Great Expectations Research Paper

In Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, Miss Havisham’s internal conflict shows readers that forgiveness is the only way to get through a heartbreak. Miss Havisham’s heart was broken when she was very young. Instead of forgiving her antagonist, she swore revenge on all men. To accomplish this, she raised the beautiful Estella to be cold and heartless. “‘What ?’ said Estella, ‘do you reproach me for being cold? You?’ ‘Are you not?’ was the fierce retort. ‘You should know,’ said Estella. I am what you have made me’” (Dickens 307).When she sees Pip relive her experience,, she has a change of heart. “‘Until you spoke to her the other day, and until I saw in you a looking-glass that showed me what I once felt myself, I did not know what I had done.

Estella lives in the Manor House with her adoptive mother Miss Havisham who has raised her up as a tool to be used to break men’s hearts. Although she constantly insults and makes fun of Pip, he falls in love with her. This love for her makes Pip vulnerable to any and every little insult that comes out of her mouth and Pip puts to heart everything she says. So, when she says, "He calls the knaves, Jacks, this boy!...And what course hands he has! And what thick boots!" he takes it to heart (Dickens 105). It is at this point that Pip begins to feel ashamed of his uneducated family, and longs to become a gentleman. Due to Estella’s cold-hearted character and her arrogant personality, Pip is made to feel that he stands no chance with her. Even more dangerous is her destructive influence on Pip which makes him strive to become a gentleman no matter the cost. Rather than being surrounded by people such as Estella who do nothing but put Pip’s character down, he should surround himself with supportive and encouraging individuals who are always there for him and appreciate his unique personality. This is what causes growth in a person.

and I, but to obey our instructions. We are not free to follow our own

Mysterious and misunderstood, always captured and imprisoned but never free. At first glance he was starved and chained, deprived of his freedom. When he gains freedom he runs off to chase Compeyson. His actions caused him to be captured once more. His backstory is quite unfair compared to the 21 century. In fact he was punished more heavily than Compeyson, enraged he seeks revenge. To carry out his plan he turns Pip into a snob with high rank. Lastly when he tries to obtain freedom he is imprisoned once more. Thus Magwitch was destined to be imprisoned even during his last

Entry #1 Anaphora “A fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied around his head. ” Page 2 Entry #1 An anaphora is a literary devices that deliberates repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of several parallel clauses or paragraphs. In the beginning, it gives a list of horrible traits that is used to describe the convict in the graveyard.

1. Why does Pip feel the need to lie about Miss Havisham when he is questioned about her by Mrs. Joe and Mr. Pumblechook? Why is he confident Mr.Pumblechook will not correct his story? Pip feels the need to lie about Miss Havisham because he feels that they won’t believe him and doesn’t want to publicly humiliate her. He is certain Mr. Pumblechook will not correct his story because he does not know her.

Home in today’s society can be described in many ways, but is ultimately expressed as more of a feeling of safety and love. Sonsyrea Tate claims "You can leave home all you want, but home will never leave you." In essence, the feeling of home is a part of the character and who he/she will become. In Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, Pip examines the true meaning of home and how the subjective opinion of home can reflect who a person becomes. He illustrates this idea using recurring appearances of home-like symbols, the way Pip’s definition of home changes throughout the novel, and how he shows Pip’s acquired feelings after moving into higher society.

The entire story is told through the eyes of an adult Pip, even though Pip is a small child during parts of it. In his early years, Pip was strongly influenced by his guardians, Joe Gargery and his wife, Mrs. Joe. Joe instills a sense of honesty, industry, and friendliness in Pip, while Mrs. Joe does a great deal to contribute to his desires and ambitions through her constant emphasis on pomp and property. Pip is generally good-natured and thoughtful, and very imaginative. His false values, which are bolstered by his love of Estella, decrease the amount of respect that he has for Joe. His alienation from Joe and Joe's values builds through the second part of the novel, as Pip becomes selfish, greedy, and foolish. During the period when his expectations are intact, his only morally positive act was to secretly help Herbert Pocket into a good position. Upon discovering that Magwitch is his benefactor, a new phase begins in Pip's moral evolution. At first, Pip no longer feels the same human compassion for Magwitch that he did the first time he saw him out on the marshes. Gradually, Pip changes his perception of Magwitch, unlearning what he has learned. Pip becomes concerned with the man, and not the expectations that he could provide. When Jaggers presents the thought that there may be a way for Pip to get his hands on Magwitch's property, the idea sounds hollow and utterly empty to Pip. Pip learns about Estella's parentage through

Wayne Trotman, a British filmmaker, once argued, “Revenge can only be found on the road to self-destruction.” To put it another way, revenge damages all involved, including those who administer the revenge. Charles Dickens often illustrates in Great Expectations this concept through his characters attempts to get ahead by getting even with the people who wronged them. The characters fail to see that through these actions they persecute themselves in the process. In Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, the pursuit of revenge consumes and destroys the lives of Estella, Orlick, and Miss Havisham.

In the very beginning of the novel, Abel Magwitch is the checking eating convict from the marshes. As Dickens puts it, Magwitch is “a fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg (pg 2).” He threatened Pip to scare him into bringing food for him, a starving convict. Magwitch was forever great fun to the young Pip. Later in the novel, when Magwitch reappears, we learn he has been banished from England.

The Vengeful Miss Havisham - Great Expectations. In Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens, Miss Havisham is a complex character whose past remains a mystery. We know about her broken engagement, an event that changes her life forever. Miss Havisham desperately wants revenge, and Estella, her adopted daughter, is the perfect tool to carry out her motives.

Magwitch was then sentenced to imprisonment for the rest of his life—where upon if he ever escaped again, he’d face the death sentence. Magwitch is sent off to New South Wales, where he worked several jobs—and made a handsome amount of money all of which he sent to Pip through Jaggers anonymously. It isn’t until later in the novel does Magwitch sneaks back to England as an escaped convict, under an alias and he reveals to Pip that he is Pip’s benefactor. Pip’s discovery makes him very discontent but later realizes the only way to get Magwitch out of his life is to help him escape England, on a boat. However again on his journey to fredoom Magwitch is faced with the same dilemma, when their steam boat is intercepted by another boat and Compeyson is on it. Magwitch is forced to choose between freedom and revenge; and he again chooses the latter, tackling Compeyson, they both sink into the water—only Magwitch comes up. As expected, Magwitch is sentenced to death—immediately, only his sentence is delayed when he is stricken by illness. At this point, Magwitch’s death is ascertained, either he was going to die of illness or he was going to die at his sentence. This was the result of Magwitch’s actions; by choosing revenge over all else—not just once, but twice. These results help emphasis that revenge is nothing more than a gateway to misfortunes, and in Magwitch’s case that gate way is to death.

Estella also is a victim to her guardian in the novel. She too is never given the chance to be her own person and live life to its fullest. Estella is conditioned by her guardian, Miss Havisham, to make men suffer, and in return it is Estella who will be made to suffer for her guardian's actions. Miss Havisham is a severely disturbed old woman who has adopted Estella. Miss Havisham was abandoned on her wedding day and as a result she forever maintains hatred toward men. Thus for her dirty work, Miss Havisham uses Estella to meet this purpose. Pip concludes that Miss Havisham "had done a grievous thing in taking an impressionable child (Estella) and had manipulated into the form that her wild resentment, spurned affection, and wounded pride, found vengeance in". Miss Havisham makes Estella have a fear of men being close to her and not to allow herself to become attached to them emotionally. Dickens’ made Estella an almost identical copy of Frankenstein: trained to perform specific tasks for the pleasure of their guardian. However someday, they crack and see the illness in their lives. Estella was Miss Havisham’s toy. Estella never

In Charles Dickens’ novel, Great Expectations, the main character named Pip suffers through a conflict of confusing good and bad people. He repeatedly disregards the people that love and care for him and instead chooses to care for people who do not care for him. When making these choices, Pip senses that he is making the wrong decisions and therefore confuses good and bad and also confuses himself.

As Magwitch eats, Pip describes him as the following: “the man took strong sharp sudden bites, just like the dog. He swallowed… too fast; and he looked sideways… while he ate, as if he thought there was danger in every direction of somebody’s coming to take the pie away,” (Page 19). With the use of alliteration on the “S”s and the use of harsh assonance when it says that “[he] took strong sharp sudden bites”, Dickens proves that Magwitch has a very aggressive nature as well as being very strong and threatening. Describing him as looking around every time he ate does not only show that it is the behavior expected of a convict while on the run, but also to emphasize the distance Magwitch keeps from society because of his distrust in everyone and everything. However, as a result of the concerns Pip had for Magwitch, Magwitch becomes humanized. In court, where Magwitch is denoted as a desperate criminal, he looks at Pip “with a trustful look, as if he were confident that [Pip] had seen some small redeeming touch in him, even so long ago as when [Pip] was a little child. As to the rest, [Magwitch] was humble and contrite, and [Pip] never knew him to complain” (Page 486). Using diction found in “redeeming touch”, Dickens verifies that Magwitch is redeemed from all of his criminal acts by his inner dignity and love for Pip.