What Are The Main Themes In Great Expectations?

by | Last updated on January 24, 2024

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  • Ambition and Self-Improvement. The moral theme of Great Expectations is quite simple: affection, loyalty, and conscience are more important than social advancement, wealth, and class. …
  • Social Class. …
  • Crime, Guilt, and Innocence. …
  • Sophistication. …
  • Education. …
  • Family.
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Is guilt a theme in Great Expectations?

Guilt is

a significant theme in Great Expectations

and plays a major part in Pip’s life. In his formative years, he’s constantly made to feel guilty by his sister about still being alive while his parents and five brothers are lying buried in the churchyard.

What is the main plot of Great Expectations?

Great Expectations follows

the childhood and young adult years of Pip a blacksmith’s apprentice in a country village

. He suddenly comes into a large fortune (his great expectations) from a mysterious benefactor and moves to London where he enters high society.

What are the three parts of Great Expectations?

  • Volume 1 (19 chapters) up to Pip’s departure for London.
  • Volume 2 (20 chapters) up to the return of Magwitch.
  • Volume 3 (20 chapters) from there until the end.

What are Pip’s 3 Great Expectations?

Hebasically asks for three wishes:

education, wealth, and social advancement

. These three wishes are mostly so he can impress Estella, whom Miss Havishammoulds as a way of wreaking revenge on the male sex. Pip does not want to be a lowly blacksmith like Joe. He wants to be intelligent.

What is the central theme of great expectation and how it is developed?


Ambition and Self-Improvement

The moral theme of Great Expectations is quite simple: affection, loyalty, and conscience are more important than social advancement, wealth, and class.

Why are Mrs Joe and pumblechook excited for Pip to play at Miss Havisham’s?

Why are Mrs. Joe and Pumblechook excited for Pip to play at Miss Havisham’s? …

They think Pip is a burden and needs to get out of the house. They think Miss Havisham will teach him a lesson.

Did Pip and Estella get married?

Varied resolutions of Estella’s relationship with Pip

Though Estella marries Drummle in the novel and several adaptations, she does not marry him in the best-known 1946 film adaptation.

In no version does she eventually marry Pip

, at least not within the timespan of the story.

How does Pip get his money?

Mrs. Joe dies, and Pip goes home for the funeral, feeling tremendous grief and remorse. Several years go by, until one night a familiar figure barges into Pip’s room—

the convict, Magwitch

, who stuns Pip by announcing that he, not Miss Havisham, is the source of Pip’s fortune.

What does the convict ask Pip to bring him?

Answer: The convict orders Pip to bring him

a file and food the next morning

. He orders Pip that he is to tell no one that he has seen the convict. The convict tells Pip that he has a friend who is with him that likes to eat the hearts and livers of little boys.

What are the symbols in Great Expectations?

  • Mist. The mist clouding the landscape around Pip’s village symbolizes psychological uncertainty. As it obscures the view, it represents a lack of clarity, insight, or knowledge. …
  • The Leg-Iron. The Leg-Iron symbolizes justice. …
  • Satis House. Satis House is a symbol of frustrated expectations.

How old is Pip at the end of Great Expectations?

This story begins when Pip is seven years old and ends (with the alternate ending) when he is

nearly 35

. The first six chapters cover just a couple of days, when Pip meets the convict.

What is the structure of Great Expectations?

In the case of Great Expectations, the structure is

chronological where events are told to the reader in the order in which they have happened

. However, the structure is also that of a flashback where the older and wiser Pip looks back at his earlier life.

What happens to Abel Magwitch?

In the end,

Magwitch is condemned to fourteen years’ imprisonment

, while Compeyson receives seven. Magwitch and Compeyson are imprisoned on the same prison ship.

How is Magwitch presented in great expectations?

In the first part of the novel, Magwitch is

an escaped convict who meets the young Pip while he is on the run

. Pip supplies Magwitch with food and a file to help him in his escape. At this point in the story Magwitch is a frightening figure often compared to a hunted animal.

Is Pip a snob?

As child, he felt compassion for the convict; he saw the humanity in the convict; as a gentleman with expectations, he is

a snob

and continually judges by the external criteria of status and wealth.

What significance does the novel title Great Expectations have for the story?

Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations (1861) has great significance to the plot. The title itself

symbolizes prosperity and most importantly ambition

. The main character and the protagonist, Pip (Philip Pirrip) was born an orphan and hand-raised by his sister Mrs. Gargery and her husband Joe Gargery.

What does Joe apologize to Pip for?

Joe apologizes to Pip for

never having been able to stop Mrs. Joe from beating him as a little boy

. See, when he did try to stop her, she just beat Pip more severely. As Pip gets better, Joe starts to act differently around him.

What does Pip learn in Great Expectations?

Pip experiences the rise to an upper-class life and then the fall from grace initiated by the return of Magwitch. One of the major things that Pip learns about is

love

; love within families, love between friends, and most important, his love for Estella.

What’s the meaning of theme in literature?

A literary theme is

the main idea or underlying meaning a writer explores in a novel, short story, or other literary work

. The theme of a story can be conveyed using characters, setting, dialogue, plot, or a combination of all of these elements.

What is the name of Miss Havisham’s Manor?

Humiliated and heartbroken, Miss Havisham suffered a mental breakdown and remained alone in her decaying mansion

Satis House

– never removing her wedding dress, wearing only one shoe, leaving the wedding breakfast and cake uneaten on the table, and allowing only a few people to see her.

How does Miss Havisham change in Great Expectations?

Miss Havisham is a bitter recluse who has shut herself away since being jilted on her wedding day. … As a result of her experiences, Miss Havisham hates humanity, particularly, men. She has

adopted a young girl, Estella

, and is training her to be cold and cruel so that she will break men’s hearts.

Who broke Miss Havisham’s heart?

Pip later learns from Herbert that

Compeyson

was the same man who broke Miss Havisham’s heart. Pip decides he will take no more of Magwitch’s money.

Who is the villain in Great Expectations?


Miss Havisham

is the antagonist of Great Expectations. She works to prevent Pip from achieving his goal of winning Estella’s love.

What kind of lawyer is Jaggers?

Jaggers, fictional character in the novel Great Expectations (1860–61) by Charles Dickens. Mr. Jaggers is the

honest and pragmatic lawyer

who handles the affairs of the protagonist Pip as well as those of most of the characters in the book.

Who is the secret benefactor according to Pip?

The convict, not

Miss Havisham

, is Pip’s secret benefactor. Pip is not meant to marry Estella at all. With a crestfallen heart, Pip hears that the convict is even now on the run from the law, and that if he is caught, he could be put to death.

What does the gibbet symbolize in Great Expectations?

The gibbet is

the place where criminals will go, and they will not be saved

. This, in Dickens’ view, is what will happen between the two groups of people. If Pip does steel he will go to the gibbet. Dickens cleverly associates the graveyard with the dark, mist and the rushing winds.

What food did Pip steal for the convict?

Answer: Very early the next morning, Pip sneaks down to the pantry, where he steals some brandy (mistakenly refilling the bottle with tar-water, though we do not learn this until Chapter 4) and

a pork pie

for the convict. He then sneaks to Joe’s smithy, where he steals a file.

What is the real name of Pip in the novel?


Philip Pirrip

, called Pip, is the protagonist and narrator in Charles Dickens’s novel Great Expectations (1861).

What is the name of Pip sister in Great Expectations?


Mrs. Joe Gargery

: Pip’s sister, who Joe reminds Pip was once “a fine figure of a woman,” Mrs. Joe is a harsh woman who physically and emotionally abuses Pip. Biddy: Pip’s childhood friend, Biddy is plain but wise, and tries to guide Pip with her devotion and compassion.

What does Wittles mean?

In Great Expectations, Dickens frequently uses the term “wittles.” This

refers to food, more specifically a stock or supply of food

, and is derived from the words victuals and vittles.

What were the conditions upon which Pip would receive his Great Expectations?

Pip views this as his dream come true, and Pip thinks it is Miss Havisham’s doing because this man is her lawyer. The two conditions to his expectations are

that he must keep the name of Pip and not ask the name of his benefactor.

What does Joe gargery symbolize in Great Expectations?

Joe Gargery functions as a

symbol of the life Pip tries to reject, but ultimately comes to value

. Joe is described as “mild, good-natured, sweet-tempered, easy-going,” and provides a loving and nurturing presence during Pip’s childhood.

What was the nameless shadow which again in that one instant had passed?

When she arrives in London for the first time, Pip asks, “what was the nameless shadow which again in that one instant had passed?” (2.32. 47), and when Pip and Estella are reunited in the (rewritten) end of the novel, Pip sees “no shadow of another parting from her” (3.59.

What does Estella symbolize?

The character of Estella represents

the symbols of isolation and manipulation

. By acting as an adult when she was still young, she separated herself from Pip and others. This was due in large part to the way Miss Havisham, her stepmother, raised her. She had no emotion, as Miss Havisham used her for revenge on men.

What does Jaggers do obsessively in Great Expectations?

He often seems to care for Pip, and before the novel begins he helps Miss Havisham to adopt the orphaned Estella. Jaggers smells strongly of soap: he washes his hands obsessively as

a psychological mech-anism

to keep the criminal taint from corrupting him.

Who married Pip?

Despite Pip’s renewed affection, living in London makes Joe increasingly unhappy, and one morning Pip finds him gone. Before leaving, he does Pip one last good turn, paying off all of Pip’s debts. Pip rushes home to reconcile with Joe and decides to marry

Biddy

when he gets there.

What happened to Pip’s sister in Great Expectations?

Mrs. Joe Gargery (Georgiana M’Ria) Pip’s abusive older sister who constantly reminds Pip of all she has done for him, especially “raising him up by hand.”

She is attacked by Orlick and later dies

.

What does Mr Jaggers look like?

He was a burly man of

an exceedingly dark complexion

, with an exceedingly large head, and a corresponding large hand… He was prematurely bald on the top of his head, and had bushy black eyebrows that wouldn’t lie down but stood up bristling.

What is the significance of Magwitch’s death?

Pip’s realization shows that he has learned the great moral lesson that love and loyalty are more important than wealth and social prowess. As Magwitch dies, Pip experiences rebirth as a

mature

, loving and appreciative adult.

Why is Magwitch Pip’s benefactor?

Magwitch is eventually revealed to be Pip’s benefactor, even though Pip has long assumed that Miss Havisham is the one funding his education. After Magwitch started making money as a sheep farmer, he

became obsessed with

using the money to transform Pip into a gentleman.

Ahmed Ali
Author
Ahmed Ali
Ahmed Ali is a financial analyst with over 15 years of experience in the finance industry. He has worked for major banks and investment firms, and has a wealth of knowledge on investing, real estate, and tax planning. Ahmed is also an advocate for financial literacy and education.