Plausibility in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

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Plausibility in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

The movie, Great Expectations, based on the book of the same name written by Charles Dickens, is about a poor, young boy named Pip who's luck takes a drastic turn for the better when he meets an escaped convict in the marshes near his home. He demands that Pip bring him tools and provisions to aid him in evading the law. However the plan soon fails and the convict is captured. He does surprise Pip though, by keeping his tongue and not turning him in.

Not long afterward, Pip is summoned by the curious Miss Havisham to play at Satis House; her estate. It is upon his arrival that he meets the radiant, though stonyhearted, Estella. After many subsequent afternoons playing at Satis House, Pip begins to develop feelings for Estella as well as suspicious hope that Miss Havisham intends for them to marry. He is soon proved wrong when Miss Havisham instead arranges for him to take up apprenticeship under his blacksmith brother-in-law Joe, thus ending all possibility of him ever being able to marry Estella.

Until this point in the plot, all of the happenings in the story have seemed fairly plausible; albeit extremely lucky. It is not too far fetched of an idea for a young boy to encounter an escaped convict in the marshes near his home when said convict was be housed aboard prison ships in the adjacent harbor. Nor is it far fetched to assume that the escaped convict would endeavor to employ the boy to his favor. certainly it is not out of the question for the escaped convict to be recaptured by authorities. It is not unheard of for that same young boy to be summoned to play at the nearby estate of a wealthy woman as she had a young, adopted daughter. It is also not unheard...

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...andoned Satis House, Pip encounters Estella who is now single and appears to be headed down the same sad path Miss Havisham walked. Pip frantically attempts to stir her from her slump and, having succeeded, the story ends with the two of them leaving Satis House presumably to live happily ever after.

At this point it seems about as far from plausible as Dickens could write it. It is highly unlikely that this series of events could fall into place without some form of tampering. Since Dickens offers no evidence of anybody doing any tampering in the life of Pip other than what is perviously mentioned, the audience can assume he is chalking it all up to chance. While the first half of the story may happen by chance it would have to be an extremely small world for the rest to have happened. In effect; No, Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens, is not plausible.

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