Review of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations

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Review of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations

Charles Dickens' book 'Great Expectations' is a very well known novel

about a boy called Pip, who goes on a journey to discover his 'Great

Expectations'. On this journey to become a gentleman he finds out many

things about himself, and by the end of the novel realises exactly

what his real identity is.

The storyline is very heavily based on Dickens' beliefs at time he was

writing and this clearly is reflected when you read the novel. Dickens

was very worried about society in Britain in the 1800's and he could

not understand why every aspect of status and identity revolved around

money. This connects to the book as Pip, after his visit to Satis

House, believes that he has been brought up badly and that money is

the only resource to give you any sort of 'real' identity. 'I was

humiliated, hurt, spurned, offended, angry and sorry.' Pip feels

inadequate in the company of Miss Havisham, the owner of Satis House,

and Estella, Miss Havisham's foster daughter and perhaps this is

Dickens felt when his father was sent to prison for being in debt and

Dickens was sent to the blacking factory so he could provide money for

the rest of his family. However Dickens began to feel that people were

too greedy, and people had forgotten that having good friends and a

safe place to live is much more important. Dickens and his family were

looked down because of this, as they had gone from being an upper-

class family to being a low working-class family.

We first hear of Satis House in chapter eight when Pip is sent to meet

Miss Havisham, a rich old lady who owns the house. 'Satis' translates

from Greek to mean 'enough', which is quite ironic in that Estella,

Miss Havisham's daughter explains 'it meant when it was given, whoever

had this house could not want anything else', However Miss Havisham

was jilted on her wedding day and slowly decayed after stopping all of

her clocks, and with that, her life.

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