When I was considering Great Expectations, this word longing is the first thing that came to my mind. The whole novel is infused with passion, will, and frustration.
Charles Dickens treats the reader with the figure of Pip, who lives as an orphan in a family of cruel sister, Joe the blacksmith. His life is met with an evening of simply working only to be driven into a new strange world by a series of events. Written in the form of a girlhood romance about family set near the marshes, the book blossoms into a story of love, betrayal, shame and self-discovery. It is not merely such a tale of class or money. It is a mirror showing how far people can go in attempts to shed the past that they have when in the process they discover that, escape is not always freedom.
Pip first appears as a naiive boy who still hopes to get something more. His life begins to turn around when he meets Miss Havisham a rich spinster stuck in history with her wedding dress having not been taken off long after being dumped. Her home, Satis House, is like a tomb and inside it are the beautiful girl Pip cannot resist, Estella. Estella is brought up to break hearts and Pip is an ideal victim.
His admiration of her revives his embarrassment over his primitive background. This is the event that plants the seed of discontent so that it would grow into an obsession with becoming a gentleman.
This is one of the strongest threads in relation to this book of shame. Pip begins despising Joe, the only other actual father figure in his life because Joe is of a rude working-class background that Pip is to leave behind. The reading of the moments was heartbreaking. I wanted to shake Pip and remind him that there are things more costly as love and loyalty.
I sympathized with him, however. Who has not experienced the searing indignity of gauging themselves against somebody wealthier, cleverer and better bred? Dickens gets so close to that foul but all too human instinct that he makes one feel sick.
Then the unknown luck One day Pip finds he has been received some money, sent to him anonymously, and thinks Miss Havisham is training him to be Estella. He goes to London; he hopes his future as a gentleman to be ensured. Now here is where Dickens is playing with illusion. Pip believes to know who stands behind his fate but the truth is much more sinister and grim. The money is in no way Miss Havisham. It arrives as a gift of Magwitch, a convict who Pip helped as a boy. When that twist is shown, everything is different. It dispaws the illusions of Pip and makes him accept the reality as to what he is turned out to be.
The high London life, with all the money and new associates does not make Pip happier. It rather increases his ego and separates him further with Joe and Biddy who was a nice girl who was caring towards the boy. Pip ends up being the thing he hates the most cold, ungrateful and blind to what the real love can be.
The chapters were frustrating to read but that is what made his redemption more effective later on. Pip does not get an easy ride, though, by Dickens He tortures him and makes him think until he arrives at what should matter.
Miss Havisham is one of the most ghostly characters in the story. She represents an indicator of what can occur when suffering is not monitored. Having been cheated on her wedding day by her long-term lover, she is a ghost that lives in the ruins and instructs Estella on how to break hearts to revenge her lover.
Estella on the other hand is among the most complicated characters that Dickens ever designed. Cold, distant and yet diagonally vulnerable, she is the representative of her upbringing. Pip adores her so much that he does this despite the fact that she tells him she cannot love him. The emotional centre of the novel is lodged in that unrequited love. Pip is also obsessed with Estella and this goes together with his obsession with the feeling of being rich and of vanity as something which can never fulfill him the way he wants. Estella does not fall in love with Pip and though this is painful, it is true to life. Love does not always win over everything
My favorite thing about Great Expectations is the cost of ambition which it depicts. Pip dreamed of overcoming his poor upbringing and climbing to a higher social rank but this was, in fact, replaced by a feeling of emptiness because of the lack of gratitude. His trip to and back in London is not about becoming rich and winning Estella. It is the search to find humility and love again. The fact that after years of ignoring Joe and Biddy, he learns to appreciate the two people, makes the story so redemptive. One can be perfect even at the age of mistakes.
The other interesting thing is the way Dickens comments about class. Throughout the book, the question of what a gentleman is always looms. Or is it riches? Is it teaching? Is it benignity and virtue? Joe, the illiterate blacksmith and the genuine gentleman is depicted to be most faithful and hearted. In the meantime, such refined characters are usually cruel, vain or lying. Dickens helps to shatter the conception of status being related to a respectable person. He tells us that it is the human value in the way we treat other people that matters and not how society classifies us.
His ending of the book has been endlessly argued, because there are two endings left by Dickens. In the other Pip and Estella separate and the audience sees them with a type of sweet conclusion. In the updated version they see each other again and walk away together leaving hope to see their future. I like the ambiguity myself. Life rarely comes in pretty packages and Dickens knew this. It does not matter whether Pip and Estella finally reunite or not but what is important is that Pip changed. His expectations which were pegged on wealth and status have been perturbed to be based on humility and acceptance.
Reading Great Expectations I still feel applicable The longing to belong to a certain group, the disappointment of not being adequate, the desire to overcome the stereotypes of one social group and become a part of another one- all these are the states that human beings experience not just in this generation. Dickens wrote in the nineteen hundreds but what he wrote applies to everyone who has dreamed a dream, or loved too much. The language can be old-fashioned here and there, yet the emotional essence is eternal.
To me, the greatest lesson in the novel is the fact that love, undermined by pride is the only thing that lasts. Joe never ceases to look after Pip even when he disowns him. Biddy never ceases to manifest quiet affection Even Magwitch, the convict risk all in the presence of gratitude to Pip. These bonds bring us the thought that kindness is of more value than cash or status. At the bottom of it all, the redemption of Pip does not consist of his salvaging Estella or of his retaining his wealth. It is about understanding that those among which he used to disregard the major treasures in his life merely.
Should you be considering to read this novel, then have tolerance with it. It starts painfully slow and the language might feel heavy, but it is very rich and touching. Dickens understood how to incorporate mystery, humor and heartbreak into a tapestry. The marshes, the decrepit mansion and the busy city streets of London in the 1800s all seem to take on the identities of characters prevading in the book. Soon enough you adjust to the pace of the writing, and the world gets you.
Great Expectations is not only a coming-of-age. It is an admonitory warning against ambition, a tour of different classes, and a poignant reflection upon what really counts. Pip and the way he goes through the process of shame all the way to humility is maddening at moments, but he is so moving and so captivating to watch that it is impossible not to be impressed.
I ended up reading the book with a heavy heart but with gratitude as well. Appreciation of the reminder that without kind heart success is nothing. Appreciation in thought that one can always be redeemed, no matter the level of apostasy. Thanks to Dickens who could form out of something so ordinary as the desire of a boy one of the most memorable tales ever told.
