Great Expectations

Great Expectations – is a classic novel by Charles Dickens that tells the coming-of-age story of an orphan named Pip, exploring themes of social class, ambition, love, and redemption. The novel is a bildungsroman, chronicling Pip’s life from childhood to adulthood in early to mid-19th century Kent and London. The story begins with young Pip in a churchyard, where he is accosted by an escaped convict, Abel Magwitch, whom he helps by stealing food and a file from his sister’s home. Pip is later sent to the home of the wealthy and eccentric recluse, Miss Havisham, who still wears her decaying wedding dress after being jilted years ago. There, he meets and falls in love with her beautiful but cold adopted daughter, Estella, who is being raised to break men’s hearts as revenge. Pip becomes ashamed of his “common” life as a blacksmith’s apprentice with his kind brother-in-law, Joe Gargery.