Section One of Great Expectations (through Chapter 19)
1) Pip introduces himself in Chapter One. What do you think about his humble beginnings? What strikes you about his parents and his statement about how he took “wife of the above” on his mother’s gravestone? What do you think about his sister, and his being raised “by hand” by her? How strong or weak do you think a first person narrative is?
2) What motivated Pip to help give the file and food to the escaped convicts? What do you think about his guilt during Christmas dinner, and his behavior during the hunt? Do you think this scene will be important as the story unfolds (if you've not read the book before?)
3) What do you think of the character of Miss Havisham and the description of her household? Why is Pip brought into the house, and what impact do you think it has upon him? What do you think of Estella?
4) What do you think of the character of Joe, and of his relationship with Pip? Of his relationship with his wife? What did you think of the attack on Joe’s wife, and what does it reveal about Joe’s character? About Pips? Who do you think was responsible?
5) The section ends with Pip finding out he has come into money. What do you think about his goodbyes to the village in which he grew up? What do you think about the stipulations of his newfound money? Do you think that Pip will thrive or not with his money? What do you think his "great expectations" are?
6) Any final thoughts, questions, big things I left out?
posted by Mimi @ 6/07/2010 05:23:00 PM
7 Comments
7 Comments:
I'm going to sort of cheat and just answer question 1 for now, because I'm a little behind in the reading and want to get some thoughts down before I forget. (Besides, each questions like *four*. No fair!)
Humble beginnings: Can Dickens write *anything* without an orphan in it? I suppose it neatly disposes of the parents that would keep a boy out of the scrapes that make for good Dickensian reading, and it gains reader sympathy right away.
Wife of the above: I couldn't quite figure out what Pip was making of that. Maybe someone else has better ideas.
Sister: Another one from Dickens' central casting -- the great, malevolent harridan. The whole scene with the sister and husband was funny, of course, but also a little harrowing.
Narrative: It's interesting, isn't it? The voice is the same, semi-detached, semi-amused type as in A Christmas Carol, but this time it's first-person. If *I* were recounting an anecdote that included being believably threatened by an escaped convict, I wouldn't act detached OR amused. But it does defuse some of the awfulness of it, which is probably just as well.
1. Yeah, Dickens = orphan, right? And I think it shows Pip's imagination and perhaps an idea that wives were generally afterthoughts?
Sister: Kind of a Mark Twainish type, right, like Aunt Polly? Weren't the two of them writing about the same time, contemporaries of the other?
Narrative: I like this style, it seems the type of style one would use after one was old to describe horrors of their youth without being overcome by bathos. And remembering how afraid we were of relatively harmless things when we're older IS a bit amusing.
Thoughts? Not really. I'm enjoying reading it again, and am getting a Dickens jones on, after two disastrous attempts to reread "Tale of TWo cities" in the past year.
Sorry, Grace, grin!
1) This is the first Dickens I've read (other than A Christmas Carol, and this vague memory of these stories that I liked to read at my aunt's house that I'm starting to think was "The Pickwick Papers") so I really had no expectation as I went into the story of expecting an orphan. I loved the way he thought about and contemplated "wife of the above" and had a whole impression about it. That seems so true to kids and how they process information.
I like first person narratives, and thought that it was a good choice.
2) I'm not sure Pip even quite knows what his motivation was, but I thought that the situation kept rolling out of his control, and he was along for the ride. I think his helping the convicts speaks to his basic goodness.
3) I thought that Miss Havisham was an interesting character - the fact that she shut herself in the house and never took her wedding dress off after her broken heart. I was intrigued by Pip's reaction to her, and how he saw her as a ghost. I think that's partially a commentary by Dickens about her being a shadow of who she was supposed to be.
4) I loved Joe - I loved the way he interacted with Pip, and thought that he was the bright spot in Pip's life. I was surprised that Joe's wife was attacked, and that she basically became a nice person afterwards. I liked that Joe took care of her, and didn't feel that he'd been "saddled" with a burden.
5) I was worried that Pip would somehow lose his money due to the stipulations being broken, I kept waiting for that shoe to drop. I thought that his expectations were to become rich and a city person.
Here's a belated addition to thoughts about this section. You asked what we thought of Miss Havisham, and I've been mulling that over ...
On the whole, she just doesn't ring quite true, does she? She seems a little out of place in a Dickens book; I would've expected her in a Victorian ghost story. As romantic an idea as it is that a young woman jilted at the altar would spend the rest of her life frozen in that moment, it's not really plausible. I would think that a really fixated person might be able to keep it up for a solid year, but for decades and decades? Naah. Not unless you were crazy to begin with, which doesn't seem to be the case.
It's probably not worth commenting on, except that I usually like Dickens characters. With all their flaws (funny or unfunny), they're usually human and believable.
@Grace, I love your thoughts on Miss Havisham - she is definitely not a true character, and I think you are right in that one of Dickens' hallmarks is his ability to draw true characters.
Pip's sister: at first mention I thought she must be nice to care for her brother. NOT! A few lines later, we learn what a jerk she is.
I like the narrative voice, however when reading it I don't "get" the humor. I "got it" when I heard it on audio, tho. I think I'm taking the story way too seriously when reading, but when listening I'm just enjoying it.
Miss Havisham's motivations for calling Pip to her in the first place are puzzling. I hope Dickens explains that.
I don't understand why Pip places Miss H and Estella on so high a pedestal. It's not like Miss H and Estella are leading exceptionally gentile lives, so to want to emulate them or rise to their level is baffling.
Joe is a great character: very humble, down to earth. And yet Pip seems to reject him, and think lowly of him, and preferring Miss H and Estella to the life of a blacksmith. Joe was the only nice person to Pip!
Biddy is introduced all of a sudden, and I find her character intriguing and way more likable than bratty Estella.
TGW - that's a very good point about reading vs hearing it out loud - I do wonder if there is social satire that I'm either not getting due to it being tonal or that I'm not that intimately familiar with Victorian England.
I also agree that Pip's attitude towards Joe, who is the one person who truly loves him, is quite rude.
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