Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
This classic masterpiece
of Victorian era is completed by me yesterday.The novel is brimmed with suspense and revelations
as well as with ingredients like love, emotions, abhor and conflicts amongst
different social classes. Its plot revolves around the life and expectations of
Pip which spans from his childhood to the mature adulthood. Pip, an orphan lives
with his ill-tempered sister and her husband Joe, a blacksmith who is good-hearted,
jolly fellow and closed to Pip. One day Pip confronts an escaped convict
Magwitch, who frightens Pip to steal food for him from home. Pip is called for
by Miss Havisham, a rich spinster, to play with her adopted niece Estella in
her Satis house. Pip is attracted by Estella’s charm but is bewildered by her
strange behavior-sometimes contemptuous and sometimes compassionate. Pip feels embarrassed
on his humble origin and here forth start his great expectations.
Pip’s life
takes a turn while a lawyer Mr. Jaggers appears at his door with an inheritance
of fortune by a mysterious benefactor for Pip to study in London and become a
gentleman. Pip imagines Miss Havisham to be his benefactor to enable him equal
to Estella’s level. To his astonishment Magwitch appears at his doors and
discloses himself as his real benefactor to repay Pip’s kind deed of childhood.
Pip hesitates to accept his money earned by wrong means, but tries to save him
from being arrested. Pip goes abroad
with his friend Herbert to earn living by hard work.
To talk
about character of Pip’s sister, it’s difficult to believe that an elder sister
can be so crude with little orphan brother as is shown in the novel, while her
husband is sympathetic and friendly to Pip, though, Pip abandons him after becoming
a man of fortune. Miss Havisham is also characterized in a unique way. She prepares
her niece Estella as a proud girl to break the hearts of her lovers mesmerized
by her beauty just to take revenge with all men; because Miss Havisham
herself was betrayed by her fiancée at wedding alter. Throughout the novel she
remains in her tattered wedding dress and leaves the decorated room as it was since
the wedding day. The various characters are woven into story having a link with
each other. For instance- Estella comes out to be daughter of Magwitch and
Molly, a maid of Mr. Jaggers etc.
The diction of
Dickens may be considered a bit complex for modern readers but novel is enriched with
emotions, pathos and humour. Although written a long time back, the theme and
characters seem to be universal and are significant even in present scenario when
people take wealth as a token of happiness. Pip represents today’s youngsters,
who are following money blindly to fulfill their expectations unaware of the secret of happiness.
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