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Reading report on 《great expectations》
Reading report on 《great expectations》
Characterization in great expectations
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A rose makes the perfect flower to represent love. Its vibrant red stimulates the heart of any maiden. However, even the most beautiful rose has its thorns. Appearing during youth, the thorns grow alongside the rose, contrasting with the lustrous bud. In Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Estella plays the rose of Pip’s life, the object of his adoration, yet always causing him pain. Raised by the heartbroken Miss Havisham from the age of three, she is bred to “wreak revenge on all the male sex.” Complemented by her radiant beauty, she enchants all men around her and ensnares them in her trap. As a child reared by Miss Havisham, Estella is growing into the compassionless avenger that she is meant to be. As a grown woman, Estella refines her adamancy, and begins her era of tormenting young men of the world. Finally, as she grows discontented of her status in the world, she throws away the people who cared for her and pays the price.
Adopted by Miss Havisham as a baby, Estella rises to a high social standing. Raised to be protected from Miss Havisham’s mistakes in love, she is trained to repress notions of romantic love. By “[stealing] her heart away and [putting] ice in its place,” Miss Havisham thus prevents Estella from gaining the ability to achieve true happiness in life. The true meaning and feeling of love is unknown to Estella. Condescension and insensibility to others is sowed into her being early on, and she only can become more incapable of loving as she matures. When Pip is hired to become her playmate, she revels in the opportunity to exercise her prowess. Encouraged by Miss Havisham, Estella hones her ability to break hearts with Pip, but he is only the first of the many destined to befall that fate.
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...rough experience and suffering that social standing is not indicative of a person’s character and goodness. The common-born Pip’s love is far deeper and more meaningful than the highborn Drummle’s desire, no more than skin-deep, for a possession to boast about. Life is full of people that express genuine feelings and ignoble actors that utilize sweet, but fake, talk. Choosing the one that seeks to live as much for their partner’s bliss as well as their own can mean the difference between a shattered or complete existence. Judgment should be based on quality of character and purity of intentions. The ugly duckling just might turn out to be a swan. Estella’s dealings with the higher classes have left her with all but scars and painful remembrances. The higher rungs of the social ladder do not work well with lower ones, and Estella was born in the lowest caste of all.
In Great Expectations, Pip is set up for heartbreak and failure by a woman he trusts, identical to Hamlet and Gertrude, but Pip is rescued by joe who pushes Pip to win the love of his life. Similar to Gertrude in Hamlet Miss Havisham becomes a bystander in Pip’s life as she initiates the play that leads to heartbreak several times and she watches Pip’s life crumble due to her teachings. The next quote shows Miss Havisham explaining to Pip the way she manipulated his love Estella to break his heart every time. “‘but as she grew, and promised to be very beautiful, I gradually did worse, and with my praises, and with my jewels, and with my teachings… I stole her heart away and put ice in its place’” (Dickens, 457). This quote makes it clear the Miss Havisham set Hamlet up for failure by making him fall for a woman he could never have.
Love and heartbreak, they are one in the same. Without one, the other is nonexistent. American Rock Band Poison in their 1980’s Hit, “Every Rose Has Its Thorn”, Lead singer, Bret Michaels fervently reflects on the anguish suffered while being in love and getting your heart broken. Michaels supports his claim on love and romance by utilizing figurative language, anaphora and parallelism with the goal of expressing how love and heartbreak feels.
... like Estella, who are able to survive those prejudices, even a lifetime of negative experiences, and emerge with strength and hope. Though we pity Miss Havisham, Miss Emily, and Norma Desmond, they chose to lock themselves away from the world rather than trying to overcome their situations. Perhaps they could have done something more to help themselves, but it seems that they did not try. Perhaps what makes the difference between an Estella and a Miss Havisham is a rose, one person like Pip who cares enough to reach out and take her hand, and show her that there is hope.
Miss Havisham passes along this jadedness to her adopted daughter, Estella, by teaching her to hurt boys and not become emotionally attached to them. Miss Havisham stays this was nearly until the end of her life when she realizes what she has done to Estella as well as Pip, whose heart was broken by Estella.... ... middle of paper ... ... In conclusion, in the novel Great Expectations, Charles Dickens points out that there are many people who are imprisoned within themselves.
In Spanish, the word for star is “estrella”. Since Spanish is a “romance” language, estrella is undoubtedly derived from the Latin word for star. Stars are cold but beautiful to see. The same is true for Estella: she has a cold personality but she is very pretty. Estella was given to Miss Havisham at night - which is when stars appear. The first time Estella appears is in chapter 8, in the Pip’s first visit to Miss Havisham's house. The first impression Pip has about Estella is also characterized by ambiguity: he thinks she is pretty but she is proud. Miss Havisham obliges Estella to play cards with Pip. The first time that the card game appears the battle of sexes occurs since, after her frustrated marriage, Miss Havisham educates Estella to scorn men and in the card game Miss Havisham wants to see a victory of a woman over a man. Estella wins but the most important thing here is that Estella does not want to play with Pip because she thinks he is common. This shows the pride and the superiority in which Estella is presented in her relation to Pip, and it's also important because, from this moment, Pip wants to be educated to be at the same level that Estella – he hopes that he can reach out and touch a star.
In Great Expectations, a prevailing theme is crime and punishment, and the novel accordingly explores the role of women in the Victorian society. On the one hand, there are a few female characters that are depicted with an innate moral goodness; on the other hand, there are those who are morally depraved. The difference between these doubles is striking and sometimes exaggerated, which creates a clear contrast between the characters who adapt to the imposed morals of Victorian culture, and those who do not. In the novel, it is evident that the characters of Mrs. Joe, Miss Havisham, Molly and Estella are all depicted as committing a moral crime because of them not abiding to the social standard for women of that time. Thus, it is suggested that, in order to be morally good, a woman should embody the Victorian ideals which implies being submissive to men and exhibiting a fixed set of female characteristics. Evidently, these morally corrupt characters all challenge the social norms of Victorian society, and are therefore punished into becoming more feminine.
In Great Expectations, Pip was one of lower class. Although he did not have the fortunes, Pip was happy. Once he was introduced to the rich Miss Havisham and her daughter Estella, he fell in love. Estella became the object of his affection, yet because she was considered high class, there wou...
When Pip starts to regularly visit Miss. Havisham’s Satis House, he gradually apprehends how low his placement is in the social class. Miss. Havisham is a wealthy old lady out of touch with reality. She and her adopted daughter, Estella live in a mansion that is, theoretically, stopped in time. Estella is a beautiful girl, but don’t be fooled by the eye, beneath her beauty lies a terribly rude, cold-hearted monster raised to trick and manipulate the hearts of men. She victimized Pip, and constantly criticized him, making comments to attack and destruct Pip’s self-esteem. She sees him as nothing more than a common boy, and she takes pleasure in emotionally hurting Pip. “He calls the knaves, jacks this boy, and what coarse hands and thick boots” (63). Previously, Pip had thought everyone had called knaves jacks, but now that he...
As his first contact with a wealthy person, Miss Havisham prompts Pip to try and better himself financially. She also, indirectly, pressures Pip into changing through her influence over Estella. Estella's cruel behaviour towards Pip is the direct result of Miss Havisham's teachings. Embittered by her own broken engagement, Miss Havisham taught the girl to be cruel to men, so she learned to "break their hearts and have no mercy!" (Dickens, 108.
meets Estella, the adopted daughter of Miss Havisham, an old lady who is bitter and eccentric. Estella
She was one of those pretty and charming girls born, as though fate had blundered over her, into a family of artisans. She had no marriage portion, no expectations, no means of getting known, understood, loved, and wedded by a man of wealth and distinction; and she let herself be married off to a little clerk in the Ministry of Education. Her tastes were simple because she had never been able to afford any other, but she was as unhappy as though she had married beneath her; for women have no caste or class, their beauty, grace, and charm serving them for birth or fa...
and breeding, who did not necessarily posses the moral values and graces a true gentleman should have. After his initial visit to Satis House, Pip was infatuated by Estella’s beauty, wealth, and self importance. He allowed himself to be degraded by her scornful references to his "coarse hands", and "thick boots", not realizing at this point that these factors are unimportant on the route to becoming a true gentleman. At that very moment, he deludes himself into believing that if he were to meet Estella’s interpretations of gentlemanly conduct, that she would regard him as her equal. Unfortunately, he completely fails to recognize the true moral values present in Joe and Biddy, and is attracted instead by a fantasized version of Miss Havisham’s and Estella’s lifestyles. He sees his visit to Satis House as the first link in the long chain of events which will lead to his eventually becoming a gentleman.
This tells Pip that not everyone is going to wait on him and he needs to realize what real life is. The final woman that helps influence Pip is Miss Havisham. She is the one who pushes Pip so hard to love Estella. “ Love her, love her, love her!
These are the fantasies of an innocent girl who believes in the existence of a beautiful world—she romanticizes the life of a beggar. Nell has no knowledge, experiential or anecdotal, of the lives of the homeless. Then as Nell and Grandfather finally leave their former home, Grandfather in his weak state of mind is infected with her childlike romance: to the strange pair, “every object was bright and fresh; nothing reminded them, otherwise than by contrast, of the monotony and constraint they had left behind” (Chapter 12). Their hopeful delusions create a pessimistic dramatic irony because the reader expects them to encounter hardships and obstacles on the road, given that the novel has just begun. This irony is almost cruel, as it foreshadows the loss of Little Nell’s innocence.
In order to make more money Pip’s uncle sends Pip to a psychotic old lady’s house named Mrs. Havisham. Mrs. Havisham is a mean and nasty character who constantly bickers at Pip and tells him of his unimportance. Pip continues to be mild mannered and respectful to Mrs. Havisham yet he begins to see that he will never get ahead in life just being nice. Mrs. Havisham uses Pip as sort of a guinea pig to take out her passion of revenge against men. She does this by using her daughter, Estella to torment Pip.