Great Expectations is the work Charles Dickens is most famous for (excluding
A Christmas Carol,
Oliver Twist and
A Tale Of Two Cities), as the multitude of high school students assigned this 300+ page book will attest. Ironically, it is his most unconventional work; Dickens
deconstructed many of his trademark plots and characters in it, including the Mysterious Benefactor and Rags to Riches tale. The main character Pip is also far from the simple-minded innocents of
David Copperfield and
Oliver Twist and arguably has undergone the most
Character Development as a result.
Pip starts the book as a
guileless orphan who lives under the thumb of his shrewish older sister Mrs. Joe, only marginally mollified by her simple-minded but good-hearted husband Joe. His 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 Estella there, Pip's mindset changes and he begins to resent his simplistic upbringing and the middling blacksmith career and life that seem inevitable for him.
Then, out of nowhere, Mr. Jaggers shows up at Pip's doorstep and tells his stunned family that he has "great expectations" bestowed upon him by a mysterious benefactor. 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 Drummel, 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 mature by confronting a variety of surprises, disappointments, and unexpected revelations.
Great Expectations has been subject to many a film adaptation, and even a
Completely Different South Park parody.
Tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Or, rather, abusive elder sister.
- Anguished Declaration Of Love: Pip to Estella. It has no effect on Estella, but does bring on Miss Havisham's What Have I Done.
- Big Fancy House: Subverted. Satis House used to be one of these.
- Book Dumb: Joe Gargery.
- Bunny Ears Lawyer: 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.
- Changeling Fantasy: Subverted — Pip gains a mysterious, wealthy benefactor and believes that it is Miss Havisham's plan to pair him up with Estella, the 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.
- Contrived Coincidence: Dickens is famous for having a disproportionate number of characters find out that they're related to each other or met previously, and Great Expectations is no exception: Pip meets the convict more than once, Miss Havisham has the same lawyer as Magwitch, Miss Havisham's former lover is Compeyson who was acquainted with Magwitch, Magwitch is Estella's father, etc.
- Crowning Moment Of Awesome: Pip, Joe the Blacksmith, and Magwitch trashing Miss Havisham's robot monkey army. Best adaption of classical literature ever.
- Emotionless Girl: Estella states at more than one point that she has no heart and has never been taught how to love.
- Extremely Dusty Home
- Face Death With Dignity: Magwitch.
- Femme Fatale: Estella was bred to become this by Miss Havisham.
- Foreshadowing: Pip has brief visions of Miss Havisham hanging by the neck.
- I Coulda Been A Contender: Subverted—Pip learns to resign himself to being, at best, a mildly successful businessman.
- Jerk With A Heart Of Gold: Jaggers, who acts like a money-grubbing lawyer and a generally awful person, including his awful treatment of Molly, right up until you find out that he is responsible for Estella's escape from the gutter, as an infant.
- Just Between You And Me: Right before he attempts to murder Pip, Orlick reveals that he was the one who fractured Mrs. Joe's skull. In addition, Orlick has been spying on Pip and Magwitch.
- Law Of Inverse Fertility: 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).
- Lonely At The Top: Pip becomes a wealthy gentleman, abandoning his poor but decent friends back home and becoming as shallow as the Rich Bitches he's surrounded with to do so. And he doesn't even get the girl. (He only gets her in the revised ending when he switches from his extravagant life to a more frugal one.)
- Luke I Am Your Father: Magwitch, a convict on the run, is revealed to be not just Estella's father, but also Pip's mysterious benefactor.
- In addition, Jaggers' housekeeper is Estella's mother.
- Man On Fire: Miss Havisham's death.
- My God What Have I Done: Miss Havisham's lament when she realizes how she's warped Estella's ability to feel.
- Rags To Riches
- Runaway Groom: Compeyson dumped Miss Havishma at the altar, as she was dressing for the ceremony.
- Revised Ending: Pip and Estella walk away hand-in-hand in the revised ending; they merely say farewells to each other in the original ending.
- Screw The Rules I Have Money: Magwitch's illegal return from Australia, which prompts Pip to have a Screw The Money I Have Rules epiphany.
- Tear Jerker: Magwitch's death.
- Twice Told Tale: Peter Carey's Jack Maggs (which also qualifies as a Start Of Darkness).
