microorganisms, the survivors of multiple planetary catastrophes, whether gathered from a habitat in my backyard pond and examined under a microscope or encountered while roaming the desert.

Constructing oversized ceramic sculptures and drawings re-creates and interrogates the magnificent structures that these creatures have used as protection for survival. Bringing attention to these armored desert microorganisms and insects who have learned to adapt to extreme heat and long-term drought may teach us much as we enter the era of the Anthropocene. We can learn from their secrets as concern arises over our own adaptability.

More Stories

Alshaibi, serafim named mellon-fronteridades faculty fellows, graduate fellow caballero tells lucha libre story, internships give students professional insight.

Tailgate Party

I fell down some stairs

What Do You See?

Half Off Special

Floral Arrangement

38 best stocks to buy for the strongest gains over the next year, according to Deutsche Bank

• Deutsche Bank's Fresh Money List has beaten the S&P 500 since its inception.
• It includes favored names from the bank's leading analysts across various sectors.
• Despite its success, the list has had temporary drawdowns, most recently during Q1 2024.

If you're wary of following the crowd and think the S&P 500 is too expensive but aren't sure where to look next for gains, consider Deutsche Bank's Fresh Money List. It's a basket of the top stocks that the bank's leading analysts predict will outperform the market over the coming 12 months.

The latest round of 38 names was released on March 28, and the picks span across consumer, financials and fintech, healthcare, industrials, and technology, media, and telecommunications (TMT).

While past performance doesn't guarantee future results, having some idea of the list's past success can help in deciding whether following Deutsche's lead is worth the risk: Since analysts started publishing the report in the third quarter of 2017, the rotation of high-conviction names has returned 164%. The S&P 500 returned 146% over the same period. However, its outperformance of the broad index has been accompanied by temporary drawdowns, more recently during the first quarter of 2024, when it returned only 4.26% versus the S&P 500 at 9.92%.

Below is the list of this round's 38 names, with a shortened summary from the analysts that represent the reason for their conviction.

1. Chipotle

Ticker :  CMG

Sector : Consumer

Thesis : " We have high conviction in CMG's near-term & long- term growth outlook and believe a premium multiple is warranted, noting there is scarcity value for a high-quality US company with a clean balance sheet, strong fundamentals and potential upside to numbers " —  Lauren Silberman

Ticker : COTY

Thesis : "COTY's improving marketplace execution has led to successive over-delivery in recent quarters, and the company still seems well- positioned to deliver +9%-11% LFL sales in FY24 underpinned by: (i) ongoing momentum in Prestige fragrances including white space opportunities in ultra- premium and lifestyle segments, (ii) building market share momentum across the Consumer Beauty brands, and (iii) a steadily strengthening presence in Prestige Make-up and Prestige Skin Care, with significant whitespace opportunities in key channels and markets. Moreover, COTY remains steadfast in its focus on cost- saving measures, strengthening its balance sheet, and reducing leverage while expanding its share buyback program" — Steve Powers

3. Kraft Heinz

Ticker : KHC

Thesis : "we believe current full-year guidance already embed sufficient allowances for continued value-seeking behavior, a healthy level of reinvestment spending, and greater below-the-line headwinds. Furthermore, we see further support from: (i) low valuation vs. peers/history, (ii) continued momentum in Emerging Markets, (iii) improved supply chain, (iv) innovation in Foodservice, and (v) value-added capital allocation." — Steve Powers

4. Las Vegas Sands

Ticker : LVS

Thesis : " We see meaningful value in LVS's shares at current levels and we believe some of the concern around the trajectory of the recovery in Macau is misguided, with too much being read into short-term datapoints. We see this rationalizing over time and believe LVS, from both a fundamental and valuation perspective, represents a compelling long idea moving forward. " — Carlo Santarelli

5. Monster Beverage Corp.

Ticker : MNST

Thesis : "From here, we see further top-line optionality from a robust innovation pipeline and MNST's expansion into new and adjacent categories. With encouraging consumption and market share trends for MNST's energy drinks globally, alongside deflationary aluminum/ transportation costs, we continue to see MNST's gross margin recovery building upon the progress delivered in CY23." — Steve Powers

6. United Parks and Resorts

Ticker : PRKS

Thesis : "We see PRKS potentially benefiting from what we view to be relatively low expectations approaching peak visitation months, and we also think the company's EBITDA margins are more durable than skeptics believe. PRKS has recently provided more clarity on its capital plan and could soon begin repurchasing shares in a meaningful way again. Current valuation reflects an unreasonable disconnect versus several other travel/leisure sub-sector verticals, including cruise and select areas of gaming and lodging." — Chris Woronka

Ticker : TGT

Thesis : " With a conservative 2024 outlook that leaves room for positive earnings revisions, traffic improvements underway, and an expanding value assortment, we see TGT's top line on track to inflect positively starting in 2Q. In addition, we see a number of drivers ahead for sustained SSS growth and EBIT margin expansion, resulting in EPS of $10+ in 2024. Lastly, TGT still trades at a discount to other staple retail peers and we think the stock should move at least in line with to above the market multiple on consistent execution. " — Krisztina Katai

8. US Foods

Ticker : USFD

Thesis : "We believe USFD is a compelling self-help story in a favorable foodservice category. USFD has been increasing its focus on supply chain, and we believe new CEO Dave Flitman can help accelerate those efforts and has suggested there are opportunities to unlock value across all areas of the business. USFD expects to deliver HSD-LDD EBITDA growth in 2024 & long term, and together with share repurchases, likely supports HDD-low 20% EPS growth. We have high conviction in USFD's growth outlook, see potential for upside to numbers and multiple expansion, and at current valuation, believe USFD offers an attractive risk/reward profile." — Lauren Silberman

9. AJ Gallagher

Ticker : AJG

Sector : Financials & Fintech

Thesis : "AJ Gallagher should benefit from a US economy that continues to surprise to the upside, and interest rates that are no longer expected to drop by a lot more than what the Fed is guiding for. We believe that the positive pricing momentum in US commercial lines should continue in the foreseeable future. AJG is well positioned to capitalize on these pricing trends given that 85% of group revenues come from the Brokerage segment, of which 75% is commission-based. We forecast 8% and 7% brokerage organic growth for FY 2024 and 2025, respectively. In addition to its strong organic growth, AJG should be able to further boost revenues inorganically from banks that sell their non-core insurance brokerage operations, and from smaller brokers who seek AJG's partnership in order to leverage the company's technology and data." — Cave Montazeri

10. Ally Financial

Ticker : ALLY

Thesis : " We believe Ally's NIM expansion is being underestimated and incorrectly modeled by many other analysts on the Street. From their current 3.14% NIM, we believe Ally is on track to reach their 4.0% target by 3Q25 vs. consensus expectations of at least 2026. With the prospect of significant NIM expansion and credit improvement in 2025, ALLY sets up as one of the more compelling narratives in our coverage, and with ~43% upside to our price target still has considerable potential. " — Mark DeVries

Ticker : BILL

Thesis : "BILL operates in a large addressable market with secular tailwinds and helps accelerate SMB digital process adoption. We believe BILL is uniquely positioned due to its offerings including AP automation and spend mgmt. as well as electronic payment offerings like virtual cards, instant transfer and cross-border FX. BILL has recently combined its offerings into a single platform, providing a significant opportunity to cross-sell. We are confident in the company's overall value proposition and expect it to benefit from improving fundamentals coupled with a stronger economy. With the shares trading at ~6x our CY25 EV/ gross profit, we believe the multiple can expand as the growth reaccelerates." — Bryan Keane

12. KKR & Co. Inc.

Ticker : KKR

Thesis : "We think the stock will remain supported by the firm's substantial inflection up in FRE, expected to grow 26% in 2024, helped by the start of a substantial flagship fundraising cycle in 2024, in which we expect fundraising to rise to ~$109 billion from $69 billion in 2023. Moreover, we expect fundraising to remain elevated in a ~$110bn to $130bn range in each of 2025 & 2026. Combined with a strong double-digit growth outlook for capital market fees, we think KKR can grow FRE at a 22% annualized pace over the next 3 years, which remains the strongest pace in our coverage. We are also encouraged by management's announcement of multiple strategic initiatives in late November last year and compensation restructuring that enhances FRE margins." — Brian Bedell

Ticker : PNC

Thesis : "PNC's shares are flat ytd vs. larger peers up ~15%, and other large regionals up ~5%. The lag vs. mega bank peers is due to continued turmoil among regional banks earlier this year, driven by office/multi-family issues at NYCB and perceived scale benefits at the largest banks. The modest underperformance vs. other regionals is mostly due to a recent 1Q NII guidance downgrade. PNC lowered the 1Q guide to down 3-5% vs. down 2-3% before. However, PNC remains our top pick given our core investment thesis remains intact, namely risk mgmt, capital allocation, and leverage to a pickup in cap markets all should be positive stories near/medium term. We'd also note the 1Q guidance downgrade was mostly due to some debt issuance early in the qtr as well as weaker C&I line utilization rates." — Matt O'Connor

14. Sabra Health Care REIT

Ticker : SBRA

Thesis : " We like SBRA as we expect multiple expansion as investors get more comfortable with the regulatory and government reimbursement outlook for skilled nursing. We also expect earnings acceleration given recovery in the senior housing operating portfolio (SHOP) and improving acquisition outlook. " — Tayo Okusanya

15. Charles Schwab

Ticker : SCHW

Thesis : "We are expecting EPS to improve throughout 2024, and earnings to achieve record levels in 2025 after the paydown of a large portion of high-cost borrowing during 2024 & 2025. Thus, interest revenue should improve and drive positive EPS growth in 2024, which should accelerate more dramatically in 2025, and remain strong in 2026. Furthermore, we see SCHW's Investor Day on May 22 as a positive catalyst for the shares given our expectation for management to outline a robust growth strategy after having completed the final Ameritrade client conversion and achieving a more stable and growing client deposit profile." — Brian Bedell

16. S&P Global

Ticker : SPGI

Thesis : "With merger integration work largely complete, the company is entering the next phase, where it can focus on growth, innovation, and execution. The company has accumulated some of the most mission-critical and proprietary datasets that provide a moat and ability to execute on innovation, such as GenAI. For longer-term investors, we see the recent stock's underperformance versus the market as an attractive opportunity to buy a resilient business with diversified revenue streams and growth attributes. Further, the company is actively reevaluating its portfolio and could see potential acquisitions and divestitures that may simplify its model and set the company up for further growth. Key areas of focus where the company could expand include private markets, sustainability, supply-chain analytics, and risk." — Brian Bedell

17. Cigna Group

Ticker : CI

Sector : Healthcare

Thesis : " Cigna raised long-term earnings growth guidance by 100bps on earlier in March, while launching a new program around GLP1 drug access and its next competitive offering in the biosimilar Humira market. Specialty market growth remains the theme for 2024 as the company committed to deliver financial goals as mapped out on Investor Day with a diversified portfolio and capital-light framework. We believe the CI investment thesis is warranted by the growth of the more profitable commercial market. We believe the company has navigated the challenges in the core commercial business with good client retention level and new business wins. " — George Hill

18. Charles River

Ticker : CRL

Thesis : " We are incrementally positive on CRL stock and see earnings risk shifting to the upside and away from the downside given: 1) a number of margin levers; 2) an improving biotech funding environment; 3) higher quality bookings; 4) benefits from Biosecure Act headline risk; and 5) falling interest rates. " — Justin Bowers

Ticker : ICLR

Thesis : " ICLR remains one of our top picks given: 1) upside to EPS and organic revenue growth; 2) lower interest expense and potential share repurchase; 3) margin expansion 40+ bps, and 4) potential multiple expansion given the stock is trading in line with the S&P 500 vs. its 15% historical premium. " — Justin Bowers

20. Merck & Co.

Ticker : MRK

Thesis : " In our view, MRK's Keytruda has established itself as backbone for oncology treatment regimens, that we believe provides the best visibility for growth until FY2028, barring GLP-1 peers. Keytruda's success also positions it for Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) selection in FY2028, but it also ensures Medicare volume. Keytruda's already dominating makes us believe IRA & biosimilar pressure may not be as bad as the Street expects. Keytruda's clinical data provides a moat that may widen with early-stage data and combinations. Furthermore, Vaccines and Animal Health provide durable free cash flows and some modest growth. We think fundamentally it sets MRK's floor at ~$100/sh and gives a favorable asymmetric risk-reward for the emerging pipeline with validated targets/data. " — James Shin

21. Option Care

Ticker : OPCH

Thesis : " We continue to regard OPCH as an attractive play within healthcare services in the current environment, especially at ~13x 2025E EBITDA, which is near its 3y trough multiple. While bears are still concerned the LDD EBITDA growth algo is broken after OPCH's volatile 3Q results, we continue to believe a strong top line coupled with SG&A leverage is enough to achieve LDD EBITDA growth for the foreseeable future. This is further supported by OPCH's perfect track record over the past 4 years of providing upside to the initial FY guide. With current valuations discounting heightened uncertainty in OPCH's growth algo, we believe this is an attractive entry point. " — Pito Chickering

22. Penumbra

Ticker : PEN

Thesis : " We believe the ~15% sell-off post 4Q results provides a unique buying opportunity as reset expectations coupled with intact fundamentals provides a nice set-up for a return to a consistent beat and raise story. We note that the initial FY guide being below consensus was primarily driven by PEN choosing to exit lower growth and margin OUS markets, which is not a key pillar of the bull thesis. " — Pito Chickering

23. Sarepta Therapeutics

Ticker : SRPT

Thesis : " Given the recent share price pullback post the 4Q23 earnings release, on which mgmt. guided conservatively regarding the opportunity in just 4- to 5-year-olds with DMD due to logistical challenges in identifying and dosing patients before they "age out", and recent positive data for the company's most advanced next-generation exon-skipping program, which solidifies the value of the base business, in our view, we see risk/reward as highly favorable into the PDUFA, with downside on no label expansion to ~$100/share and upside on just an ambulatory expansion to $150- $160 or more, and up to $180-$200 on a broad label. " — Neena Bitritto-Garg

Ticker : DAL

Thesis : " We believe that over the next 12 months, Delta is the highest quality way to invest in a strong domestic and international demand backdrop given its diversified revenue streams. We continue to believe that Delta will lead the industry with what is expected to be a strong free cash flow and deleveraging cycle. Delta's main priority remains reducing debt and getting back to an investment grade balance sheet. Delta also pays a $0.10 per share quarterly dividend. Lastly, we think the valuation of DAL's shares creates an attractive entry-point with the stock trading at 5.9x our 2024 EPS estimate of $7.00 and 5.7x our 2024 EPS estimate of $7.65. " — Mike Linenberg

25. First Solar

Ticker : FSLR

Thesis : " First Solar stands out, in our view, given its utility-only exposure, long-term backlog, and US manufacturing presence, benefitting from the 45x tax credit, boosting EPS in the near and medium term. The growth story remains intact in the coming years, with strong operational performance expected to continue, supported by ASP and volumes growth/ramp-up from new facilities. We see realistic 12-month stock price upside potential towards $200+, further driven by a positive sentiment shift expected in 2H for the solar industry in general. " — Corinne Blanchard

26. Mobileye

Ticker : MBLY

Thesis : " In light of the recent chip-destocking warning that drove management to cut its 2024 guidance, the company signaled and reiterated most recently that the situation should be mostly cleared by year-end, with high visibility into both Q1 and Q2 orders and shipments, and 2H shipment normalizing. Management had also taken the opportunity earlier on in the year to reduce SV shipments for 2024, and with recent data on strong Zeekr 001 orders, we believe SV revenue for the year should largely be de-risked. " — Emmanuel Rosner

27. Parker-Hannifin

Ticker : PH

Thesis : " Despite strong outperformance, we believe there is still potential for significant upside given Parker-Hannifin's success in creating a more balanced revenue profile. In addition, Parker-Hannifin has successfully expanded segment EBITA margins over the past decade and has even hit its FY27 target early. We believe Parker-Hannifin will continue to raise the bar on profitability and potentially create new targets at their upcoming Investor Day. Given the improving revenue profile coupled with future margin expansion, the stock still looks attractive at its current valuation, in our view, and we rate it a Buy. " — Nicole DeBlase

28. Rocket Lab

Ticker : RKLB

Thesis : " With Rocket Lab back on the launch pad, we think investors can focus on the robust launch manifest and ramp of Apple constellation, combining to drive higher growth/margins in 2024 and beyond. Rocket Lab has focused on smaller rockets since inception, cultivating a leadership position, and plans to build a larger rocket called Neutron, designed to be a constellation launcher in a market where there is an acute supply shortage, targeting customers like Amazon Kuiper. " — Edison Yu

Ticker : SAIA

Thesis : " We remain steadfast in our positive stance on SAIA's shares. Despite the recent run-up, we see significantly more upside this year and beyond as management executes on its exciting and ambitious growth plans. We are encouraged by the company's obsession over maintaining and improving service levels, which it measures daily, given this is the key risk for the company going forward on its path in growing volume. These reinforce our long-standing bullish thesis on SAIA's shares, and we see potential for equity value to eclipse $1,000 per share by year-end 2026. " — Amit Mehrotra

Ticker : TROX

Thesis : " It was a challenging 15 months for Tronox (ending 12/31/23) during which time EBITDA fell nearly 50% due to severe customer destocking in TiO2, weak building and construction demand and negative fixed cost absorption. However, in early '24, things have begun to improve as destocking is largely over, customers are beginning to restock and more normal buying patterns have returned. This has led to Tronox increasing its operating rates in Q1. Looking ahead, we believe TiO2 prices could reverse their downward trend of the last 18 months as early as Q2 supported by a pickup in demand, the EU's anti-dumping investigation into Chinese TiO2 imports, Red Sea shipping issues and Venator's closure of its Duisburg, Germany TiO2 plant. We thus reiterate our Buy rating. " — David Begleiter

31. Woodward

Ticker : WWD

Thesis : " As a base case, we think WWD can grow net income at or above industry-average rates over the next 3 years. We also think there's more upside to this base-case outlook than peers, while the company also has lower financial leverage and more balance sheet optionality than peers. Further, the company should have best-in- class commercial aftermarket volume growth post 2026 given significant shipset content gains on the latest generation of narrowbody programs—programs which will enter the heart of their aftermarket cycle in the latter half of the decade. Despite all of this, WWD trades at a discount to peers. " — Scott Deuschle

Ticker : AMZN

Sector : TMT

Thesis : " For FY24, Amazon remains one of the best earnings growth stories due to steady double-digit top-line growth along with an improving margin profile. The DD revenue growth should be supported by re-acceleration in AWS and continued strong momentum in its retail and Advertising business. On OI, strict cost control across the business lines, and continued optimization of infrastructure footprints across North America and internationally, and resilient advertising growth should all support a positive underlying margin trajectory from here. " — Lee Horowitz

33. AT&T

Thesis : " AT&T is currently our top pick in Telecom and Cable due to healthy industry dynamics in wireless and fiber broadband, consistent execution by management, a healthy FCF growth outlook, disciplined capital allocation, attractive valuation and dividend yield, best positioning for fixed-mobile convergence, and room for wireless market share growth. " — Bryan Kraft

34. EverCommerce

Ticker : EVCM

Thesis : " We see opportunities for both estimate and multiple expansion in the near term driven by: (1) improving cross-sell/up-sell initiatives into FY24 including an emphasis around embedded payments; (2) revenue acceleration as a result of easing Marketing Technology compares along with improving execution; and (3) an improvement in the macro leading to better unit economics and margin expansion. " — Bhavin Shah

Ticker : FIVN

Thesis : " We believe momentum from recent bookings strength is likely to re-accelerate revenue growth past a 1Q trough. The company targets imply a very solid 2024 exit rate for growth, which we estimate at >+20% YoY in 4Q24, vs. +10% in 1Q24. While we are cognizant of risks/bear arguments including macro softness, AI/automation, and the back-half acceleration needed to achieve revenue guidance, we see a more favorable risk/reward backdrop at current levels. " — Matt Niknam

36. Marvell

Ticker : MRVL

Thesis : " The company continues to benefit from expanding AI revenues focused in Optics and Custom Silicon, expanding its AI- related revs from ~$400m in CY23 to potentially significantly above DBe ~+$800m in FY25 (CY24) which should boost investor appeal and hedge against much of the company's typical historical cyclical volatility. " — Ross Seymore

Ticker : ORCL

Thesis : " Following what we view as thesis validating F3Q results, Oracle looks poised to continue its recent outperformance as bullish pipeline and ramping cloud capacity additions, incl. for GenAI workloads support ongoing top-line acceleration (ex- Cerner), led by mix shift to structurally faster growing Cloud revenue that for the first time eclipsed License Support revenue in F3Q. Within Cloud revenue, we are laser- focus on OCI, which is driving the equity narrative and for which we are more confident than ever in the demand picture. This is driven mostly by price- performance advantages and the ability to land smaller than competitors in the form of dedicated regions, sovereign cloud, and Alloy partnerships. " — Ross Seymore

38. Warner Music Group

Ticker : WMG

Thesis : " We are incrementally positive on WMG continuing on its path of steady, durable revenue growth underpinned by a very favorable industry backdrop, along with multiple high-margin growth vectors as music expands beyond traditional streaming platforms. Further, the recently announced restructuring plan is expected to generate $200mn in annual run rate savings by the end of FY25, which management plans to reinvest into: 1) discovering, marketing, and licensing new talent for new tracks and copywrites, particularly those with global appeal 2) acquiring additional catalogs, which WMG can administer, distribute and monetize efficiently, and 3) opportunistic M&A where the purchase of a label or team can be additive to A&R capabilities. " — Ross Seymore

• Main content

• Share full article

Advertisement

Subscriber-only Newsletter

Paul Krugman

Stuck ships and supply-chain inflation.

By Paul Krugman

Opinion Columnist

It has been a week since the Dali, a container ship, struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. It’s still stuck there, and the images remain amazing, in part because the vessel is so huge compared with what’s left of the bridge. How could planners not have realized that operating superships in the harbor’s confined waters posed a risk?

And with the ship and pieces of the bridge blocking the harbor entry, the Port of Baltimore remains closed. How big a deal is that for the economy?

Well, it would have been quite a big deal if it had happened in late 2021 or early 2022, when global supply chains were under a lot of pressure. Remember when all those ships were steaming back and forth in front of Los Angeles, waiting for a berth?

It’s less important now: Pre-Dali Baltimore was only the 17th busiest U.S. port , and there’s apparently enough spare capacity that most of the cargoes that would normally have passed through Baltimore can be diverted to other East Coast ports. The Dali is no Ever Given , the ship that blocked the Suez Canal when it ran aground in 2021.

Still, global supply chains don’t have as much slack as they did, say, last summer, after the pandemic disruptions were mostly a thing of the past, because Baltimore isn’t the only problem. The Panama Canal is operating at reduced capacity because a historic drought , probably in part a consequence of climate change, has limited the supply of water to fill the canal’s locks.

Elsewhere, the Houthis have been firing missiles at ships entering or leaving the Red Sea, that is, heading to or from the Suez Canal. Presumably as a result of these and other problems, the New York Fed’s widely cited index of global supply chain pressure, while still not flashing the red lights it was showing in the winter of 2021-22, has worsened significantly since last August:

And given what we know about the causes of the inflation surge of 2021-22, this worsening makes me a bit nervous.

I think it’s fair to say that a great majority of economists were caught flat-footed one way or another by inflation developments over the past three years. Along with many others, I failed to predict the big initial run-up in inflation. But even most economists who got that part right appear in retrospect to have been right for the wrong reasons, because they failed to anticipate the “immaculate disinflation” of 2023: Inflation plunged, even though there was no recession, and the high unemployment some claimed would be necessary to get inflation down never materialized.

A side remark: Official measures of inflation were somewhat hot in the first two months of 2024. But much of this probably reflects the so-called January effect (which is actually spread out over January and February), in which many companies raise their prices with the coming of a new year. The Federal Reserve and many independent economists expect disinflation to resume in the months ahead.

So what explains the swift rise and fall of inflation? Way back in July 2021, White House economists argued that we were in a situation resembling the surge in inflation that began in 1946 — that recovery from Covid had created conditions similar to the early postwar period of pent-up demand and disrupted supply chains. The postwar inflation surge ended relatively quickly — after two years — without an extended period of high unemployment.

In retrospect, that analysis looks spot on, since pretty much the same thing seems to have happened in the latest inflation cycle. Following Mike Konczal of the Roosevelt Institute, who has just joined the Biden administration, here’s a plot of annual changes in core inflation — measured as consumer prices excluding food, which is the best number available back to the 1940s — against the unemployment rate:

As you can see, 2023 looks like the late 1940s, not, as inflation pessimists predicted, like the Volcker disinflation of the early 1980s.

A more recent White House analysis puts additional numbers to this diagnosis, estimating a Phillips curve — an equation that is supposed to track inflation — that includes the effects of supply-chain pressure, using the New York Fed measure. According to this model, supply chain pressures (plus the interaction of these pressures with demand) accounted for most of the rise in inflation above the Fed’s 2 percent target during the past several years:

Conversely, the model says that the easing of supply-chain problems as businesses adapted to economic change accounts for most of the disinflation since 2022.

This all makes a lot of sense, and until recently made me feel rather comfortable about the prospects for a soft landing — inflation falling to an acceptable level with unemployment staying low.

But if you think supply-chain disruptions were the main driver of inflation and the easing of these disruptions the main driver of disinflation, you have to be worried about the effects of a renewed worsening of the supply-chain situation.

Now, supply chain problems today aren’t remotely as bad as they were in 2021-22; if the Dali disaster had occurred back then, it really would have been a collapsed bridge too far. At least according to the New York Fed measure, we’ve actually been experiencing a stretch of below-normal supply pressure, and all that has happened is a return to normal. This might not have much adverse effect on inflation.

But I’m not as sure about this as I’d like. Supply chains are making me nervous again.

One difference from the 1940s: Price controls were never a serious prospect.

Immigration and the U.S. post-Covid boom.

Surprise: “ Italy has weathered recent crises well .”

Inflation expectations are down.

Facing the Music

Creating the score for “Dune .”

Paul Krugman has been an Opinion columnist since 2000 and is also a distinguished professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He won the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on international trade and economic geography. @ PaulKrugman