Charles
Dickens's
Great Expectations tells the story of
Pip,
an English orphan who rises to wealth, deserts his true friends, and becomes
humbled by his own arrogance. It also introduces one of the more colorful
characters in literature:
Miss
Havisham. Charles Dickens set
Great Expectations during the time
that
England
was becoming a wealthy world power. Machines were making factories more
productive, yet people lived in awful conditions, and such themes carry into
the story.
Type of Work: serial story turned novel
Genres: bildungsroman; Victorian Literature;
social commentary
First
Published: December 1860–April 1861 in weekly installments to a
magazine; July 1861 as a novel in 3 volumes; November 1862 as a whole novel
Setting: Early 1800s; London, England,
and around the marshes of Kent
Major Thematic Topics: good versus evil; moral
redemption from sin; wealth and its equal power to help or corrupt; personal
responsibility; awareness and acceptance of consequences from one's choices;
abandonment; guilt; shame; desire; secrecy; gratitude; ambition; obsession/emotional
manipulation versus real love; class structure and social rules; snobbery;
child exploitation; the corruption and problems of the educational and legal
systems; the need for prison reform; religious attitudes of the time; the
effect of the increasing trade and industrialization on people's lives; the
Victorian work ethic (or lack thereof)
Motifs: sense of location; criminals; social
expectations
Major Symbols: Miss Havisham's house; money
The three most important aspects of Great Expectations:
- Great Expectations is
a bildungsroman, or coming-of-age novel. Other examples of this
form include Jane
Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, and The
Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. Great Expectations is
unusual in that its main character, Pip, is often hard to sympathize with
because of his snobbery and the resulting bad behavior he exhibits toward
some of the other characters, like Joe Gargery.
- Like much of Charles
Dickens's work, Great Expectations was first published in a
popular magazine, in regular installments of a few chapters each. Many of
the novel's chapters end with a lack of dramatic resolution, which was
intended to encourage readers to buy the next installment.
- Over the years since the
novel's publication, many critics have objected to its happy ending, with
its implication that Pip and Estella will marry; these critics have said
that such a conclusion is inconsistent with the characters as we have come
to know them. In fact, Dickens originally wrote an ending in which Pip and
Estella meet and then part forever after a few conciliatory words.
Ways into Great Expectations
Once
you have read through the novel, you should identify subjects for study. We can
arrange these in categories.
- One would be characters and their relationships.
In this novel many of the characters are best considered in pairs, as they
resemble or are mirror images of others. Try and arrange them into pairs
or small groups.
- Another category is themes. Themes are important
ideas, which recur through the novel; often they are connected with
particular characters. What, in your view, are the important ideas in this
novel?
- The third category is perhaps
the hardest of the three to consider: this is the author's technique, how the story is told. Technique includes:
- the plot and
structure;
- the style of narrative
and dialogue;
- the viewpoint of the
narrative;
- symbolism and imagery,
and
- other decorative or
"poetic" features.
Early Years
In spite of humble
beginnings, little education, and the sometimes-critical literary reviewers,
Charles Dickens was loved by his public, and amassed wealth, prestige, and a
large legacy of published works. He was one of the few writers to enjoy both
popular acceptance and financial success while still alive. The drive for this
success had its roots in his childhood.
Charles John Huffam Dickens
was born in Portsmouth, England on Friday, February 7, 1812. He was the
second of eight children born to John and Elizabeth Dickens. His father, John,
was the son of illiterate servants. John Dickens managed to escape a similar
fate when the family his parents worked for got him a job in a navy pay office.
John continued his upward climb by keeping his own lowly background a secret
and courting Elizabeth Barrow, the daughter of a wealthy senior clerk who
worked there. The marriage succeeded, but John's hopes for further advancement
fizzled when his father-in-law was accused of embezzlement and fled the
country. The loss of this financial opportunity did not slow the spending
habits of John and Elizabeth, who liked the upper-class lifestyle. This problem
would be their downfall as time went on.
During Charles Dickens'
early years, his family moved a great deal due to his father's job and spending
habits. He recalled later that the best time of his childhood was their five
years in Chatham,
where they moved when Dickens was five, and where life was stable and happy.
Dickens loved the area, learned to read, and was sent to school.
However his father's
financial problems required a move to smaller quarters in London when Dickens was ten. Their four-room
home was cramped, creditors called frequently trying to collect payments, and
Dickens' parents alternated between the stress of survival and the gaiety of
continuing to party. Dickens wanted to return to school but was instead sent to
work at the age of twelve to help support the family.
For twelve hours a day, six
days a week, Charles Dickens pasted labels to bottles of shoe polish at the
rat-infested, dilapidated Warren's
Blacking factory. He was ridiculed and harassed by the older, bigger workers
and shamed by the stigma of working in such filthy, low-class surroundings.
Intellectually frustrated, resentful of his older sister (who was studying at
the Royal Academy of Music), and hurt by his parents' lack of interest in his
education, Dickens despaired.
When his father was
arrested for nonpayment of a debt, Dickens' mother and younger siblings moved
into prison with his father, leaving the twelve-year-old alone on the outside
to continue working. His older sister remained at the music academy. Lonely,
scared, and abandoned, Dickens lived in a run-down neighborhood close to the
prison so that he could visit his family. It was a firsthand experience of
poverty and prison life and a reinforcement of the considerable insecurity and
emotional abandonment that marked his childhood.
A small inheritance a few
months later allowed his family to leave prison. Dickens was finally allowed to
attend school over his mother's objections — she did not want to lose
his income. School was short-lived though: At fifteen, Dickens had to return to
work. Dickens never got over the time he spent at Warren's and his fierce sense of betrayal and
rage at his mother's callousness stayed with him for life. Recalling that time,
he said: "I never afterwards forgot, I never shall forget, I never can
forget, that my mother was warm for my being sent back [to Warren's Blacking]."
Education
In the strictest sense,
Dickens' formal education was limited. His mother taught him to read when he
was a young boy, and his early education was of a self-taught nature. By the
age of ten, he had devoured novels such as Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe,
Henry Fielding's Tom Jones, and Miguel Cervantes' Don Quixote. At
nine, he experimented with writing a play for his family and called it Misnar,
the Sultan of India.
In 1821, Dickens attended
the Giles Academy in Chatham for about one year. Later, when he
was twelve, he attended the Wellington
House Academy
in London. At
fifteen, family problems required him to return to work, and so his last
"schooling" was again, self-taught. He purchased a reading ticket to
the British Museum at eighteen and immersed himself
in its large library. He also taught himself shorthand.
Jobs
For seven years after
Dickens left Wellington House, he lived at home and worked at various jobs. He
spent the first two years as a law clerk. After learning shorthand he spent
four years as a legal reporter, then as a shorthand reporter in Parliament. In
1834 he joined the staff of the Morning Chronicle as a news reporter
covering elections, Parliament, and other political events. Dickens also spent
some of his time involved in the theater, and he also began to write for
publication. His adulthood was marked by a feverish work pace and a desire to
achieve.
Love and Family
At eighteen Dickens met
Maria Beadnell, the daughter of a rich banker. She was two years older,
beautiful — he fell totally in love. He wrote to her: "I never have
loved and I never can love any human creature breathing but yourself."
Though the relationship went well for a while, she lost interest in him after
returning from finishing school in Paris.
Dickens' friend and biographer, John Forster, was at first surprised that
Dickens was so affected by this relationship, a pain that continued even years
later. But Forster realized that this was fueled by a deep sense of social
inferiority. Dickens was determined to succeed beyond everyone's wildest dreams
and show them how wrong they were about him. Interestingly enough, he met Maria
again years later. Eagerly looking forward to his meeting with her, and
expecting the desirable vision of his youth, he was crushed when a middle-aged
woman resembling his wife showed up. As his sister-in-law happily put it, Maria
"had become very fat!"
In 1834, Dickens met
Catherine Hogarth, the oldest daughter of the Morning Chronicle's
editor, George Hogarth. Hogarth had favorably reviewed Dickens' work, Sketches
by Boz, and the two men had become friends. Charles and Catherine were
engaged in 1895 and married in 1836. It was a strange courtship: While the two
held each other in affection and Catherine share his interest in a family, the
courtship lacked the passion of his relationship with Beadnell. Dickens often
broke dates with Catherine to meet work deadlines and sent her reprimanding
letters if she protested.
As time went on their
differences grew more apparent. Catherine was not outgoing or socially poised,
and she avoided the public and social events her husband attended. In addition,
Catherine's younger sister, Mary, had come to live with them shortly after
their marriage. Dickens was very attached to Mary and when she died suddenly in
1838 at the age of seventeen, he was devastated. His enduring grief over her
death incurred his wife's jealousy. Mary, adored by Charles Dickens, would show
up again and again as a character in his works.
In time, another
seventeen-year-old would steal his heart. Middle-aged, hard working, and
disillusioned with his marriage, Dickens met Ellen Ternan, an actress in one of
his plays. She was everything his wife was not: lovely, young, and slim.
Catherine, with ten pregnancies, had grown stout, and at forty-three could not
compete with the younger woman. It did not take long for the marriage to
dissolve, resulting in something of a scandal at the time. Catherine, rejected
by her husband, left the family home. The children rarely saw her because they stayed
with Dickens, and she died in 1879, nine years after he. Dickens spent the rest
of his life maintaining a secret relationship with Ternan.
Literary Writing and
the Rest of Life
During his early working
years, Dickens had started writing short pieces or "sketches." Some
were stories; others, descriptions of places in London, such as Newgate Prison or the
shopping districts. One of these, "A Dinner at Poplar Walk," was
published in 1833 in the Monthly Magazine. It was an emotional and
exciting moment for the young writer even though he received no payment or
credit for that first article. The magazine requested more and he started using
the pen name, Boz. In 1836, he published a collection of sixty of these pieces
in a book called Sketches by Boz. It received critical praise and sales
were good. Monthly Magazine then asked Dickens to write a humorous novel
that they would publish in twenty installments. Thus, Dickens' novel Pickwick
Papers was born.
By the fourth installment
of Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens was a dramatic success. People at
all levels of society loved him. The acclaim only fueled his intensity. While
still working on Pickwick Papers, Dickens started a much darker novel,
Oliver Twist. It was a social criticism of the exploitation of orphans
both in institutions and on the streets. Not to be slowed, he began Nicholas
Nickleby when Oliver Twist was only half-finished. Nickleby
combined both the humor of his first novel with the criticism of his second,
focusing on the corruption of private boarding schools.
His grief over the death of
his sister-in-law, Mary, probably served as the basis for the character, Little
Nell, in his next novel, The Old Curiosity Shop. His readers followed
the story closely especially when Nell became sick — many, desperately
hoping she would not die, begged the publisher to spare her. Barnaby Rudge
was Dickens' next novel, a historical novel set in England during the French
Revolution.
In 1842, Dickens and his
wife traveled through America.
He found himself crushed with admirers to the point of feeling oppressed by his
fame. In addition, the attitudes and vanity of some of the Americans disturbed
him, especially with regard to slavery, and he was frustrated by the lack of
copyright protection in the States — many of his works were being
published there without any payment to him. When he returned home, Dickens
wrote American Notes. While polite, Dickens' feelings about America were
nevertheless obvious. American critics were, as you may expect, hostile.
His next works were a
series of five Christmas stories, of which "A Christmas Carol" was
the most successful. Martin Chuzzlewit, a more direct attack on America and its
attitudes, followed. Dickens also spent time creating and editing a newspaper,
the Daily News, and acting in a number of amateur theater productions.
At this same time, he had a number of flirtations with other women and his
marriage was crumbling. Concentration and sleep suffered, so much so that his
seventh novel, Dombey and Son, took a great deal of time and struggle to
finish. However, the slower pace didn't diminish the quality of Dickens work:
Philip Collins called Dombey and Son Dickens' "first mature
masterpiece."
This period was marked by a
number of painful personal experiences: the death of his older sister, Fanny,
in 1848; Catherine's nervous breakdown in 1850 after the birth of their
daughter Dora Annie; the 1851 death of Dora; and the death of Dickens' father,
John, in 1851. Yet during this period, Dickens achieved a major turning point
in his writing: David Copperfield. Lawrence Kappel, a modern reviewer,
crystallizes the achievement:
"For the first time,
he conceived a hero who could survive in the midst of the problem-filled world
of experience by using his artistic imagination, like Dickens himself. This
autobiographical novel was a celebration of the artist's ability to cope with
the world right in the center of it, as opposed to just surviving the world by
retreating to some safe place at the edge of it, as Dickens' earlier heroes had
done."
The next several years
would bring the publication of Dickens' next three novels — Bleak House,
Hard Times, and Little Dorrit — as well as the anguish and
personal scandal of his involvement with Ellen Ternan and his divorce from
Catherine. The novels were darker than anything he had previously written and
their focus was mostly social criticism: Bleak House's criticism
targeted the legal system (it may have been the first detective novel published
in English), Hard Times hit the government, and Little Dorritt
aimed at the problems of society's class structure. This period also saw
Dickens become involved in more theatrical productions, start a weekly
magazine, Household Words, and give public readings of his works.
In 1859, after a dispute
with the publishers of Household Words, Dickens left and started another
magazine, All the Year Round. The first issue carried the first
installment of his next novel, A Tale of Two Cities. Like Barnaby
Rudge it was a historical novel, set in France during the riotous 1770s and
1780s. The novel was popular with his readers, but did not receive much
critical acclaim. Struggling to improve the magazine's circulation and revenue,
Dickens hit gold and a financial rescue with his next novel: Great
Expectations. In spite of a mixed reception by reviewers, the reading
public loved it — many proclaimed it to be his best work.
Also during this time,
Dickens burned most of his letters and papers: In his success, he did not want
anyone to make his life more interesting than his novels. By destroying his
notes, he effectively took his insights regarding his works to the grave,
leaving the interpretations of his stories up to his literary critics and readers.
After Great Expectations,
Dickens began work on his last complete novel, Our Mutual Friend. It was
a return to Dickens' darker style: social criticism was of a corrupt society,
with London's
dumps and polluted river symbolizing a modern industrial wasteland. Dickens
continued to chain-smoke and overwork, maintaining a heavy public-reading
schedule as well as national and international tours. From 1865 until his
death, Dickens experienced a number of health problems, including a possible
heart attack and a series of small strokes. The work he began in 1869, The
Mystery of Edwin Drood, was never finished — on June 8, 1870 he suffered an apparent
cerebral hemorrhage, collapsing on the floor after dinner. He died the next
day.
