Essay on Great Expectation Test(Answers)

‘Great Expectations’ is a highly acclaimed novel written by Charles Dickens first published in 1861, which follows the journey of a young boy commonly known as Pip (his Christian name being Phillip Pirrip) who is born into a middle-class family but goes on to receive riches from a mysterious benefactor in order to pursue his childhood dream in becoming a gentleman. The story is written in first person with Charles Dickens writing back about the experiences of Pip. Although it isn’t his autobiography the events in the book do, in many ways, mirror the events of his childhood. This allows him to reflect on Pip’s actions, which helps in the readers understanding of the Novel.

Great Expectations tells the ultimate rags to riches story of the Orphan Pip. Dickens takes his readers through life changing events that ultimately mold the identity of the main character. Dividing these events into sections will provide the basis for interpreting which events had the most profound effect on Pip’s identity towards the end of the novel. These life-changing events provide the catalyst for the development of Pip’s character from childhood, his adolescence, maturing into a social gentleman, and finally becoming a self-aware man of society.

The first paragraph of Bleak House alone gives the reader an instant idea of how Charles Dickens saw London to be around 1842. He has portrayed the streets to be muddy and extremely polluted, "As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth." Here Dickens has used a slight amount of Hyperbole to emphasize his point. He also uses personification when referring to the snow flakes, saying that they have gone into mourning, ?smoke lowering down from the chimneypots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snowflakes?gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun.? the contrast of the imagery he is using helps for the reader to imagine the scene,

Pip is an honest boy who can barely live with himself after what he has done, but never tells Joe his good friend, or Ms. Joe, Joe's wife.

One of the things Charles Dickens tended to do in his career of writing was that he used interesting names characters in the story. As explained earlier the main character in the play is Pip, the reason he chose this name was because it symbolises a lot of different thoughts. If you think of a pip, the first impression that comes to mind is a seed, and a seed is a very small and fragile object and needs a lot of care to come into life and grow into a healthy plant. This describes exactly what a young child needs to grow and have a healthy life, just like Pip in the story. Furthermore in the story Pip is described as a ‘’small bundle of shivers’’, this shows that he has built up emotions of his memories in that past, suggesting that he didn’t have a very good childhood. The word small creates an impression that he was left behind and didn’t get much love or care in his childhood.

However, Dickens, in ?Bleak House?, uses the opposite, applying figurative and descriptive language wherever he can, to create the strong mental impressionistic painting in our minds to which the narrator uses as a backdrop. Dickens also makes very subtle jokes in his opening, for example ??with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snow-flake ? gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death for the sun.? This is ironic as, because of the setting of the story (post-Michaelmas) snow-flakes remind of happy Christmas-time joy, but instead Dickens personifies them, as if they have feelings about the surroundings, ?gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun.? Dickens

Charles Dickens uses his own opinions to develop the larger-than-life characters in Great Expectations. The novel is written from the point of view of the protagonist, Pip. Pip guides the reader through his life, describing the different stages from childhood to manhood. Many judgments are made regarding the other characters, and Pip's views of them are constantly changing according to his place in the social hierarchy. For instance, Pip feels total admiration that, later, turns to total shame for the man who raised him, Joe Gargery. The primary theme in this novel questions whether being in a higher social and economic class helps a person to achieve true happiness. This idea is shown through Pip's innocence at the forge, visits

Great Expectations is a novel by Charles Dickens that thoroughly captures the adventures of growing up. The book details the life of a boy through his many stages of life, until he is finally a grown man, wizened by his previous encounters. Dickens’ emotions in this book are very sincere, because he had a similar experience when his family went to debtor’s prison. Pip starts as a young boy, unaware of social class, who then becomes a snob, overcome by the power of money, and finally grows into a mature, hardworking man, knowing that there is much more to life than money.

In the novel Great Expectations, Charles Dickens uses hyperbole, repetition and imagery to illustrate how allowing expectations to dull reality leads to unhappiness. For example, when Pip addresses Biddy and explains, “`Biddy,...I am not at all happy as I am. I am disgusted with my calling and with my life. I have never taken to either, since I was bound. Don't be absurd.'” (Ch 17). This texts illustrates how Pip believes that it is impossible for him to be content with a normal life not of high class, but instead thinks he is destined to be a gentleman. This is ironic because Pip is unhappy about being “bound” to good, honest labour, but is not disturbed by how he is more deeply bound to his expectations. The word “bound” emphasizes how Pip relates his unhappiness

Pumblechook's' "appalling spasmodic whooping-cough dance," his "plunging and expectorating" is described from a child's point of view but with an educated adults syntax and vocabulary. As narrator, Pip has a sharp way with irony, particularly when it is directed against his own pretensions. Despite the humour and the comic episodes, the prevailing tone of Pip's narration is one of resigned melancholy. Sometimes the reader feels like an eavesdropper listening to the mature Pip's reflection on his earlier self. We are persuaded that Pip is explaining the matter to himself as much as to us, his readers.

They both felt the wrath of Mrs. Joe; she frequently “knocked his (Joe) head…against the wall” or the Tickler for Pip. Knowledgeable critics have referred to Pip’s experience as that of a "Dickensian childhood - stripped of his rights, found guilty of being himself, and rendered invisible by all those around.

4). Even though he aids the convict, the reader's sympathy for Pip soon increases, as his robbery of his own home weighs greatly on his conscience. For example, when Mrs. Joe leaves the Sunday dinner to retrieve the "savoury pork pie," which Magwitch had enjoyed heartily, Pip is tortured by the thought of his actions, while his mind screams, "Must they! Let them not hope to taste it!" (p. 27). He seems to sincerely regret his actions and the fact that he "had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong" (p. 40). Approximately one year after his encounter with the convict, Pip is still shown to be an innocent, caring boy. One night, when Pip and Joe are alone at the forge, Joe explains his various reasons for enduring Mrs. Joe's constant abuse. After their conversation, Pip realizes that he cares deeply for Joe and appreciates everything that the blacksmith does for him. Also, he develops "a new admiration of Joe from that night" and "a new sensation of feeling conscious that I was looking up to Joe in my heart" (p. 48). Unfortunately, as Pip develops unrealistic hopes and expectations for his life, these positive characteristics are replaced by undesirable ones.

Ambiguity draws across anyone; when they are seeking a coherent meaning in their life. The fabric that weaves together existence can be baffling when one seeks to analyze it. The search for self, as well as knowing and trusting one’s self is echoed through out literature in humanity; it could be haunting and cause great trepidation, to hold on to a vision that could alter their judgement, as well can cause a fierce storm in the supreme realm that is objective truth. Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens, is a coming to age story of a young man named Pip, seeking to establish stability, as well find meaning in his life through love and self identification. The purpose of this assignment is to propose that Pip was personally reflecting upon

be seen when Joe covers for Pip when he is late home or when he says

Explore some of the ways in which Dickens’ attitudes to Victorian society are presented in the opening chapter of Great Expectations.