Great Expectations: Story, Textual Analysis and Critical Evaluation:

Part 3 Continues

Dr. Sarwet Rasul

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Review of the previous Session

• We started Part III.• We covered Chapters 1-10 of part 3• We followed the same scheme of analysis:Explored the text of these

chapters – Explored related themes– Discussed the development of characters– Critically analyzed the selected parts of text

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Today’s Session

• We will continue Part III.• We will cover Chapters 11 onwards till the end of the novel• We will follow the same scheme of analysis:

– Will explore the text of these chapters, and critically analyze the selected parts of text

– Will explore related themes– Will discuss the development of characters

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Part III: Chapter 11 :50

• Pip himself was badly burned while he was trying to save Miss Havisham.

• Herbert takes care of his burns when he goes home.• Herbert has been spending some time with Magwitch at

Clara’s where he comes to know about the story of Magwitch.

• The story matches that of Jaggers’s housekeeper, Molly. • Thus, we come to know that Magwitch is Molly’s former

husband and Estella’s father.• The woman had come to Magwitch on the day she

murdered the other woman and told him she was going to kill their child and that Magwitch would never see the baby again. And actually Magwitch never knew anything about the child.

• Pip puts the pieces of this puzzle together to reach a conclusion, and tells Herbert that Magwitch is Estella’s father.

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Discussion points• Yet other identities are revealed in this chapter.• With the revelation of the identity of Estella we can see a

lot of things in a different light.• There are many ironies and implications of this revelation.• Estella is the daughter of a convict and a murderous

tigress. On the other hand Pip has always conceived Estella as wealthy, beautiful and uncommon.

• Again the theme of criminality runs through the text. Estella is more closely related to the world of criminals and convicts than even Pip does.

• Also ironically Pip feels he has not become what Magwitch had hoped for him. Magwitch wanted him to be a gentlemanly son that he could not be. On the other hand the very own daughter of Magwitch becomes ladylike.

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Part III: Chapter 12: 51

• Pip wants to make sure that he learns the whole truth. • Pip tells Jaggers that he knows his servant woman is the mother of

Estella and that Jaggers brought her to Miss Havisham.• He also tells him Magwitch is the father. • Jaggers was not aware of this and is surprised to know this.• Pip requests for more details in this regard. He also requests

Wemmick standing by, to help him. While doing so, he tells Jaggers of Wemmick's warm castle and of his "Aged" relative.

• Jaggers is amazed at this as well, and tells Pip more of the story. • Jaggers had, in fact, talked (or rather threatened) his servant

woman out of keeping the child and knew that Miss Havisham was looking to adopt.

• He said he wanted to save the child, to give it a chance in life, because he had seen too many children in her situation grow up in and out of jails, affected by the surroundings of criminal environment.

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Discussion points• Over all the chapter is more focused on revelation of identities and

relationships.

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Part III: Chapter 13: 52

• A message from Wemmick arrives.• The message indicates that may be now is a good time to escape with

Magwitch and get him out of England. • Herbert and Pip plan to take the boat out with Magwitch in a few days,

take him down the Thames until they run into a steamer headed for a foreign port.

• In the meantime, Pip gets another letter, this one by an anonymous author, telling him to come down to the limekiln in the marshes that night in secret.

• Once again, Pip goes to his hometown and walks out to the marshes. • As Pip travels to the inn near his childhood home, is reminded of his

past, his past relations, and how badly he neglected Joe since he became a gentleman.

• Of all his losses, Pip thinks he regrets the loss of Joe’s friendship the most.

• Thus, a changes, and a more humbled Pip, with the realization of his follies, starts out to have the mysterious meeting on the marshes.

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Discussion points• We notice once again that the process of learning for Pip is getting faster.• He is on his journey from a snob to a humbled man.

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Part III: Chapter 14: 53• It is a dark night that envelops the marshes.• Everything is wrapped in mist.• Pip goes to the marshes to a shack near the limekiln where he is to meet

the anonymous writer. • He enters an abandoned stone quarry and suddenly finds his candle

extinguished.• There suddenly somebody attacks him. It is Orlick who catches and ties

him up.• Pip does not want to die, not because he values his own life, but because

he still has moral obligations to fulfill with Magwitch that is getting him out of the country, and asking Joe for forgiveness.

• Orlick accuses Pip of coming between him and a young woman he fancied, among other things, and declares his intention to have revenge.

• Orlick also admits to hitting Mrs. Joe over the head, but says it was Pip's fault because Pip was the favored one and Orlick was jealous of him. Orlick says he is working for Compeyson. He further claims that Compeyson will make sure that Magwitch does not leave the country.

• Just as it appears Orlick is going to kill him, suddenly Herbert, Startop and Trabb's boy appear from nowhere, upon which Orlick escapes.

• It turns out that Pip had dropped the anonymous letter at home and Herbert found it. He and Startop came to the town and got Trabb's boy to show them where the shack was.

• Anyhow, after this rescue Pip rests a day at home. The next day they plan to escape with Magwitch.

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Discussion points• Orlick symbolically stands for random forces of violence.• He is probably the only truly evil character in the novel, who never learns

and remains the same evil till the end of the novel.

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Part III: Chapter 15: 54• The day of escape is ironically a bright sunny morning.• A sparkling sunrise dazzles the whole London as Pip and Herbert prepare to put

their plan into action. • They start rowing down the river, picking up Magwitch at the already fixed time.• All the day they rowed downstream, stopping at an inn when night fell.• At the filthy inn where they stop that night, a servant tells them that he saw a

suspicious boat around. • Pip gets worried that it could be either the police or Compeyson. • Also that night Pip sees two men looking into his boat, so the get more worried

and they arrange for Pip and Magwitch to sneak out early the next morning.• Next day their journey begins again.• They are just within a few feet of a steamer that they hope to board when

another boat pulls alongside to stop them. • In the confusion, Pip sees Compeyson leading the other boat, but the steamer

is on top of them. The steamer crushes Pip's boat, Compeyson and Magwitch disappear under the water, and Pip, Startop and Herbert find themselves in a police boat.

• Magwitch finally comes up from the water. They grapple, and each slips under the surface, but only Magwitch appears on the surface. He claims not to have drowned Compeyson, though he says he would have liked to.

• However, is is suspected of drowning Compeyson, and is shackled and arrested.

• Pip sits down next to the injured and exhausted Magwitch, and feels that he will stay by Magwitch's side until the end. Pip also realizes that the English government will take all of Magwitch's fortune.

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Discussion points

• The chapter is full of intrigue and action.• We see Magwitch’s final fate.• We see Pip relating himself to Magwitch. Caring for him,

not ashamed of being associated with him, and genuinely concerned about him.

• Also we notice Magwitch seemingly unworried about the future. He is contented to be free for the moment and sitting next to the boy he considers a son.

• The very factor that the loss of Magwitch's fortune does not bother Pip demonstrates the extent and power of his transformation.

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Part III: Chapter 16: 55• Magwitch is in jail and quite ill. • Jaggers is certain that Magwitch will be found guilty.• We notice that it does not affect Pip’s loyalty to Magwitch.

• He is not even bothered by the fact that the government will appropriate Magwitch’s fortune, including Pip’s money.

• Herbert is leaving for Egypt with the firm in the position that Pip, and now Miss Havisham, had secretly set up for him.

• Herbert plans to marry Clara soon.• He offers Pip a job as his clerk in the company Pip delays

his answer.• The reason of this delay on part of Pip is that he wants to

know about the fate of Magwitch.• Wemmick invites Pip to his castle on a Monday. We come to

know that this is the first holiday Wemmick has taken in over twelve years of his career.

• He and Pip go for a walk till they reach a church, where to Pip’s surprise Miss Skiffins, who is waiting there, and Wemmick proceed to get married.

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Discussion points• Strands are being brought together. Neat ending to

the lives of different characters is given.• Two of Pip's best friends have found happiness.

Herbert is settled in his new job; Wemmick has found Miss Skiffins to complete his life.

• Currently Pip is in the worst situation.• With no job, no hopes for future he is left in a very

critical situation. On top of it Estella has married someone else, and his adoptive father is dying in prison.

• Pip’s great expectations have evaporated. He has failed to achieve any of them, and now does not have even the smallest expectation of a good honest living with a good loving wife that any common man could think of.

• However, Pip has learnt, and is a transformed person now.

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Part III: Chapter 17: 56• Pip visits Magwitch daily in prison. Magwitch is ill and

"The kind of... resignation that he (Magwitch) showed, was that of a man who was tired out."

• As Jaggers had already predicted, Magwitch was found guilty and sentenced to death. The sentencing was carried out with thirty two other convicts also condemned to die.

• However, within ten days of the sentencing, Magwitch dies in prison.

• Before he dies, to ease his final moments and to give him a happy moment Pip whispers to him that the daughter he thought was dead is quite alive. "She is a lady and very beautiful,"

• Pip also assets, "And I love her." • Magwitch kisses Pip's hand in response and dies in

peace.• Pip prays over his body, pleading with God to forgive

his lost benefactor.

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Discussion points

• This chapter serves to present the ending of Magwitch’s life.• It also shows clearly Pip's transformation.• We notice that during the trial of Magwitch and then his

sentencing Pip stands by him.• At the sentencing, Pip assists Magwitch out of the chambers

while onlookers point their fingers at them.• We notice that Pip is no longer a snobbish man who bothers

about his image. • He face the reality and his association with Magwitch with

grace.• He honestly loves Magwitch and therefore does not fear

showing this love in public. • This reminds us of a different Pip who would not visit Joe and

Biddy for fear that his gentlemanly image in the eyes of people would be affected.

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Part III: Chapter 18: 57• Pip has suffered a lot of physical and emotional stress during the

past few weeks. • The weakness caused by burns that he got while saving Miss

Havisham and the fight with Orlick, combined with the stress caused by Magwitch’s arrest and his death makes him fall into a fever for nearly a month.

• He is also arrested for debt and face the danger of being sent to prison. It is only because of his extreme ill health that he is spared.

• He experiences wild hallucinations. Creditors and Joe fall in and out of his dreams.

• Finally, he regains his senses. As he comes back to senses he realizes that Joe has been there the whole time, nursing him and taking his care.

• Joe tells him that Miss Havisham died during his illness.• He further informs that she left Estella nearly all of her property, and

also gave Mathew Pocket a great deal. The rest of the relatives were given very little.

• Orlick has been put in jail because he broke into Pumblechook's house.

• As Pip slowly regains his strength, Joe, without saying anything, leaves one morning leaving only a note behind.

• Pip comes to know that Joe has paid off all his debtors. • Pip now wants to go to the forge to ask for forgiveness from Joe for

everything he has done. He also wants to ask Biddy to marry him.

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Discussion points

• Once again Joe proves to be a very good human being.• His love for Pip is also proved. It is he who nurses him, who

pays off his bills and who forgives him before even he asks for it.

• Like Pip’s childhood, Joe supports him when he is weak. Even now Joe is most comfortable when Pip is at his weakest. As Pip grows stronger, Joe begins to distance himself. Finally, he leaves.

• This chapter provides a neat ending to the character of Miss Havisham as well.

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Part III: Chapter 19: 58• Pip returns to his home town and is treated with a certain

coldness by the town that was so kind to him when he was on his way to great expectations.

• Pip walks toward the forge. All he wishes now is to live a simple happy life at the forge with Biddy.

• When he reaches there, he discovers that it the wedding day of Joe and Biddy.

• Pip wishes them well with all his sincerity. He asks them for their forgiveness for all he has done.

• Now Pip goes to work for Herbert‘s firm. He starts living with now married Clara and Herbert.

• Life goes on. Within a year, he becomes a partner. He pays off his debts and works hard.

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Discussion pointsThere are two main points related to this chapter:• Pip’s return to his original• Marriage of Biddy with Joe: A lesson for Pip

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Part III: Chapter 20: 59• As we move to the last chapter of the novel, we notice a

time lapse of eleven years. • Being out of the country working for Herbert's firm, Pip has

not seen Biddy or Joe in eleven years. Now he visits them finally and meets their son. Pip, can immediately identify himself with this little Pip, sitting by the fire with Joe just like Pip himself did years ago.

• Pip tells Biddy that he is quite the settled old bachelor, living with Clara and Herbert and he thinks he will never marry.

• Pip also visits Satis House that night. • There he meets Estella. Her husband Drummle treated her

roughly and recently died. • She tells Pip that she has learned the feeling of heartbreak

the hard way and now seeks his forgiveness for what she did to him.

• They discuss the past fondly; as the mists rise, they walk out of the garden hand in hand, and Pip "saw no shadow of another parting from her."

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Discussion points

• The final chapter of the novel remains a controversy with critics even today.

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Discussion on the Ending

• The ending ofGreat Expectations is more controversial than it may seem at first. Before writing the scene in which Pip finds Estella in the garden and sees “no shadow of another parting from her,” Dickens wrote another, less romantic ending to the book. In this version, Pip hears that, after Drummle’s death, Estella married a country doctor in Shropshire. Walking through London one day with Joe and Biddy’s son, Pip runs into Estella and they have a very brief meeting and shake hands. Though they do not discuss the past, Pip says he could see that “suffering had been stronger than Miss Havisham’s teaching and had given her a heart to understand what my heart used to be.”

• Dickens changed this ending at the suggestion of a friend, the novelist Edward Bulwer Lytton. He seems to have been motivated, at least in part, by the desire to please his reading public with a happy ending.

• Though much more depressing, many critics consider the first ending more true to the story's themes. Their argument, in some cases, is that the entire point of the book was that Pip must come to realize happiness through his own internal process and not through some external situation (such as position or wealth) or person (like Estella).

• However, there is some justice in Estella and Pip finally finding love in each other. Because of their difficulties, they seem both to have come to a realization of what it means to be happy and therefore are ready for a healthy relationship with each other. Chapter Nineteen demonstrated that Pip had been living an upright life for 11 years when he finally runs into Estella again. Estella might be seen as the final reward for a true Victorian gentleman

• Which ending to be favoured is readers choice anyhow.

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Great Expectations : Revisiting the Title

• The title is ironic.• The title comes from a speech in which a lawyer (Mr.

Jaggers) explains to young Pip (the protagonist) that he is to be taken from his poor home, where he has had expectations of following in his brother-in-law’s footsteps to become a blacksmith, and instead educated to become a gentleman.

In Ch18, Jaggers announces:• `I am instructed to communicate to him,' said Mr Jaggers,

throwing his finger at me sideways, `that he will come into a handsome property. Further, that it is the desire of the present possessor of that property, that he be immediately removed from his present sphere of life and from this place, and be brought up as a gentleman -- in a word, as a young fellow of great expectations.’

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Title• The interpretations of the title• Symbolic nature of the title• Ironic nature of the title

 

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Role of the Narrator

• Objective view• More matured view• Additional information• Sights into child psychology

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End of the novel

• Final comments

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References

• CHARLES DICKEN’S GREAT EXPECTATIONS. (2007) Edited and with an introduction by Harold Bloom. Viva Books Private Limited: New Delhi

• DICKENS: A COLLECTION OF CRITICAL ESSAYS (1967). Edited by Martin Price. Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs. New Jersey

• http://www.cliffsnotes.com• www.gradesaver.com• www.enotes.com• www.bartleby.com • www.gutenberg.org• http://www.helium.com• http://www.studymode.com• http://thebestnotes.com

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Thank you very much!