Line #55 Literature/GreatExpectations


1	[[quoteright:320:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Screen_shot_2011-01-22_at_10_24_15_AM_9462.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:320:''"Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, [[ButForMeItWasTuesday but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day."]]'']]
3
4	''Great Expectations'' (1861) is a novel by Creator/CharlesDickens.
5
6	It is one of his most famous works (along with ''Literature/AChristmasCarol,'' ''Literature/OliverTwist,'' and ''Literature/ATaleOfTwoCities''), as the multitude of high school students [[MediaNotes/SchoolStudyMedia assigned]] this [[DoorStopper 450+ page book]] will attest. Ironically, it is his most unconventional work; Dickens [[{{Deconstruction}} deconstructed]] many of his trademark plots and characters in it, including the MysteriousBenefactor and RagsToRiches tale. The main character Pip is also far from the simple minded innocents of ''Literature/DavidCopperfield'' and ''Literature/OliverTwist,'' and arguably has undergone the most CharacterDevelopment as a result.
7
8	Pip starts the book as a [[AllLovingHero guileless]] orphan who lives [[AbusiveParents under the thumb]] of his shrewish older sister Mrs. Joe, only marginally mollified by her simple-minded but good-hearted husband Joe. The most eventful incident in his childhood is helping a convict on the marshes escape. But after being invited to play at the home of Miss Havisham, an eccentric spinster who's never recovered from being jilted at the altar long ago, and meeting her beautiful, but haughty ward [[StellarName Estella]] there, Pip's mindset changes. He begins to resent his simplistic upbringing and the middling blacksmith career and working-class life that seem inevitable for him.
9
10	Then, out of nowhere, a lawyer named Mr. Jaggers shows up at Pip's doorstep and tells his stunned family that he has had "[[TitleDrop great expectations]]" bestowed upon him by a MysteriousBenefactor. Pip will spend the next couple of years training to become a proper gentleman. His benefactor's identity is a secret, but Pip is convinced that it is Miss Havisham. He meets the upper-class members of London society including friendly Herbert and loathsome Drummle, forgets about his old life, and courts Estella with limited success. But it is not until Pip finally discovers who his benefactor is that the plot really begins to thicken and Pip is forced to confront a variety of surprises, disappointments, and unexpected revelations.
11
12	Can be read [[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Great_Expectations here]].
13
14	----
15	!!Screen adaptations:
16
17	[[folder:Film and TV versions]]
18	''Great Expectations'' has been subject to many screen adaptations through the years. The one most likely to have been viewed in a high school English class is [[Film/GreatExpectations1946 the 1946 film]] directed by Creator/DavidLean. There also have been:
19	\
20
21	* a 1917 silent film
22	* [[Film/GreatExpectations1934 a 1934 sound film]]
23	* a 1967 TV series
24	* a 1974 MadeForTVMovie starring Creator/MichaelYork, Sarah Miles, Creator/JamesMason, Creator/MargaretLeighton, and Creator/RobertMorley
25	* a 1981 TV seires
26	* a 1989 {{miniseries}} starring Creator/AnthonyHopkins, Creator/JeanSimmons, and Creator/JohnRhysDavies
27	* a 1998 film which [[SettingUpdate updates the setting]] to contemporary Miami, directed by Creator/AlfonsoCuaron and starring Creator/EthanHawke, Creator/GwynethPaltrow, Creator/ChrisCooper, Creator/HankAzaria, Creator/AnneBancroft, and Creator/RobertDeNiro
28	* a 1999 miniseries starring Creator/IoanGruffudd, Justine Waddell, Creator/CharlotteRampling, Creator/BernardHill, and Creator/IanMcDiarmid
29	* the 2000 ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' episode "[[Recap/SouthParkS4E14Pip Pip]]", which parodies the story
30	* a 2011 miniseries starring Douglas Booth, Creator/RayWinstone, Creator/GillianAnderson, and Creator/DavidSuchet
31	* a 2012 film directed by Creator/MikeNewell that features ''Franchise/HarryPotter'' veterans Creator/HelenaBonhamCarter, Creator/RalphFiennes, Creator/JessieCave, and Creator/RobbieColtrane, as well as Creator/JeremyIrvine, Creator/JasonFlemyng, Creator/HollidayGrainger, Creator/DavidWalliams and Creator/RalphIneson.
32	* A 2023 mini series from Creator/TheBBC with Creator/OliviaColman as Miss Havisham and including Creator/FionnWhitehead as Pip, and Creator/ShalomBruneFranklin as Estella.
33	[[/folder]]
34
35	----
36	!!Tropes:
37	* AbsenceMakesTheHeartGoYonder: Pip ignores Biddy's obvious love for him as he fruitlessly pursues Estella. After he realizes the error of his life choices, he returns to claim Biddy as his bride, only to find out she has married Joe instead.
38	* AbusiveParents: Joe recalls how his father would "hammer" his mother and him, and when they tried to flee, he united their neighbors to shame them into coming home where he would hammer them again.
39	* AcquiredSituationalNarcissism: When Pip becomes a gentleman he also becomes a snob and distances himself from Joe; he ignores Joe's letters unless they mention Estella, and he thinks Joe makes an absolute disaster of himself in London. He doesn't reconcile with Joe and Biddy until he loses the money.
40	* AffectionateNickname: Herbert nicknames Pip "Handel," after [[Music/GeorgeFredericHandel the composer]] of the piece "The Harmonious Blacksmith" (reasoning that Pip was originally a blacksmith, and they get along harmoniously). For that matter, "Pip" is already a nickname for Philip.
41	* AgeAppropriateAngst: The book comments specifically on this in its opening chapters as Pip deals with the burden of living as a largely ignored and undervalued orphan:
42	-->In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and finely felt as injustice. It may be only small injustice that the child can be exposed to; but the child is small, and its world is small, and its rocking horse stands as many hands high, according to scale, as a big-boned Irish hunter.
43	* AgeGapRomance: Joe and Biddy marry, long after the death of Mrs. Joe. Biddy is much younger than her husband.
44	* AllLoveIsUnrequited: Pip has unrequited feelings for Estella, who was raised by Miss Havisham to be an unfeeling IceQueen who breaks boys' hearts. When so many men fall in love with her, Estella elects to marry the absolute worst of all her suitors, just to spite and hurt the others (including Pip). She suffers in an abusive marriage for years. Pip, after realizing his feelings for his childhood friend Biddy, tries to start a relationship with her, only to learn that she was already in relationship with Joe.
45	* AlmostDeadGuy: Magwitch. Pip visits him for a last time to tell him about his daughter, upon which the old man passes on peacefully. In the 1946 adaptation his head nods melodramatically to one side.
46	* AloneWithThePsycho: Pip is captured and imprisoned by the violently insane Orlick.
47	* AloofDarkHairedGirl: Estella, thanks to Miss Havisham's "training" of her.
48	* AmbitionIsEvil: Pip's infatuation with Estella. Because of her, he wants to be richer and have a better social status, causing him to become ashamed of his perfectly respectable origins, become ungrateful to his hard-working older sister who raised him (even if she was abusive), patronize his childhood friend Biddy and try to "improve" [[GoodIsDumb Joe]], [[NiceGuy the nicest character in the book]], so that he can meet Estella's standards.
49	* {{Angst}}: A ''truckload'', mostly by Pip, as a result of Estella's actions.
50	* AnguishedDeclarationOfLove: Pip to Estella. It has no effect on Estella, but does bring on Miss Havisham's one of the most literal and redundant cases ever of WhatHaveIDone ("and again, ten, twenty, fifty times, what had she done?")
51	-->"Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. [...] You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made, are not more real, or more impossible to be displaced by your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, pad of the little good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation I associate you only with the good, and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. O God bless you, God forgive you!"
52	* AnonymousBenefactor: Pip assumes that the wealthy, eccentric Miss Havisham, guardian of Estella, is his benefactor. To his dismay, he learns that it's really Abel Magwitch, the escaped convict who had intimidated him years ago into stealing food for him.
53	** He's much nicer now. Raising sheep in Australia will do that apparently.
54	* AssholeVictim: Pip's sister and Compeyson.
55	* AwesomenessByAnalysis: Biddy spends so much time watching Pip that he pronounces her, "In theory...as good a blacksmith as I was."
56	* BecauseYouWereNiceToMe: Magwitch spends years trying to enrich Pip because Pip delivered food to him when he was on the run and starving. Of course, he didn't give the boy much choice in the matter.
57	* BeingPersonalIsntProfessional: John Wemmick is like this. At the office of Mr. Jaggers, he's a humorless, slightly unpleasant man who is devoted to the acquisition of 'portable property', while at home he is a joyful, caring, and generally amiable fellow who lived with his ancient father in a whimsical house built like a tiny castle. He's very insistent that his personal and professional lives don't cross.
58	* BigBad: The deceptive and equally cruel Compeyson. He ruins Miss Havisham by pretending to love her, inheriting a lot of money from her (which was his [[EvilPlan goal]] the entire time) and then abandoning her before their supposed marriage and running away with the money. He is also a dangerous criminal, but meets his ultimate doom when Magwitch (whose life he also ruined by using him as a scapegoat to avoid being convicted of his crimes) drowns him.
59	* BigDamnHeroes: Herbert, Startop, and even Trabb's boy come to Pip's rescue in the last act.
60	* BigFancyHouse: Subverted. Satis House ''used'' to be one of these.
61	* BigSisterBully: Pip's older sister is his guardian and verbally and physically thrashes him.
62	* TheBlacksmith: Humble Joe Gargery, working at his forge. Pip often wonders if he'd have been better off if he'd never heard of Estella, which would have left him content to be Joe's apprentice.
63	* BookDumb: Joe Gargery. Illiterate, but generous of spirit.
64	* BoomerangBigot: A young and suggestible Pip turns on everything he considers "common" after Estella disparages him for being common. This comes back to bite him.
65	* BreakTheCutie: Compeyson did this to Miss Havisham, who does the same with Estella.
66	* BreachOfPromiseOfMarriage: Miss Havisham's fiancé abandoned her at the altar. She never got over it.
67	* BreakTheHaughty: Both Pip and Estella.
68	* BrokenBird: Estella, either when she lashes out at Miss Havisham or by the ending, when she's had to live with an abusive husband.
69	* BunnyEarsLawyer: Wemmick is the no-nonsense assistant of Jaggers who spends time with his father ("The Aged Parent") at a whimsical, out-of-the-way cottage in his spare time.
70	* ButForMeItWasTuesday: Pip is rattled when he reminds Estella of how she made him cry the day they first met, and she replies that she doesn't remember.
71	--> '''Pip''': I verily believe that her not remembering and not minding in the least, made me cry again, inwardly—and that is the sharpest crying of all.
72	* CaptainObvious: Estella introducing Pip. "Whom have we here?" [[MathematiciansAnswer "A boy"]]. [[LittleMissSnarker Knowing her, she does it on purpose]].
73	* CentralTheme: The title's "Expectations" refers to "a legacy to come" and thus immediately announces that money, or more specifically wealth plays an important part in the novel. Some other major themes are crime, social class, including both gentility, and social alienation, imperialism and ambition. The novel is also concerned with questions relating to conscience and moral regeneration, as well as redemption through love.
74	* ChangelingFantasy: Subverted -- Pip gains a mysterious, wealthy benefactor and believes that it is Miss Havisham's plan to pair him up with Estella, the young woman he loves, but it turns out that his actual benefactor is the escaped convict he helped at the beginning of the story -- Miss Havisham had nothing to do with it.
75	* CharacterDevelopment: Pip starts out as a naive boy, turns into a social-climbing snob while he's in London, and finally goes home humbler and wiser.
76	* CharacterShilling: In-universe, Miss Haversham constantly describes Estella's beauty and allure to Pip.
77	* ChekhovsGunman: The escaped convict.
78	* ComicallyMissingThePoint: Herbert tells Pip about his fiance's elderly father. When Pip asks, "What does he live on?" Herbert replies, "The first floor." Pip was actually inquiring after the source of his income.
79	* ConnectedAllAlong: Dickens is famous for having a disproportionate number of characters find out that [[OneDegreeOfSeparation they're related to each other]] or met previously, and ''Great Expectations'' is no exception: Pip meets the convict more than once, Jaggers serves as the lawyer of at least three key characters, both of the escaped convicts turn out to be entwined in the other characters' stories, and Estella's parents are both sprinkled throughout the cast. In more detail:
80	** When we first meet them, Magwitch is an escaped convict who runs into Pip while the latter is visiting his parents' graves, and Compeyson is a fellow escapee. Miss Havisham is landlady to Joe's uncle, Pumblechook, while Estella is her ward and Jaggers is a guest at her birthday party. Molly is a maid in Jaggers' house in London.
81	** By the end of the novel, we have learned that Compeyson conspired with Miss Havisham's brother to leave her at the altar and abscond with her dowry. He and Magwitch were later arrested and convicted of circulating stolen money; Jaggers was Magwitch's lawyer in the trial. Magwitch and Molly had a daughter together, though Molly told Magwitch she had destroyed the child. When Jaggers represented Molly in a murder trial and got her acquitted, he resolved to spare her daughter a life of poverty and suffering that he believed would end in her early death, and agreed to the request of another of his clients to adopt her; that client was Miss Havisham, and the girl was Estella.
82	* ContrivedCoincidence: The ending only comes about because Estella and Pip, neither of whom have been to Satis House in many years, both chance to visit it at the exact same time.
83	* CouldSayItBut: Jaggers refuses to confirm or deny his actions involving a certain foundling child, but he puts it to Pip as a purely hypothetical case, which allows him to go into detail without technically admitting anything.
84	* DeadpanSnarker: Estella.
85	-->'''Pip:''' Enough House. That's a curious name, miss.\
86	'''Estella''': It meant, when it was given, that whoever had this house, could want nothing else. They must have been easily satisfied in those days, I should think.
87	* DefeatMeansFriendship: When Pip and Herbert first met they get into a fistfight from which Pip emerges victorious.
88	* DefrostingIceQueen: Estella has thawed by the final chapter.
89	* DiggingToChina: "Without remarking that man-traps were not among the amenities of life, I said I supposed he was very skilful? 'Deep,' said Wemmick, 'as Australia.' Pointing with his pen at the office floor, to express that Australia was understood, for the purposes of the figure, to be symmetrically on the opposite spot of the globe."
90	* DisneyVillainDeath: Subverted with [[BigBad Compeyson]], who meets his end when he falls into a river and drowns after Magwitch attacks him.
91	* DistantFinale: The last chapter is set 11 years after the story has been wrapped up.
92	* DivingSave: A variant in the waters where Pip saves the old convict from the wheels of the paddle steamer.
93	* DoesNotLikeMen: An understatement regarding Miss Havisham.
94	* DoggedNiceGuy: The UrExample with Pip towards Estella. She tells him many times that she can't love anyone, but Pip simply cannot break free.
95	* DomesticAbuse:
96	** Pip's sister is physically and emotionally abusive toward her husband Joe, and to Pip himself. {{Iron\|y}}ically, Joe's mother was abused when he was younger and because of that he fears he will put his own wife (Pip's sister) through the same thing. So, he is rather passive towards her, with the irony being that he is now the abused one and puts up with his wife's abuse of himself and Pip. He does his best to protect him in his own way, though.
97	** Once she marries Drummle -[[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy much to Pip's utter horror]], Estella suffers so badly from this that her marriage ends in separation.
98	* DoorStopper: Depending on how big the type is, editions can run from at least 400 and at most 600 pages. All things considered, you could probably cut the subplots about Mr. Wemmick's father, Mr. Jaggers' death masks, Mr. Wopsle's acting career, and all visits to Herbert's family and pare down about 150 pages without having much effect on the plot, but you'd be missing out on some extra magic in the world Dickens has painted.
99	* EmotionlessGirl: Estella states at more than one point that she has no heart and has never been taught how to love.
100	* EtherealWhiteDress: Miss Havisham is an old woman who always wears her white, tattered wedding dress, and she rarely leaves her room. Her character is utterly defined by her obsession with the man who left her at the altar, and she metaphorically died that day, becoming old, bitter, and refusing to grow.
101	* EverybodyKnewAlready: Pip confides in Herbert about his love for Estella, to which Herbert replies, "Exactly. Well?" When Pip asks him how he knew, Herbert exclaims, "Told me! You have never told me when you have got your hair cut, but I have had senses to perceive it. You have always adored her, ever since I have known you. You brought your adoration and your portmanteau here, together. Told me! Why, you have always told me all day long." Unlike most other examples on this page, Pip feels relieved instead of annoyed that his secret was known all along.
102	* EveryoneIsRelated: Estella turns out to be the child of two characters Pip has had random encounters with: Abel Magwitch and Molly. In addition, the man who left Mrs. Havisham at the altar turns out to be the second escaped criminal that Pip saw when he first met Magwitch.
103	* ExtremelyDustyHome: Miss Havisham's home has not been cleaned or dusted since her aborted wedding twenty-odd years before. Two decades of cobwebs and dust cover everything.
104	* FaceDeathWithDignity: Magwitch goes peacefully, knowing that he's had revenge on Compeyson and believing (thanks to Pip's judicious lie) that Estella grew up to be happy.
105	* FastForwardToReunion: The ending, where Pip and Estella meet again. The circumstances of their reunion depends on which version of the ending you read: there's one where Estella is happily married, and one where she isn't, implying that she and Pip may have a future together.
106	* FemmeFatale: Estella was bred to become this by Miss Havisham.
107	* FetishizedAbuser: Estella is molded into becoming one by Miss Havisham.
108	* {{Foreshadowing}}: Pip has brief visions of Miss Havisham's death.
109	* FunetikAksent: A minor Jewish character speaks with a lithp, which was considered a stereotypically Jewish trait at the time.
110	* GenreBusting: Anyone who calls this a romance is ''greatly'' oversimplifying matters. It has romance, drama, comedy, suspense, a bit of action, a bit of adventure, it's a rags-to-riches story and a coming-of-age story, a possible satire of this and that or even SelfParody, and it has strong elements of mystery and horror. Figure ''that'' out!
111	* GenreDeconstruction: The novel is a rare case of a writer deconstructing all of his previous work. All the normal tropes of Dickens novels (the ChangelingFantasy, saintly dying women, mysterious benefactors, long-lost relatives, etc.) happen like clockwork. Then these tropes are revealed to be a malevolent lie created to manipulate the hero - who has been so morally ruined that he's more like an AntiHero.
112	* GenreMashup: The book contains a variety of literary genres, including the bildungsroman, gothic novel, crime novel, as well as comedy, melodrama and satire; and it belongs—like Wuthering Heights and the novels of Walter Scott—to the romance rather than realist tradition of the novel.
113	* GentleGiant: Joe is physically the most powerful man for miles around and is terrified at the idea of losing his temper and becoming like his abusive father.
114	* GeorgeLucasAlteredVersion: Dickens famously altered his original draft with its DidNotGetTheGirl ending to a MaybeEverAfter ending prior to publication. However, he wasn't done tweaking. The original published version ends with the sentence "I could see the shadow of no parting from her." When a new edition was published in 1868, Dickens changed the last sentence to "I could see no shadow of another parting from her." Critics have suggested that the tweak was done to make the MaybeEverAfter ending a little more uncertain.
115	* GoneHorriblyRight: Estella is raised by Miss Havisham to be the perfect seductress from the time she's young as part of a revenge-by-proxy against all men. By the time she's an adult she is indeed the perfect seductress: a beautiful ManipulativeBitch who "has no heart" and can't feel or give love either to good guy Pip or Miss Havisham.
116	* GrandDame: Miss Havisham definitely qualifies; however, she is also completely insane, having deliberately frozen her life around the exact minute and day that her heart was broken. Astonishingly, she still receives the occasional visitor, and her upbringing of Estella certainly qualifies her for this trope.
117	* HappilyMarried: Joe and Biddy find true happiness with each other when Pip turns his back on both of them for different reasons (Joe because he reminds him of the humble origins he wants to rise above, Biddy because she is not Estella), and by the book's final chapter they have two children together (one named for Pip) for whom they are both adoring parents.
118	* HateSink: From the narration and flashbacks we are given, we learn that Compeyson's an absolutely cruel crook who regularly kicks his wife around, proposed to marry Miss Havisham just to emotionally ruin her and run off with her money, felt relief at his partner-in-crime Arthur dying of shame and over-drinking and pinned it all on poor Magwitch, whom he had forced under his thumb in the first place, condemning him to fourteen years in jail while he got off easy. In the two scenes he appears in, he proves to be nothing but a spineless coward whose ultimate demise is something satisfying indeed.
119	* HaveAGayOldTime: Pops up a couple of times in conversation.
120	-->'''Miss Havisham''': You'll have a gay time and be admired. You must look forward to that.
121	* TheHeckler: After Mr. Wopsle moves to London to pursue his dream of professional acting, Pip and Herbert go to see him as the title character in a terrible production of ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}''. The rest of the audience -- particularly "a sulky man" in the front row of the gallery -- heckles the players mercilessly, to Pip's embarrassment.
122	-->On his taking the recorders, -- very like a little black flute that had just been played in the orchestra and handed out at the door, -- he was called upon unanimously for Rule Britannia. When he recommended the player not to saw the air thus, the sulky man said, "And don't you do it, neither; you're a deal worse than him!"
123	* HeelRealization: When Miss Havisham finally tells Pip that he will not be allowed to marry Estella, and sees the pain in him that she had been waiting for, she is ultimately not satisfied at all and is only left feeling that she did the exact same thing to him that her fiancé did to her (as well as ruining Estella's chances at a normal life in the name of petty RevengeByProxy). By the time Pip next meets her, she's gone from sadistic old woman to a suicidal wreck willing to part with vast amounts of her fortune to try to make it up to him.
124	* HenpeckedHusband: Joe. He's quite content with life, though, and never lets his wife's temper get to him. Joe's traumatic childhood meant he and his mother were frequently abused and when he grew up, because of that, he would never raise his hand to a woman.
125	* HilariouslyAbusiveChildhood: The scenes detailing Pip's childhood (being "brought up by hand" by his volatile sister) are treated comically in his narration, probably because he's laughing at it all in retrospect.
126	* HumanHeadOnTheWall: A variation: Jaggers has masks of the petrified faces of criminals that he represented but who were hanged decorating his office.
127	* HypocriticalHumor: Pip attends a very bad amateur production of ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}''. At the point where the actor playing Hamlet speaks the line "Don't saw the air thus", a heckler points out that the actor is doing exactly the same thing.
128	* ICouldaBeenAContender: Subverted--Pip learns to resign himself to being, at best, a mildly successful businessman.
129	* IJustWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: Even after he learns he was never meant for Estella, Pip still begs her to reject the abusive Drummle and marry someone who actually ''loves'' her.
130	* IKissYourHand: Pip does this to Miss Havisham twice, before going to London and after returning.
131	* IWouldSayIfICouldSay: Jaggers is fond of this. Wemmick at one point too.
132	* IntentionalHeartbreaker: Estella Havisham is Pip's love interest, whom he thinks he's being groomed to wed because he's under the mistaken belief that her adopted mother, Miss Havisham, is his secret benefactor helping to advance him in society. In reality, Miss Havisham has been grooming Estella to be her weapon to take revenge on men in general by making them fall in love with her then breaking their hearts. Estella herself claims she has no real affections for anyone due to her training.
133	* IntergenerationalFriendship: Pip and Joe, his older sister's husband.
134	* JacobMarleyWarning: Pip can become either Jaggers (the bad choice) or Herbert (the good choice).
135	* {{Jerkass}}: Estella, Drummle, Miss Havisham, Pip's sister, Pumblechook, sometimes Jaggers, and, once he becomes a gentleman, Pip himself.
136	* JerkWithAHeartOfGold:
137	** Jaggers is unpleasant to be around and is certainly a grey-morality type of guy, but reveals HiddenDepths by the end.
138	** Wemmick, who is a hard-edged clerk at the office and dotes on his Aged Parent at home.
139	* JustBetweenYouAndMe: Orlick confesses to attacking Mrs. Joe and spying on Pip.
140	* KarmicDeath: Drummle, after abusing Estella for their entire marriage, is killed by [[TheDogBitesBack a horse he'd mistreated.]]
141	* LargeHam: Mr. Wopsle, the clerk at the village church, is described as having "a deep voice which he was uncommonly proud of", and delivers both his contributions to church services and the grace at Christmas dinner as if he were acting in a Shakespeare tragedy. Since he lacks the formal education to join the clergy, he decides to put the oratorical gifts he believes he possesses to better use as a professional actor, with limited success at best.
142	* LawOfInverseFertility: The Pockets have been producing children at a rate that far outstrips Mr. Pocket's desire for them (or, for that matter, Mrs. Pocket's interest in them).
143	* LessonsInSophistication: Pip finds himself receiving a large sum of money from a mysterious benefactor so he can become a gentleman in London.
144	* LetThemDieHappy: While he knows she's unlikely happy with Drummle, Pip tells Magwitch that his daughter lived and has become a beautiful young lady so the man can die happy.
145	* LonelyAtTheTop: Pip becomes a wealthy gentleman, abandoning his poor but decent friends back home and becoming as shallow as the {{Rich Bitch}}es he's surrounded with to do so. And he doesn't even get the girl. (He only gets her in the revised ending, depending which one.)
146	* LoveAtFirstSight: The moment Pip sees Estella for the first time, he's essentially [[LoveMartyr dooming himself to years of pain]].
147	* LoveMakesYouEvil: Not so with anyone but Miss Havisham, so maybe it's more of a FreudianExcuse for her madness and obsessiveness.
148	* LoveMartyr: Pip suffers for Estalla, poor chap.
149	* LukeIAmYourFather: Magwitch, a convict on the run, is revealed to be not just Estella's father, but also Pip's mysterious benefactor.
150	* MarriageOfConvenience: Miss Havisham raises Estella to be a heartless man-eater who woos men only to completely deny them, and then marries the most boring, rich man she can find so that she can continue doing so but with money. She then grows a heart by being cold when a horse kills her husband and questionably finally gets together with Pip. Miss Havisham trains Estella to want these things because she (Miss H) was left at the altar by the man she wanted to MarryForLove, because he is a criminal.
151	* MathematiciansAnswer: Pip is asking Herbert about Herbert's prospective father-in-law.
152	--> “What is he now?” said I.\
153	“He’s an invalid now,” replied Herbert.\
154	“Living on——?”\
155	“On the first floor,” said Herbert. Which was not at all what I meant, for I had intended my question to apply to his means.”
156	* MaybeEverAfter: The (revised) ending suggests that Pip and Estella shall never part.
157	--> "I saw no shadow of another parting from her."
158	* MeaningfulAppearance: Miss Havisham's backstory and refusal to move on are conveyed through the aged wedding dress she refuses to take off. She wears it in all of her scenes, which motivates Pippin to discover the circumstances behind her abandonment at the altar.
159	* MeaningfulName: Satis (Enough) House.
160	** [[StellarName Estella]] is as beautiful, remote and lonely as her name suggests.
161	** Miss Havisham's (Have is sham) name foreshadows the deceptive nature of material wealth.
162	** "Pip" has several meanings. One is a seed, and given that the book is all about his CharacterDevelopment, growing from a child into a mature adult, this meaning is very appropriate. The word can also refer to the symbols on playing cards (hearts and spades and so on), signifying how Pip is used as a pawn or a symbol, with little agency of his own.
163	* MiseryBuildsCharacter:
164	** The suffering and pain Pip goes through in the third act of the novel leaves him sadder but wiser, accounting for the mournful tone of his narration as he remembers what a jerkass he was.
165	** Estella's suffering in her miserable, abusive marriage to the awful Drummle causes the former EmotionlessGirl to develop a new ability for empathy. She says "I have been bent and broken, but--I hope--into a better shape."
166	* MissingMom: Pip lost his mother and was left to be raised by his older sister and her husband.
167	* TheMourningAfter: Miss Havisham became a hermit in her own home after being betrayed and jilted by Compeyson, remaining dressed in her wedding dress with the clocks stopped at the time she was betrayed, and the rotten wedding feast in place.
168	* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Miss Havisham's lament when she realizes how she's warped Estella's ability to feel.
169	** Averted in another instance; upon discovering how warped Estella has become, Mr. Jaggers acknowledges that it is very unfortunate that she ended up that way, but (quite rightly) doesn't feel responsible for it, since he deliberately went out of his way to do the right thing based on the information he had at the time and had no way of knowing how it would turn out.
170	* MysteriousBenefactor: An unknown person for unknown reasons suddenly bestows on Pip a large sum of money, and a place in London where he can learn to be a gentleman.
171	* NarrativeFiligree: Dickens did this throughout his career, filling his story with asides and meanderings. One entire chapter stops the plot dead, as Pip and Herbert go to see Mr. Wopsle's disastrous production of ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}''.
172	* NarrativeProfanityFilter: A character's repeated uses of the word "damn" are printed as "bless". It's unclear whether this is censored or whether it's what he's actually saying.
173	* NeverMyFault: Orlick, who, as Pip points out, is responsible for his own misfortune and reputation due to his bad attitude, but still blames Pip for all of it. This leads to him crippling Pip's sister and trying to kill Pip himself later on.
174	* NiceGirl: Biddy is a very sweet, gentle girl, basically the foil to Estella.
175	* NiceGuy:
176	** Joe Gargery is a GentleGiant, respected by everyone, and the only person (along with Biddy) to be genuinely kind to Pip during his childhood.
177	** Herbert Pocket, Pip's roommate, is a pleasant and happy fellow who strikes up a friendship with Pip immediately and provides a nice {{foil}} to Pip's melancholic temperament.
178	** Although he's less developed than the other two, Startop is a nice guy, who helps Pip in many ways.
179	* NeverSayDie: Joe is reluctant to tell Pip that Miss Havisham has ''died'' as such, but his attempt at being delicate about it comes out to, "She ain't living."
180	* NoDoubtTheYearsHaveChangedMe: When Estella and Pip meet at the ending after many years apart (Pip has been living abroad for 11 years), she says "I am greatly changed. I wonder you know me."
181	* NoFullNameGiven: Pip is raised by his sister and her husband Joe, but the sister's given name is never mentioned. She is only referred to as "Mrs. Joe" (even by her brother and husband) or "my sister" till near the end of the book, when Pumblechook states she “was Georgiana M'ria from her own mother."
182	* NoNameGiven: Wemmick's father, [[OnlyKnownByTheirNickname who is referred to as "the Aged" by everyone, even his own son.]]
183	* NouveauRiche: Though Pip was discontent with his lower-class upbringing even before he came into money, his newfound fortune just makes this worse. He has to learn how to navigate wealthy society once he receives his inheritance.
184	* ObliviousToLove: Right at the start, though he realizes it later. For goodness' sake, Pip, Biddy is ''right there''!
185	* OlderThanTheyLook: Although Miss Havisham has often been portrayed in film versions as very elderly, Dickens's own notes indicate that she is only in her mid-thirties at the start of the novel. However, it is indicated in the novel that her long life away from the sunlight has aged her.
186	* OneDegreeOfSeparation: Not only is Magwitch Estella's father, but Compeyson, who was on the run with Magwitch, was Miss Havisham's former lover.
187	* OneSteveLimit: There is Georgiana, as in Pip's mother who he calls "Also Georgiana" early on, and a different Georgiana in the Pocket family. Of course, neither of them have much of an important role, so it's easily overlooked. Pip's sister is also named Georgiana after her mother, but her full name is only mentioned near the end of the book (most of the time she's just "my sister" or "Mrs. Joe"), so that's easy to overlook as well.
188	* ParentheticalSwearing: One scene has Pip's sister say "Lord bless the boy!" in a way that makes it sound quite the opposite.
189	* PetTheDog: Despite cultivating the image of an AmoralAttorney, Jaggers' revelation of how he deliberately prevented the infant Estella from growing up among the "spawn" that he sees go to the gallows on a daily basis shows that he does have a heart. Also, Estella herself shows some compassion to Pip by telling him he needs to love elsewhere, as she is heartless (which actually means she's not entirely heartless).
190	* PickOnSomeoneYourOwnSize: Miss Havisham uses Pip as a proxy for the man who left her at the altar. Only at the point of death does she realize just how unfair she has been to both Pip and Estella. Not only age and gender but also social class factor into the power disparity: Havisham is a very wealthy dowager; Pip an orphan apprenticed to a blacksmith.
191	* PreInsanityReveal: Miss Havisham used to be sane, but went mad after discovering that her fiancé had swindled her out of her fortune and run off on what was supposed to be their wedding day. She shut herself off from the rest of the world, never leaving her house or even changing out of her wedding dress, and eventually conceived of a plan to adopt a girl so that she could raise her to break men's hearts the way that her fiancé broke hers.
192	* ThePresentsWereNeverFromSanta: Pip believes his sudden endowment to be from Miss Havisham to groom him into a proper husband for her ward, Estella. He's quite shocked to find otherwise. PlayedWith because he knows for a fact that he does have an anonymous benefactor, it's just his guess is incorrect; it's actually the convict he helped at the beginning of the book.
193	* PrisonShip: Magwitch has escaped from a prison ship, and is transported to Australia on one.
194	* PromotionToParent: Pip was brought up by his (much older) sister and her husband after their parents died.
195	* PurpleProse: Pip describes how beautiful Estella is pretty much every time she appears, which goes dangerously into Purple Prose territory. Justified in that Pip was a child who had fallen in love, and since the story is told from his perspective it makes sense that he would think like this. It's also quite possible that Dickens [[InvokedTrope intended the descriptions to be somewhat silly]], considering how much emphasis the book places on Pip outgrowing his childishness.
196	* PutOnABus: After Pip is apprenticed to Joe, Estella goes off to study abroad.
197	* RagsToRiches: A mysterious benefactor provides for Pip to be elevated from a lower-class lifestyle to live in London as a wealthy gentleman. Naturally, this doesn't quite turn out as well for Pip as he had hoped.
198	* RedHerring: Miss Havisham is constantly built up as Pip's mysterious benefactor, with large paragraphs devoted entirely to Pip revolving her possible motives and hidden mind games, until the end of the second volume, where it turns out to have been Abel Magwitch.
199	* TheReveal: The story is pretty straightforward, up until you get to the end of Part II, in which Pip's benefactor turns out to be none other than Abel Magwitch, the convict he helped early in the first chapter, who just so happens to be a very rich felon. From there, almost every chapter in the book contains its own plot twist (which makes sense, as the book was orignally released as a serial).
200	* RevisedEnding: The book originally had a {{Bittersweet\|Ending}} / DidNotGetTheGirl ending in which Pip meets Estella one last time and finds out she has [[HappilyMarried Happily Remarried]], after which they part as friends. Dickens' friend and colleague Creator/EdwardBulwerLytton--that's right, the ItWasADarkAndStormyNight guy--got a sneak preview of the original ending, and recommended Dickens write a different ending which wasn't so downbeat. Dickens then wrote a more hopeful MaybeEverAfter which was published. Dickens himself seemed [[http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_19c/dickens/ending.html content with the result]]. The original draft ending was not published until 1937; modern printings of the novel commonly include the original ending as an appendix (see DeletedScene in the [[Trivia/GreatExpectations Trivia]] section).
201	* RememberTheNewGuy: It isn't until chapter 15 that we learn that Joe has had another apprentice all along; apparently Pip just never thought to mention Orlick before. (In reality, this was because the novel was originaly published serially, meaning Dickens couldn't go back to add the new character to earlier chapters.)
202	* RunawayGroom: Easily the most famous case of this is Miss Havisham's runaway groom Compeyson. He only got close to her to defraud her of her money and once he completed this, he sent her a letter informing her of the truth just short of the wedding and then beat town. Miss Havisham goes crazy and hates men for the rest of her life.
203	* ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney: Magwitch's illegal return from Australia, which prompts Pip to have a ScrewTheMoneyIHaveRules epiphany.
204	* SecondLove: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]]. Pip returns to Biddy with the intention of proposing only for her to have already accepted Joe's. Poor kid can't get a break.
205	* SelfFulfillingProphecy: Compeyson is terrified that Magwitch will kill him. His very actions to dispose of Magwitch by getting him arrested not only alert Magwitch to his presence (as Magwitch didn't even know he was still alive), but gives him the opening to actually kill Compeyson.
206	* SelfMadeMan: The benefactor is a ringing example. From escaped convict to Wealthy Australian.
207	* SentencedToDownUnder: Happens to Magwitch.
208	* SheIsAllGrownUp: When Pip returns to Miss Havisham's after an absence of many years, he completely fails to recognize the beautiful young woman attending Miss Havisham, until the woman looks directly at him and he recognizes Estella's eyes.
209	* TheShowMustGoWrong: Mr. Wopsle stars in a production of ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'' that is a complete disaster, with nonstop heckling from the crowd. Fortunately (?) he’s so GiftedlyBad that he doesn’t care.
210	* ShrineToSelf: Miss Havisham's decaying mansion. All the clocks are stopped at the moment that her would-be groom betrayed her, she still wears her wedding dress as a grim reminder, and the dining room table remains set with the rotten wedding feast and cake. She proposes to have her body laid out there when she dies.
211	* TheShutIn: Miss Havisham was jilted on her wedding day and spent the rest of her life shut up in her mansion, still wearing her wedding dress, as the house decays around her.
212	* SingleTargetSexuality: From the time he's a child, Pip has eyes only for Estella.
213	* SocialClimber: One reason why the book is regarded as highly mature is that Dickens finally critiques his use of the trope in showing the social-climbing hero Pip to be a bit of a snob in his yearning for social respectability, only to discover that the Mysterious Backer of his rise up the social ladder was not the rich Mrs. Haversham as he had assumed but the poor convict Magwitch. This starts his Character Development.
214	* SpeechImpediment: Abraham Lazarus, the Jewish man who accosts Jaggers, has a prominent lisp, and adds H's in front of vowels at the beginnings of words. One of the Pockets' children is too young to enunciate properly, despite being mature enough to make sure her idiot mother doesn't negligently let the baby hurt itself, and keep doing so even after she's been rebuked for her impertinence.
215	* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''Literature/DavidCopperfield''. They both trace the psychological and moral development of a young boy to maturity, his transition from a rural environment to the London metropolis, the vicissitudes of his emotional development, and the exhibition of his hopes and youthful dreams and their metamorphosis, through a rich and complex first person narrative. Dickens was conscious of this similarity and, before undertaking his new manuscript, reread ''David Copperfield'' to avoid repetition.
216	* StoppedClock: Miss Havisham has all the clocks in her house stopped at twenty minutes to nine -- the moment she learned she had been jilted on her wedding day.
217	* TakingYouWithMe: Magwitch is captured, meaning he'll be executed for returning to England, but realizes [[BigBad Compeyson]] is within arm's reach. Even though he knows it'll ruin any chances of him not getting the death sentence, he grabs Compeyson and pulls him into the water where he drowns him. He also ultimately dies due to the injuries he sustained in the process.
218	* TechnicallyASmile: When Wemmick smiles at Pip, Pip notes it to be a hollow and somewhat unsettling gesture. It's especially odd because otherwise, Wemmick is a pleasant and kind man.
219	* TeenDrama: One of the first examples.
220	* TitleDrop: When Jaggers informs Pip of his MysteriousBenefactor.
221	-->'''Jaggers''': The communication I have got to make is, that he has ''great expectations''.
222	* TookALevelInJerkass: Pip, due to his exposure to [[EvilOldFolks Miss Havisham]] and [[RichBitch Estella]].
223	* TookALevelInKindness: Estella at the ending; her misery in her abusive relationship with Drummle has made her into a person with feelings for the first time.
224	* {{Tykebomb}}: Miss Havisham was left at the altar and swore revenge against all men, so she adopted a baby girl named Estella and raised her to be a sociopathic heart-breaker.
225	* UnexpectedInheritance: Pip receives inheritance completely out of left field, becomes rich and arrogant, finds out who his benefactor is, squanders money, gets the girl (it is implied at least), and becomes less arrogant.
226	* UnluckyChildhoodFriend: Biddy, who can't make any headway with Pip. Subverted when she is lucky enough to find true love with Joe.
227	* UnrequitedLove: Poor Pip spends most of his life pining for Estella, even though everyone (including Estella herself) tells him he has absolutely no chance.
228	* UnusualEuphemism: "Tickler" is the nickname of the stick Pip's sister uses to beat him.
229	* UnfortunateNames: Orlick claims his first name is Dolge, although Pip says this is "a clear impossibility" since he would never have been christened that in a church.
230	* WakingUpElsewhere: After the death of the old convict, Pip runs home and falls into his bed in a fever, only to discover on his waking that he is now at Joe's house.
231	* WhatIsThisThingYouCallLove: The beautiful but icy Estella claims to Pip that she has no heart, implicitly as a result of Miss Havisham's raising of her as a breaker of men's hearts. When Miss Havisham entreats for her love and affection in return for hers, she coolly replies that she cannot give her back what she has never been given. She is later defrosted by Pip, if you follow the revised ending or movie adaptations.
232	* WrongGuyFirst: Assuming that the MaybeEverAfter ending pays off, that is. But Estella is certainly better off with Pip than with the abusive Drummle.
233	* WouldNotHitAGirl: Joe Gargery grew up in an abusive home where his father hit his mother, and as a result resolved to never hit a woman. Unhappily, this makes him the victim of more physical abuse from his wife.
234	----
235	!! Tropes found in adaptations:
236
237	* BalconyWooingScene: In one of the movies, Ethan Hawke yells "Everything I have ever does has been for you!" from the street-level. The receiving Estella is aloof to his affection.
238	* RemakeCameo: Creator/JeanSimmons (Young Estella in the 1946 adaptation) would later play Miss Havisham in ''Great Expectations'' (1989).
239	* SettingUpdate: The 1998 movie moves the story to the present day.
240	* StaggeredZoom: The 1999 miniseries ends with a Staggered Zoom out from Pip and Estella as they play cards in Satis House.
241	* TallDarkAndHandsome: Several adaptations make Pip this, especially the 1999 version. (And in fact the original illustrations of the Dickens novel do suggest this.)
242	* TeasingFromBehindTheLanguageBarrier: In the 1998 movie, after spending a night with Pip, Estella tells him in French "Je vais aller en France demain" ("I have to go to France tomorrow"), assuming he wouldn't understand. He doesn't, and is really surprised the next day when he finds out that she left him.

Context Literature / GreatExpectations