by Charles Dickens, 1861
Pip as a young boy meets an escaped convict in a church cemetery. The convict scares him into bringing him food and a file to cut off his leg iron. Pip does this. Pip lives with a much older sister and her blacksmith husband, a saint of a man, Joe Gargery. The sister is a mean, abusive woman, to both Joe and Pip.
Pip gets hired by a rich, broken-hearted woman, Miss Havisham. He goes to her house and entertains her and her adopted daughter, Estella. Pip falls in love with beautiful Estella as a young lad the first day he meets her.
Pip grows and becomes an apprentice to Joe in the forge. He is dissatisfied with the commonness of his life and relatives, when he comes into his Great Expectations by anonymously donated money. He moves to London, meets good friend Herbert, the genius lawyer Mr. Jaggers and his clerk, Wemmick.
After years of the good life, Pip meets his true benefactor, the convict he helped so long ago, who had been exiled from England and earned his fortune all for Pip – to make him a gentleman.
Pip recoils from him at first but gradually, with Herbert’s help, learns all about him – he is actually Estella’s father! The convict’s wife had killed a woman in a jealous rage but Jaggers was able to get her off – the woman becomes Jaggers’ housekeeper and Jaggers takes Estella, then 3 yrs old, and gives her to Miss Havisham to raise. Miss Havisham was jilted by an evil man, Compeyson, who led a life of crime and coaxed the convict (Magwitch) to join him. When he gets caught, the jury pins it all on Magwitch. Magwitch knows nothing about his daughter still being alive – Pip figures it all out and reveals it to Magwitch (Mr. Provis) as he lay dying in the prison hospital. Pip tried to get Magwitch back out of England before he got caught but Compeyson finds him and turns him in – exciting river escape attempt ending with Magwitch grabbing Compeyson out of his boat and them both going under. Magwitch comes up alive but wounded and then arrested. Penalty of death since he was never to return to England. Compeyson drowns.
Estella was raised by Miss Havisham to be cold-hearted and cruel. Pip always thought his benefactor was Miss Havisham but when he finds out it isn’t, he confronts Miss Havisham and exposes her cruelty – to raise this beautiful daughter and toy with Pip all these years – thinking there was hope for him to marry Estella. Miss Havisham shows deep remorse when her cruelty is exposed. But Estella goes and marries a real turd – Drummle – against Pip’s warnings.
Years later, Pip returns to Miss Havisham’s (now deceased-mansion torn down) to visit the old place and finds Estella there! By that time, she had endured an abusive marriage to Drummle, who died while abusing a horse. She is now a widow and realizes the good heart in Pip.
Last paragraph: “I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so, the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.”
What a rich, beautiful tale! The characters so deep and picturesque. The growing up of Pip from young, sweet boy, to young gentleman who gradually learns that goodness of heart is never something to be ashamed of (he was often ashamed of Joe as he grew up after meeting Estella and coming into his expectations).
The clerk, Wemmick, was one of my favorite characters. He and Pip become special friends – Wemmick lives in a little cottage he turns into a tiny castle with a moat and everything. Wemmick takes care of his aged parent (Aged P.) with love, patience, and tenderness.
I haven’t mentioned Biddy – She was a young girl who ends up befriending Pip as a boy, teaching him, then coming to help Joe and Pip’s sister – who by that time was completely destroyed mentally by a murder attempt that left her alive but barely. Biddy nurses Pip’s sister until she dies. Biddy loves Pip but knows he loves Estella.
After many, many years, Pip decides to return to the forge and ask Biddy to marry him – he arrives on the day of Biddy’s wedding to Joe! Pip is so very happy for them – he truly loves them both. That is when he goes to the garden and meets Estella there.
The relationships between Joe and Pip as a young boy, Pip and Herbert (dear friend), Wemmick and the Aged P, Biddy and Pip’s sister, Pip and Provis (Magwitch), Joe and Pip (Joe comes to London to nurse Pip back to health) are full of self-sacrificing love, care, devotion. Sometimes humor.
Miss Havisham is a very interesting character. She is jilted on her wedding day (by Compeyson) and she never recovers. She stops all the clocks in the mansion, she leaves her wedding dress on, she never goes outside again, she leaves the dining room with wedding cake on the table. When Pip is there the cake is full of cobwebs, spiders, mice. When Pip finally confronts her years later when he finds out she is not his benefactor and that he was merely used to be a toy to Estella’s cruelty, she shows deep remorse. Pip decides to walk through the garden and then leave forever (the garden and all the grounds are decayed and wretched). He decides to check on her one last time and she has gotten too near the fire and bursts into flames. Pip saves her life by wrapping her in his cloak. His arm and hands get burned in the process. I have not written this book report in very good order, but it is such a rich, detailed, engrossing tale! I loved it!
Thank you, God, for Charles Dickens and Mark Twain, my 2 favorite authors!