Great Expectations is a novel by Charles Dickens and was first published in short parts from December 1860 to August 1861. It’s widely considered to be the masterpiece of Dickens’ work and has been adapted in to several movies and at least a few tv series.
Great Expectations tells the story of Philip Pirrip, commonly referred to as Pip, from his childhood through to his thirties. The story focuses on Pip’s growth both physically and mentally. It’s a very typical coming-of-age book as it not only shows the better parts of Pip’s life, but explores the downsides of his great expectations as well. The title, Great Expectations, is a reference to Pip suddenly becoming wealthy and therefore having greater expectations than he would have had without the money.
The book’s main character and narrator is, as said before, Pip. In the beginning of the book Pip is an orphan living with his sister and his sister’s husband. The book has a very interesting set of characters who all have their own motives that are expertly woven in to the fabric of the story. As the story is told from Pip’s perspective the difficult relationships he has with some characters are painfully clear. The two very constant relationships throughout the book from Pip’s youth to the very end of the story are the ones with his brother-in-law Joe and the unattainable love of his life, Estella. Estella is an interesting character as she is shown to be awfully cold to Pip and yet, Pip never lets go of her. One might question whether or not that’s healthy, but in the true fashion of literature, Pip’s love for Estella is portrayed as almost undying. But of course, one must not look past the character of Joe. Throughout the book Pip mentions feeling that he has let Joe down by not visiting him or sending him letters as regularly as he should have. This might describe the fact that after coming in to wealth, people often disregard their previous friends and family. Indeed, Pip even specifically mentions being ashamed of Joe as Pip watches Estella. Thus, Estella and Joe, in an odd way, represent the two sides of Pip’s life.
Great Expectations was written in the 1860s and that is very obvious in the style that it is written. The English used in it is somewhat old and Dickens uses several words that are no longer common. However, the thing that makes Great Expectations a little difficult to read is Dickens’ way of writing the characers’ speech. In the first chapter Magwitch demands Pip to bring him ’wittles’. For a person whose native language isn’t English, it may be difficult to comprehend that Magwitch is trying to say ’vittles’ which is another form of the word ’victuals’. In other words, Magwitch is asking Pip to bring him food. Many of the characters use these type of words that would perhaps not be difficult to understand when spoken aloud but are terrible to read. You have to repeat the words in your head and try to figure out what vowels may have been left out in order to make clear that the character’s dialect isn’t exactly polished.
Out of all the English books I have read, I think Great Expectations was the hardest. As a reader I usually look for stories that are easily relatable and as Great Expectations is set in an entirely different era with its own manners and style, it was hard to get a hold of it, so to speak, at first. However, I did enjoy reading it and finding out what happened to Pip and Joe and Estella as well as Pip’s amusingly named best friend, Herbert Pocket. The thing that truly drew me in to the story was how real it all was. There was no attempt by Dickens to mask Pip’s poorness or his misery. And in the end I think that’s what I appreciated the most.