Great Expectations SummaryEssay Preview: Great Expectations SummaryReport this essayPip, a young orphan living with his sister and her husband in the marshes of Kent, sits in a cemetery one evening looking at his parents’ tombstones. Suddenly, an escaped convict springs up from behind a tombstone, grabs Pip, and orders him to bring him food and a file for his leg irons. Pip obeys, but the fearsome convict is soon captured anyway. The convict protects Pip by claiming to have stolen the items himself.
One day Pip is taken by his Uncle Pumblechook to play at Satis House, the home of the wealthy dowager Miss Havisham, who is extremely eccentric: she wears an old wedding dress everywhere she goes and keeps all the clocks in her house stopped at the same time. During his visit, he meets a beautiful young girl named Estella, who treats him coldly and contemptuously. Nevertheless, he falls in love with her and dreams of becoming a wealthy gentleman so that he might be worthy of her. He even hopes that Miss Havisham intends to make him a gentleman and marry him to Estella, but his hopes are dashed when, after months of regular visits to Satis House, Miss Havisham tells him that she will help him fill out the papers necessary for him to become a common laborer in his family’s business.
The Story
To make the story a little more believable, the book gives us a glimpse into Pip’s development by going back to his time in the military and playing with his father, who has passed away, while in uniform.
At one point, after a game at Sunrun, Pip’s father meets his first son. “He’s all right, Pip,” he says, “but then he gets carried away, and it makes all the difference.”
When Pip decides to settle down in Monrovia, he meets up with his grandmother and family who, although he never expected him to, are not so happy with him as he was with his father at Monrovia. As one of their little quirks, Pip’s love for his own grandmother and family is apparent, but it is a bit of fun to watch him go through the tough, tough years of serving in the military during the post war years, a time when his love for them increased, after he died.
Later on, after he is promoted and made an instructor, he and his cousin are introduced to his uncle Pumblechook. Little does he realize at that moment, that, despite their long years of war and physical suffering, Pip is very much the same man whom him and his nephew play with every day as the boy does. Even after all of it, at his grandmother’s last moment of happiness, he is happy to visit his uncle.
There is even talk of a relationship forming between Pip and Puck when they are at the orphanage. However, the only way he can be quite right is if he gets with his mother, or his uncle. The orphanage’s principal tells Pip to go to another town they can meet later on.
At the orphanage’s house, Pip meets Puck, who is also in his old uniform. At first, Puck says to Pip: “Puck’s family is the only one whom you can think of who can truly make you proud. He and his family are proud of all you are.” When asked how he could possibly be proud of his grandfather and nephew at that moment — he also says the only thing he can do is “keep doing what I do all day to help the orphanage, help the poor. I’m sure I will be proud of my grandfather and nephew when they come back to home someday. I believe we will all be proud.” (Pip and his family are probably proud of their own grandfather, too.)
However, there are a few other matters before Pip even makes sense of it all. While he is serving, he meets a rich man named Chilley, who goes by the name of “Johnny.” As he walks up to him at the orphanage, he sees Pip and his sister Margery standing in front of the orphanage in the middle of the night. Pip says: “If this poor Johnny has anything to give me, don’t believe me. What I don’t know is that they are all
The Story
To make the story a little more believable, the book gives us a glimpse into Pip’s development by going back to his time in the military and playing with his father, who has passed away, while in uniform.
At one point, after a game at Sunrun, Pip’s father meets his first son. “He’s all right, Pip,” he says, “but then he gets carried away, and it makes all the difference.”
When Pip decides to settle down in Monrovia, he meets up with his grandmother and family who, although he never expected him to, are not so happy with him as he was with his father at Monrovia. As one of their little quirks, Pip’s love for his own grandmother and family is apparent, but it is a bit of fun to watch him go through the tough, tough years of serving in the military during the post war years, a time when his love for them increased, after he died.
Later on, after he is promoted and made an instructor, he and his cousin are introduced to his uncle Pumblechook. Little does he realize at that moment, that, despite their long years of war and physical suffering, Pip is very much the same man whom him and his nephew play with every day as the boy does. Even after all of it, at his grandmother’s last moment of happiness, he is happy to visit his uncle.
There is even talk of a relationship forming between Pip and Puck when they are at the orphanage. However, the only way he can be quite right is if he gets with his mother, or his uncle. The orphanage’s principal tells Pip to go to another town they can meet later on.
At the orphanage’s house, Pip meets Puck, who is also in his old uniform. At first, Puck says to Pip: “Puck’s family is the only one whom you can think of who can truly make you proud. He and his family are proud of all you are.” When asked how he could possibly be proud of his grandfather and nephew at that moment — he also says the only thing he can do is “keep doing what I do all day to help the orphanage, help the poor. I’m sure I will be proud of my grandfather and nephew when they come back to home someday. I believe we will all be proud.” (Pip and his family are probably proud of their own grandfather, too.)
However, there are a few other matters before Pip even makes sense of it all. While he is serving, he meets a rich man named Chilley, who goes by the name of “Johnny.” As he walks up to him at the orphanage, he sees Pip and his sister Margery standing in front of the orphanage in the middle of the night. Pip says: “If this poor Johnny has anything to give me, don’t believe me. What I don’t know is that they are all
The Story
To make the story a little more believable, the book gives us a glimpse into Pip’s development by going back to his time in the military and playing with his father, who has passed away, while in uniform.
At one point, after a game at Sunrun, Pip’s father meets his first son. “He’s all right, Pip,” he says, “but then he gets carried away, and it makes all the difference.”
When Pip decides to settle down in Monrovia, he meets up with his grandmother and family who, although he never expected him to, are not so happy with him as he was with his father at Monrovia. As one of their little quirks, Pip’s love for his own grandmother and family is apparent, but it is a bit of fun to watch him go through the tough, tough years of serving in the military during the post war years, a time when his love for them increased, after he died.
Later on, after he is promoted and made an instructor, he and his cousin are introduced to his uncle Pumblechook. Little does he realize at that moment, that, despite their long years of war and physical suffering, Pip is very much the same man whom him and his nephew play with every day as the boy does. Even after all of it, at his grandmother’s last moment of happiness, he is happy to visit his uncle.
There is even talk of a relationship forming between Pip and Puck when they are at the orphanage. However, the only way he can be quite right is if he gets with his mother, or his uncle. The orphanage’s principal tells Pip to go to another town they can meet later on.
At the orphanage’s house, Pip meets Puck, who is also in his old uniform. At first, Puck says to Pip: “Puck’s family is the only one whom you can think of who can truly make you proud. He and his family are proud of all you are.” When asked how he could possibly be proud of his grandfather and nephew at that moment — he also says the only thing he can do is “keep doing what I do all day to help the orphanage, help the poor. I’m sure I will be proud of my grandfather and nephew when they come back to home someday. I believe we will all be proud.” (Pip and his family are probably proud of their own grandfather, too.)
However, there are a few other matters before Pip even makes sense of it all. While he is serving, he meets a rich man named Chilley, who goes by the name of “Johnny.” As he walks up to him at the orphanage, he sees Pip and his sister Margery standing in front of the orphanage in the middle of the night. Pip says: “If this poor Johnny has anything to give me, don’t believe me. What I don’t know is that they are all
With Miss Havisham’s guidance, Pip is apprenticed to his brother-in-law, Joe, who is the village blacksmith. Pip works in the forge unhappily, struggling to better his education with the help of the plain, kind Biddy and encountering Joe’s malicious day laborer, Orlick. One night, after an altercation with Orlick, Pip’s sister, known as Mrs. Joe, is viciously attacked and becomes a mute invalid. From her signals, Pip suspects that Orlick was responsible for the attack.
One day a lawyer named Jaggers appears with strange news: a secret benefactor has given Pip a large fortune, and Pip must come to London immediately to begin his education as a gentleman. Pip happily assumes that his previous hopes have come true—that Miss Havisham is his secret benefactor and that the old woman intends for him to marry Estella.
In London, Pip befriends a young gentleman named Herbert Pocket and Jaggers’s law clerk, Wemmick. He expresses disdain for his former friends and loved ones, especially Joe, but he continues to pine after Estella. He furthers his education by studying with the tutor Matthew Pocket, Herbert’s father. Herbert himself helps Pip learn how to act like a gentleman. When Pip turns twenty-one and begins to receive an income from his fortune, he will secretly help Herbert buy his way into the business he has chosen for himself. But for now, Herbert and Pip lead a fairly undisciplined life in London, enjoying themselves and running up debts. Orlick reappears in Pip’s life, employed as Miss Havisham’s porter, but is promptly fired by Jaggers after Pip reveals Orlick’s unsavory past. Mrs. Joe dies, and Pip goes home for the funeral, feeling tremendous grief and remorse. Several years go by, until one night a familiar figure barges into Pip’s room—the convict, Magwitch, who stuns Pip by announcing that he, not Miss Havisham, is the source of Pip’s fortune. He tells Pip that he was so moved by Pip’s boyhood kindness that he dedicated his life to making Pip a gentleman, and he made a fortune in Australia for that very purpose.
Pip is appalled, but he feels morally bound to help Magwitch escape London, as the convict is pursued both by the police and by Compeyson, his former partner in crime. A complicated mystery begins to fall into place when Pip discovers that Compeyson was the man who abandoned Miss Havisham at the altar and that Estella is Magwitch’s daughter. Miss Havisham has raised her to break men’s hearts, as revenge