Title: Great Expectations
By: Charles Dickens
Great Expectations written by
Charles Dickens is regarded as a masterpiece of English novels. It narrates the
story of Pip, an orphan boy who has good luck and great expectations, and then
loses both his luck and expectations.
Pip has lost his parents when he was fifteen years old. He
was brought up by his sister and her husband--Joe Gargery, a blacksmith who
takes Pip on as an apprentice, teaches him his trade and makes friends with
him. One day before Christmas, when Pip went to the churchyard where his
parents were buried, he met an escaping convict-- Abel Magwitch. Pip brought
cakes for the hungry man, which touched Abel deeply, although he was caught by
police. After the Christmas, Pip was invited to play with Estella, a beautiful
girl adopted by Miss Havisham. Miss Havisham was the richest man in the
village. But she was very strange. She was dressed a bridal veil all the whole
life after her fiancé left her at the wedding day, taking her a large amount of
property. So she lived in the revenge and hated all the men. She treated
Estella as a tool to take revenge on all man. When Pip met Estella, he loved
her, so did Estella. But Estella knew she was just a tool to carry out the
revenge plan of Miss Havisham, so she pretended to be proud, indifferent and
look down upon Pip- a relative of a poor blacksmith, which broke Pip’s heart.
As a consequence, Pip was determined to become a real gentleman who is in
possession of money, good manners, luxurious life and a great expectation for
Estella’s sake. Under the help of a stranger who donated a lot of money to him,
Pip left Joe and the village, and went to London to live a luxurious life to
learn to how to become a real gentleman. Pip started to waste money, look down
upon other poor people, even including Joe, his brother-in-law and best friend!
Gradually, Pip lost himself in the whirlpool of money, although he has had a
large number of debts. As the same time, Estella has become more and more
beautiful, graceful and brilliant. She walked in the crowd of men and married
one of them as the Miss Havisham’s wish, which really tore Pip into pieces.
And, as the same time, the mysterious benefactor of Pip came out. He is Abel-
the escaping convict whom Pip has helped. When he escaped from the prison
again, he earned much money and wanted to pay back Pip in that way. But Abel
soon was caught by police and died. The properties he gave to Pip also
were confiscated by police. Pip fell from the heaven to hell. He couldn’t stand
it. As a result, he had a serious ill.
After receiving a letter describing
the bad situation of Pip, Joe came to London to look after Pip in spite of the
bad attitude Pip ever towards him. After recovering, Pip realized his wrong. He
decided to be a gentleman by his own endeavor. So he came back to the small
village and spared no efforts to make business with his friend--Herbert.
Several years later, Pip met Estella again at the old house of Miss Havisham.
After knowing her husband has died and the real reason why Estella didn’t
choose him before, Pip made a proposal to her. At last, the two lovers were in
together and Pip found his real great expectation at the end.
Among the characters, which impressed me most are not Pip
and Estella who should be regarded as the leading roles, but Joe and Magwitch.
I feel awfully sorry that I was not brave enough to read the original edition
that is as thick as a brick. Otherwise, I may appreciate Joe and Magwitch more.
Yes, they are not the main characters in the novel. However, what they said and
what they did deeply touched me. It’s interesting, isn’t it? They are quite the
opposite guys. One is a totally good man without the least bit of wickedness
while the other is a prisoner who is believed to have committed every evil. I
believe that everyone who reads the book is to like Joe. When he talked about
his heavy drinking father who hit him a lot, he said he had a lot of love. Faced
with his rude wife, he would rather seem a bit weak or foolish than stand
However, I appreciate Magwitch, the bad guy. Magwitch did a
lot of evil things when he was young. But how can you be unmoved when you get
to know that the old man kept himself going just by thinking of the boy who
once did him a small favor？ He lost his only daughter and
Pip had no parents, so he considered himself as the boy’s second father, making
up his mind to help his dear boy became a gentleman. He did every kind of job
and led a hard life in Australia. At last he made a big fortune and promised
himself that all the money would go to Pip. He could have led a better life in Australia,
but he chose to go back to London .with the simple intention of seeing Pip, he
went back at the risk of being hanged! “Whatever the fault he had from the
start, remember, reader, he had a good heart.” Joe used these words to describe
his father. But I think these words can better describe Magwitch. He lived with
the fear of death all his life. Who shuts love out, in turn shall be shut out
from love. However, thankfully, because Pip finally realized his good heart,
his ending was peaceful.
When I finished reading the novel,
I also take consideration to the question “what a real great expectation is?”
In my opinion, great expectation does not means money, luxurious life provided by
others, even the benefactors are your parents. It is our own dreams that we
want to realize by our own efforts. Great expectation may be the further study,
a respectable degree, a good job, a warm family or something else. But we must
know that our future and great expectation must be mastered by our own. We
should work for them, fighting for them, even dying for them, whatever. Only
when we got what we want by our own endeavor, can we say we have had a great
expectation.
