Great Expectation
...1860 to August 1861. It is regarded as one of his greatest and most sophisticated novels, and is one of his most enduringly popular, having been adapted for stage and screen over 250 times.[2]
Great Expectations is written in a semi-autobiographical style, and is the story of the orphan Pip, writing his life from his early days of childhood until adulthood. The story can also be considered semi-autobiographical of Dickens, like much of his work, drawing on his experiences of life and people.
The action of the story takes place from Christmas Eve, 1812, when the protagonist is about seven years old, to the winter of 1840.[3]
Each installment in All the Year Round contained two chapters, and was written in a way that kept readers interested from week to week, while still satisfying their curiosity at the end of each one.
Plot summary
- The story is divided into three phases of Pip's life expectations.
The first stage of Pip's expectations:
Pip, a young orphan, lives a humble existence with his shrewish older sister and her strong but kind husband, Joe Gargery. One day Pip meets Magwich, an escaped convict, and brings him food and a file to keep him alive. This convict is later caught again and sent away.
Pip is satisfied with his life and his warm friends until he is hired by an embittered wealthy woman, Miss Havisham, as an occasional companion to her beautiful but haughty adopted daughter, Estella. Pip falls in love with Estella. From that time on, Pip aspires to leave behind his simple life and be a gentleman. After years as companion to Miss Havisham and Estella, he spends more years as an apprentice to Joe, so that he may grow up to have a future working as a blacksmith.
This life is suddenly turned upside down when he is visited by a London lawyer, Mr. Jaggers, who informs Pip that he is to come into the "great expectations" of...
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