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How Great Expectations changed my own expectations



Great Expectations changed my life.

Up until Grade 11, I was simply an okay student. I had skipped a grade a few years earlier, and I was doing fine, but I didn’t stand out. And no wonder. I barely remember doing any homework. I didn’t feel particularly challenged by anything; like most adolescents, I was probably more interested in watching TV or appearing cool and trying to fit in than I was with marks or learning.

But something happened in Grade 11, and I think it had to do with Great Expectations. The book was assigned for English class, and we were supposed to start reading it over the Christmas break. I procrastinated. It seemed like such a chore; there was so much description in the book; I couldn’t relate to the idea of a “gentleman��; and what the hell were “victuals��? But soon enough, I was entranced by Dickens’s storytelling skills.

When we finally came to study the book in the new year, I’m sure I ended up skimming some passages. But I remember, thanks to my excellent teacher, being fully swept up in Dickens’s tale of a simple country boy’s sudden change in fortune. Suddenly, I got excited about the past. Suddenly, I got excited about school. My grades improved. The next year, I got into the “Scholarship,�� or “Enriched,�� English class, which offered a much heavier course load that included (!) Oliver Twist.

After that, I began reading Dickens on my own. I read Bleak House one summer. Ditto David Copperfield. I don’t know why I stopped. University, perhaps? My loss. But my lifelong love of reading probably began around this time.

Rereading this book over the past week has brought back that rush of excitement and discovery. To be clear, this wasn’t my second encounter with the material. I’ve seen many film, TV and stage adaptations of the story, and one Christmas, Santa (i.e., my book-loving mom) had left an abridged audiotape recording of the book in my stocking. Even in this format, I was enchanted again.

But there’s really nothing like experiencing the journey of Pip, Joe, Mrs. Joe, Magwitch, Miss Havisham, Estella, et al. from the start. I’ve always considered it one of my favourite novels of all time, and this rereading has reaffirmed my love for it.

So I proudly add this to my Rereading series, the rest of which can be found here: /review/list...


What do I remember from my first reading?
�� The great opening scene in the churchyard cemetery between Pip and the convict (see illustration above). It’s truly one of the most memorable inciting events in all of literature.
(view spoiler)[�� The petrified life of Miss Havisham. The idea of this woman who stopped her life from continuing at the exact time she was jilted was truly inspired. For Dickens to make her a symbol of someone literally stuck in the past was sheer genius. All the details are there: the faded wedding gown; the stopped clocks; the spoiled reception table. (I think my original edition had pictures of the mice and insects crawling in and around the wedding cake.) Of course, this isn’t realism. But it’s so effective as a metaphor.
�� Pip’s changing relationship with Joe and Biddy. Is there a more humble and modest portrait of working class life than Joe Gargery, the blacksmith? I think not. Dickens illustrates Pip’s changing attitude towards his background with real skill. I’m not sure an author from the upper classes could have created the small town characters with as much insight and affection.
�� The idea of having one’s fortunes completely changed overnight.
�� All the coincidences. Which: yeah, this is Dickens.

What don’t I remember from that reading?
�� I must admit I forgot about some minor characters like the clerk Mr. Wopsle, who has his own “great expectations�� arc as an aspiring Shakespearean actor!
�� I probably skimmed the passages with (the lawyer) Jaggers’s clerk, Wemmick, who keeps his professional life separate from his personal one. (He lives with his “Aged.��)
�� Some of the cloak and danger intrigue would have been intriguing, I’m sure, for someone who had never seen a Mission: Impossible film. The big climactic attempted escape by boat was okay, but a little old-fashioned. It was also hard for me to picture. I think the mysterious mood of dread and foreboding Dickens created was more important than the actual action.
�� I had mostly forgotten Magwitch’s long story about his life, both before and after he had met Pip. Now I’m curious to read Peter Carey’s Jack Maggs, which I think is loosely inspired by his tale.

What do I appreciate now?
�� The first-person narration is absolutely essential to our enjoyment of the book. Getting deep inside Pip’s mind, from a child to a teen to a young man to a humbled person at the end, is fascinating. What happens midway through the novel, as Pip avoids Joe and the forge once his expectations have risen, is telling. We know he’s avoiding them, but Pip never admits it in his narrative. We don’t even need Dickens to tell us that he’s avoiding them. We know it. We feel it. And we know Pip will eventually have to deal with that avoidance.
�� The sense of humour (mostly) holds up. And the dialogue is rich and dramatic.
�� Each character’s language is distinct, from Uncle Pumblechook’s preening, pretentious spewings to the very different rough diction by Joe and Magwitch. Jaggers (perfect name!), even in his sentence constructions and rhetoric, speaks just as a lawyer would speak.
�� Miss Havisham’s remorse when she realizes how her selfishness has affected everyone �� Pip, Estella �� is quite moving.
�� I hadn’t realized before that Magwitch, like Havisham, also wanted to shape a life to rectify something that had happened to him.
�� Bentley Drummle doesn’t get much time on the page, but he’s memorable. And his beatings of Estella, and the fitting way he dies (we’re told he mistreated a horse and the horse fought back), are quietly horrible.
�� The lesson that people, regardless of their status or wealth or reputation, are only as good as how they treat you, is invaluable. A few years after reading this, when I headed to college and suddenly met people from vastly differently socio-economic groups, I’m sure this stayed with me.

Final thoughts
�� This is a mature masterpiece. There’s comic relief, but a darkness suffuses the book. Whichever of the endings you accept, there’s still a feeling that there’s no real happy ending to Pip and Estella’s lives.
�� As is usual with Dickens, characters�� names tell you so much about them. Herbert Pocket. Wemmick. Mr. Pumblechook. Orlick. Abel Magwitch.
�� As I suggested above, this isn’t realism. But there’s something Dickens does to get us to know these characters. He gives them specific traits, tics, sayings, obsessions. All of this is less insistently comical than it was in a book like David Copperfield, though; there’s no “Barkis is willin.’��
�� There’s a reason why this novel has endured, and why it’s been adapted so often. Its themes of attempting to rise above one’s class, of accepting where one came from, of vengeance, of redemption, of forgiveness, are absolutely timeless.
�� Thank you, Dickens, and to my Grade 11 teacher, for altering the course of my life. (hide spoiler)]