Great Expectations pdf, Summary, Characters by Charles Dickens

Great Expectations pdf Overview

Great Expectations pdf by Charles Dickens is his 13th novel which depicts the education of an orphan nicknamed Pip. 

The novel “Great Expectations,” was first published as a serial in Charles Dickens’s weekly periodical All the Year Round, from 1 December 1860 to August 1861. In October 1861, Chapman and Hall published the novel in three volumes.

The novel is set in and London in the early to mid-19th century and contains some of Charles Dickens’s most celebrated scenes, starting in a graveyard, where the young Pip is accosted by the escaped convict Abel Magwitch. 

The novel Great Expectations pdf is full of extreme imagery – poverty, prison ships and chains, and fights to the death. It also has a colorful cast of characters who have entered popular culture. These include the eccentric Miss Havisham, the beautiful but cold Estella, and Joe, the unsophisticated and kind blacksmith. 

Charles Dickens’s themes include wealth, poverty, love, rejection, and the eventual triumph of good over evil. 

Great Expectations pdf, has been translated into many languages and adapted numerous times into various media.

Bernard Shaw praised the novel as “All of one piece and consistently truthful.

Great Expectation Summary

The novel, Great Expectations includes three “stages’ ‘ of Pip’s expectations.

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Great Expectation pdf Summary – First Stage

In this state, we saw Pip is an orphan, about seven years old, who lives with his hot-tempered older sister and her kindly blacksmith husband Joe Gargery on the coastal marshes of Kent. On Christmas Eve 1812, Pip is visiting the graves of his parents and siblings. There, he unexpectedly encounters an escaped convict who threatens him with death if he does not bring back food and tools. Terrified, Pip steals a file from among Joe’s tools and a pie and brandy that were meant for Christmas dinner, which he delivers to the convict.

That evening, Pip’s sister is about to look for the missing pie when soldiers arrive and ask Joe to mend some shackles. Joe and Pip accompany them into the marshes to recapture the convict, who is fighting with another escaped convict. The first convict confesses to stealing food, clearing Pip.

A few years pass. Miss Havisham, a wealthy and reclusive spinster, asks Mr Pumblechook, a relation of the Gargerys, to find a boy to visit her. She was jilted at the altar and still wears her old wedding dress and lives in dilapidated Satis House. Pip visits Miss Havisham and falls in love with Estella, her adopted daughter. Estella is aloof and hostile to Pip, which Miss Havisham encourages. During one visit, another boy picks a fistfight with Pip, where Pip easily gains the upper hand. Estella watches, and allows Pip to kiss her afterwards. Pip visits Miss Havisham regularly, until he is old enough to learn a trade.

Joe accompanies Pip for the last visit to Miss Havisham, at which she gives the money for Pip to be bound as an apprentice blacksmith. Joe’s surly assistant, Dolge Orlick, is envious of Pip and dislikes Mrs Joe. When Pip and Joe are away from the house, Joe’s wife is brutally attacked, leaving her unable to speak or do her work. Orlick is suspected of the attack. Mrs Joe changes and becomes kind hearted after the attack. Pip’s former schoolmate Biddy joins the household to help with her care.

Four years into Pip’s apprenticeship, Mr Jaggers, a lawyer, informs him that he has been provided with money from an anonymous patron, allowing him to become a gentleman. Pip is to leave for London, but presuming that Miss Havisham is his benefactress, he first visits her.

Great Expectation pdf Summary – Second stage

In this stage, Pip sets up house in London at Barnard’s Inn with Herbert Pocket, the son of his tutor, Matthew Pocket, who is a cousin of Miss Havisham. Pip realizes Herbert is the boy he fought with years ago. Herbert tells Pip how Miss Havisham was defrauded and deserted by her fiancé. Pip meets fellow pupils, Bentley Drummle, a brute of a man from a wealthy noble family, and Startop, who is agreeable. Jaggers disburses the money Pip needs. During a visit, Pip meets Jaggers’s housekeeper Molly, a former convict.

When Joe visits Pip at Barnard’s Inn, Pip is ashamed to be seen with him. Joe relays a message from Miss Havisham that Estella will be at Satis House for a visit. Pip returns there to meet Estella and is encouraged by Miss Havisham, but he avoids visiting Joe. He is disquieted to see Orlick now in service to Miss Havisham. He mentions his misgivings to Jaggers, who promises Orlick’s dismissal. Back in London, Pip and Herbert exchange their romantic secrets: Pip adores Estella and Herbert is engaged to Clara. Pip meets Estella when she is sent to Richmond to be introduced into society.

Pip and Herbert build up debts. Mrs Joe dies and Pip returns to his village for the funeral. Pip’s income is fixed at £500 per annum when he comes of age at twenty-one. With the help of Jaggers’s clerk, Wemmick, Pip plans to help advance Herbert’s future prospects by anonymously securing him a position with the shipbroker, Clarriker. Pip takes Estella to Satis House. She and Miss Havisham quarrel over Estella’s coldness. In London, Bentley Drummle outrages Pip, by proposing a toast to Estella. Later, at an Assembly Ball in Richmond, Pip witnesses Estella meeting Bentley Drummle and warns her about him; she replies that she has no qualms about entrapping him.

A week after he turns 23 years old, Pip learns that his benefactor is the convict he encountered in the churchyard, Abel Magwitch, who had been transported to New South Wales after being captured. He has become wealthy after gaining his freedom there, but cannot return to England in pain of death. However, he returns to see Pip, who was the motivation for all his success.

Great Expectation pdf Summary – Third Stage

In this stage of great expectation summary, Pip is shocked, and stops taking Magwitch’s money. He and Herbert Pocket devise a plan for Magwitch to escape from England.

Magwitch shares his past history with Pip, and reveals that the escaped convict whom he fought in the churchyard was Compeyson, the fraudster who had deserted Miss Havisham.

Pip returns to Satis Hall to visit Estella and meets Bentley Drummle, who has also come to see her and now has Orlick as his servant. Pip accuses Miss Havisham of misleading him about his benefactor. She admits to doing so, but says that her plan was to annoy her relatives. Pip declares his love to Estella, who coldly tells him that she plans on marrying Drummle. Heartbroken, Pip walks back to London, where Wemmick warns him that Compeyson is seeking him. Pip and Herbert continue preparations for Magwitch’s escape.

At Jaggers’s house for dinner, Wemmick tells Pip how Jaggers acquired his maidservant, Molly, rescuing her from the gallows when she was accused of murder.

Then, full of remorse, Miss Havisham tells Pip how the infant Estella was brought to her by Jaggers and raised by her to be unfeeling and heartless. She knows nothing about Estella’s parentage. She also tells Pip that Estella is now married. She gives Pip money to pay for Herbert Pocket’s position at Clarriker’s, and asks for his forgiveness. As Pip is about to leave, Miss Havisham’s dress catches fire. Pip saves her, injuring himself in the process. She eventually dies from her injuries, lamenting her manipulation of Estella and Pip. Pip now realizes that Estella is the daughter of Molly and Magwitch. When confronted about this, Jaggers discourages Pip from acting on his suspicions.

A few days before Magwitch’s planned escape, Pip is tricked by an anonymous letter into going to a sluice-house near his old home, where he is seized by Orlick, who intends to murder him and freely admits to injuring Pip’s sister. As Pip is about to be struck by a hammer, Herbert Pocket and Startop arrive and save Pip’s life. The three of them pick up Magwitch to row him to the steamboat for Hamburg, but they are met by a police boat carrying Compeyson, who has offered to identify Magwitch. Magwitch seizes Compeyson, and they fight in the river. Seriously injured, Magwitch is taken by the police. Compeyson’s body is found later.

Pip is aware that Magwitch’s fortune will go to the Crown after his trial. Herbert, who is preparing to move to Cairo, Egypt, to manage Clarriker’s office there, offers Pip a position there. Pip always visits Magwitch in the prison hospital as he awaits trial, and on Magwitch’s deathbed tells him that his daughter Estella is alive. After Herbert’s departure for Cairo, Pip falls ill in his room, and faces arrest for debt. However, Joe nurses Pip back to health and pays off his debt. When Pip begins to recover, Joe slips away. Pip then returns to propose to Biddy, only to find that she has married Joe. Pip asks Joe’s forgiveness, promises to repay him and leaves for Cairo. There he shares lodgings with Herbert and Clara, and eventually advances to become third in the company. Only then does Herbert learn that Pip paid for his position in the firm.

After working eleven years in Egypt, Pip returns to England and visits Joe, Biddy, and their son, Pip Jr. Then, in the ruins of Satis House, he meets the widowed Estella, who asks Pip to forgive her, assuring him that her misfortune, and her abusive marriage to Drummle until his death, has opened her heart. As Pip takes Estella’s hand, and they leave the moonlit ruins, he sees “no shadow of another parting from her.”

Great Expectations Characters (Major Characters)

Pip and his family

• Philip Pirrip, nicknamed Pip, an orphan and the protagonist and narrator of Great Expectations. In his childhood, Pip dreamed of becoming a blacksmith like his kind brother-in-law, Joe Gargery. At Satis House, about age 8, he meets and falls in love with Estella, and tells Biddy that he wants to become a gentleman. As a result of Magwitch’s anonymous patronage, Pip lives in London after learning the blacksmith trade, and becomes a gentleman. Pip assumes his benefactor is Miss Havisham; the discovery that his true benefactor is a convict shocks him. Pip, at the end of the story, is united with Estella.
• Joe Gargery, Pip’s brother-in-law, and his first father figure. He is a blacksmith who is always kind to Pip and the only person with whom Pip is always honest. Joe is disappointed when Pip decides to leave his home to live in London to become a gentleman rather than be a blacksmith in business with Joe. He is a strong man who bears the shortcomings of those closest to him.
• Mrs Joe Gargery, Pip’s hot-tempered adult sister, Georgiana Maria, called Mrs Joe, is 20 years older than Pip. She brings him up after their parents’ death. She does the work of the household but too often loses her temper and beats her family. Orlick, her husband’s journeyman, attacks her during a botched burglary, and she is left disabled until her death.
• Mr Pumblechook, Joe Gargery’s uncle, an officious bachelor and corn merchant. While not knowing how to deal with a growing boy, he tells Mrs Joe, as she is known, how noble she is to bring up Pip. As the person who first connected Pip to Miss Havisham, he claims to have been the original architect of Pip’s expectations. Pip dislikes Mr Pumblechook for his pompous, unfounded claims. When Pip stands up to him in a public place, after those expectations are dashed, Mr Pumblechook turns those listening to the conversation against Pip.

Miss Havisham and her family

• Miss Havisham, a wealthy spinster who takes Pip on as a companion for herself and her adopted daughter, Estella. Havisham is a wealthy, eccentric woman who has worn her wedding dress and one shoe since the day that she was jilted at the altar by her fiancé. Her house is unchanged as well. She hates all men, and plots to wreak a twisted revenge by teaching Estella to torment and spurn men, including Pip, who loves her. Miss Havisham is later overcome with remorse for ruining both Estella’s and Pip’s chances for happiness. Shortly after confessing her plotting to Pip and begging for his forgiveness, she is badly burned when her dress accidentally catches fire. In a later chapter Pip learns from Joe that she is dead.
• Estella, Miss Havisham’s adopted daughter, whom Pip pursues. She is a beautiful girl and grows more beautiful after her schooling in France. Estella represents the life of wealth and culture for which Pip strives. Since Miss Havisham has sabotaged Estella’s ability to love, Estella cannot return Pip’s passion. She warns Pip of this repeatedly, but he will not or cannot believe her. Estella does not know that she is the daughter of Molly, Jaggers’s housekeeper, and the convict Abel Magwitch, given up for adoption to Miss Havisham after her mother was arrested for murder. In marrying Bentley Drummle, she rebels against Miss Havisham’s plan to have her break a husband’s heart, as Drummle is not interested in Estella but simply in the Havisham fortune.
• Matthew Pocket, Miss Havisham’s cousin. He is the patriarch of the Pocket family, but unlike her other relatives, he is not greedy for Havisham’s wealth. Matthew Pocket tutors young gentlemen, such as Bentley Drummle, Startop, Pip and his own son Herbert.
• Herbert Pocket, the son of Matthew Pocket, who was invited like Pip to visit Miss Havisham, but she did not take to him. Pip first meets Herbert as a “pale young gentleman” who challenges Pip to a fistfight at Miss Havisham’s house when both are children. He later becomes Pip’s friend, tutoring him in the “gentlemanly” arts and sharing his rooms with Pip in London.
• Camilla, one of the sisters of Matthew Pocket, and therefore a cousin of Miss Havisham, is an obsequious, detestable woman who is intent on pleasing Miss Havisham to get her money.
• Cousin Raymond, a relative of Miss Havisham who is only interested in her money. He is married to Camilla.
• Georgiana, a relative of Miss Havisham who is only interested in her money. She is one of the many relatives who hang around Miss Havisham “like flies” for her wealth.
• Sarah Pocket, the sister of Matthew Pocket, relative of Miss Havisham. She is often at Satis House. She is described as “a dry, brown corrugated old woman, with a small face that might have been made out of walnut shells, and a large mouth like a cat’s without the whiskers.”

From Pip’s youth

• The Convict, who escapes from a prison ship, whom Pip treats kindly, and who in turn becomes Pip’s benefactor. His name is Abel Magwitch, but he uses the aliases “Provis” and “Mr Campbell” when he returns to England from exile in Australia. He is a lesser actor in crime with Compeyson, but gains a longer sentence in an apparent application of justice by social class.
• Mr and Mrs Hubble, simple folk who think they are more important than they really are. They live in Pip’s village.
• Mr Wopsle, clerk of the church in Pip’s village. He later gives up the church work and moves to London to pursue his ambition to be an actor, adopting the stage name “Mr Waldengarver.” He sees the other convict in the audience of one of his performances, attended also by Pip.
• Biddy, Wopsle’s second cousin and near Pip’s age; she teaches in the evening school at her grandmother’s home in Pip’s village. Pip wants to learn more, so he asks her to teach him all she can. After helping Mrs Joe after the attack, Biddy opens her own school. A kind and intelligent but poor young woman, she is, like Pip and Estella, an orphan. She acts as Estella’s foil. Orlick was attracted to her, but she did not want his attention. Pip ignores her affections for him as he pursues Estella. Recovering from his own illness after the failed attempt to get Magwitch out of England, Pip returns to claim Biddy as his bride, arriving in the village just after she marries Joe Gargery. Biddy and Joe later have two children, one named after Pip. In the ending to the novel discarded by Dickens but revived by students of the novel’s development, Estella mistakes the boy as Pip’s child.

Mr Jaggers and his circle

• Mr Jaggers, prominent London lawyer who represents the interests of diverse clients, both criminal and civil. He represents Pip’s benefactor and Miss Havisham as well. By the end of the story, his law practice links many of the characters.
• John Wemmick, Jaggers’s clerk, who is Pip’s chief go-between with Jaggers and looks after Pip in London. Wemmick lives with his father, “The Aged Parent”, in a small replica of a castle, complete with a drawbridge and moat, in Walworth.
• Molly, Mr Jaggers’s maidservant whom Jaggers saved from the gallows for murder. She is revealed to be Magwitch’s estranged wife and Estella’s mother.
•  

Antagonists

• Compeyson, a convict who escapes the prison ship after Magwitch, who beats him up ashore. He is Magwitch’s enemy. A professional swindler, he was engaged to marry Miss Havisham, but he was in league with Arthur Havisham to defraud Miss Havisham of part of her fortune. Later he sets up Magwitch to take the fall for another swindle. He works with the police when he learns Abel Magwitch is in London, fearing Magwitch after their first escapes years earlier. When the police boat encounters the one carrying Magwitch, the two grapple, and Compeyson drowns in the Thames.
• Arthur Havisham, younger half brother of Miss Havisham, who plots with Compeyson to swindle her.
• Dolge Orlick, journeyman blacksmith at Joe Gargery’s forge. Strong, rude and sullen, he is as churlish as Joe is gentle and kind. He ends up in a fistfight with Joe over Mrs Gargery’s taunting, and Joe easily defeats him. This sets in motion an escalating chain of events that leads him secretly to assault Mrs Gargery and to try to kill her brother Pip. The police ultimately arrest him for housebreaking into Uncle Pumblechook’s, where he is later jailed.
• Bentley Drummle, a coarse, unintelligent young man from a wealthy noble family being “the next heir but one to a baronetcy”. Pip meets him at Mr Pocket’s house, as Drummle is also to be trained in gentlemanly skills. Drummle is hostile to Pip and everyone else. He is a rival for Estella’s attention and eventually marries her and is said to abuse her. He dies from an accident following his mistreatment of a horse.

Great Expectations Book Author – Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens  (7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world’s best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognized him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are widely read today.

Born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school at the age of 12 to work in a boot-blacking factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors’ prison. After three years he returned to school, before he began his literary career as a journalist. Dickens edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed readings extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children’s rights, for education, and for other social reforms.

Dickens’s literary success began with the 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick Papers, a publishing phenomenon—thanks largely to the introduction of the character Sam Weller in the fourth episode—that sparked Pickwick merchandise and spin-offs. Within a few years Dickens had become an international literary celebrity, famous for his humor, satire and keen observation of character and society. His novels, most of them published in monthly or weekly installments, pioneered the serial publication of narrative fiction, which became the dominant Victorian mode for novel publication. Cliffhanger endings in his serial publications kept readers in suspense. The installment format allowed Dickens to evaluate his audience’s reaction, and he often modified his plot and character development based on such feedback. For example, when his wife’s chiropodist expressed distress at the way Miss Mowcher in David Copperfield seemed to reflect her own disabilities, Dickens improved the character with positive features. His plots were carefully constructed and he often wove elements from topical events into his narratives. Masses of the illiterate poor would individually pay a halfpenny to have each new monthly episode read to them, opening up and inspiring a new class of readers.

His 1843 novella A Christmas Carol remains especially popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre. Oliver Twist and Great Expectations pdf are also frequently adapted and, like many of his novels, evoke images of early Victorian London. His 1859 novel A Tale of Two Cities (set in London and Paris) is his best-known work of historical fiction. The most famous celebrity of his era, he undertook, in response to public demand, a series of public reading tours in the later part of his career. The term Dickensian is used to describe something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his writings, such as poor social or working conditions, or comically repulsive characters.

Great Expectations Themes

The word “Expectations” in the book’s title “great expectations,” refers to “a legacy to come”, and thus immediately announces that money, or more specifically wealth plays an important part in the novel. Some other major themes are crime, social class, including both gentility, and social alienation, imperialism and ambition. The novel is also concerned with questions relating to conscience and moral regeneration, as well as redemption through love.

Great Expectations pdf Book Information

The novel Great Expectations pdf by Charles Dickens has the basic information below. just so you know before you proceed to make a purchase.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (December 4, 2020)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 328 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1503275183
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1503275188
• Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 800
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.01 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.69 x 0.74 x 9.61 inches
• Best Sellers Rank: #392,107 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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•  Customer Reviews: 
• 4.5 out of 5 stars
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Great Expectations pdf Book Reviews

Kimberly C.
5.0 out of 5 stars Great gift
Reviewed in the United States on January 21, 2018

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I bought this as a gift for a student who was interested in Victorian literature. This was the perfect addition to the other purchases I made on Amazon. He loved it.

DeBella
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Expectations
Reviewed in the United States on October 4, 2016
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Great Expectations pdf is a classic novel that everyone should read. I assigned this book as work for my AP Literature students over the summer. The themes make for easy discussion and allow for great student lead seminars. I highly recommend this read; it follows Pip on his journey from adolescents to adulthood. Along the way, he goes through many hardships until he ultimately tries to reach his great expectation.

A reader from Maplewood
5.0 out of 5 stars 
A great classical novel, exceptionally well read
Reviewed in the United States on January 14, 2020

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To read Great Expectations is a humbling experience: How can someone write such an exceptional novel!? We even feel ridiculous praising it. Who are we to talk about it?!
This audio book gives justice to the greatness of the novel. It’s extremely well read and it’s a pleasure to hear. A total of 18 hours that are 18 hours of sheer pleasure.

Lynn A. D.

5.0 out of 5 stars 
interesting novel to spend time in
Reviewed in the United States on August 29, 2020
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This book was assigned reading in grade 10 or 11, I can’t remember which, but I just couldn’t get into it then. Now, many years later I really enjoyed it. Poverty, high society, fortunes gained and lost, love denied, adventures, drama, murder, twists and turns and surprises – all made this a very interesting novel to spend time in.

Kellie Bird
5.0 out of 5 stars Unforgettable
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 12, 2016
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I adored this book. However, having discovered after I finished it that it had two different endings, (an original and an edited version) I can’t help but feeling that Dickens ‘sold out’ with the edited ending. It just didn’t sit well with me and I felt the story’s consistency was lost in a single sentence. So for my own sake I read the original ending online and now feel that the book in it’s original wording is probably one of the most resonant stories I have ever read. Characters I shall never forget. I find myself thinking back to it sometimes, so for that reason I give it five stars.

Lauren G
4.0 out of 5 stars Another classic that is better than expected
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 13, 2012
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I had always avoided Dickens’ work, perhaps influenced by “Sunday tea time” adaptations of his work which always seemed rather boring if nothing else. However, I watched the BBC’s version of “Bleak House” which I adored and more recently, I watched the BBC three-part series of “Great Expectations” with Gillian Anderson in the role of Miss Havisham. I have to admit, I was gripped by the story yet still avoided reading the novel on which it was based.

I eventually downloaded this high quality Kindle version after making a decision to read “The Classics” and I have just finished reading this evocative, beautiful and very absorbing tale. I cannot believe that I waited so long.

The story follows Pip, a country boy who after being exposed to the higher echelons of society through meeting the eccentric Miss Havisham and her adopted daughter Estella, wants to become an educated gentleman and slowly becomes resentful at his crude ways.

The characters that Pip encounters through his journey, from Wemmick to Magwitch, are crafted so believably and they are so detailed that you cannot help but visualise the scenes as they unfold. Miss Havisham caused me to feel such a mix of sympathy and dislike; her mental torture at being jilted is so stifling and destructive to those around her. She is so vividly portrayed and despite the outlandish idea of a woman stuck at the moment of her abandonment, it is a beautifully sad and haunting portrait.

Some parts I felt dragged slightly, for example with Mr Wopsle and his less than stellar acting. I found my brain skimming over this section however well written it may have been. Dickens has, in my opinion, a tendency to over write at times and whilst his characters are crafted so well, his focus drifts from the plot into exploring periphery characters that can dilute the course of the story.

This is such a wonderful book and it is so worth a read, even if you already know the story as I did, through television adaptations. There is so much more in the novel that is left out of most film or television versions and it is a delight to really explore the world that Pip inhabits.

Ian
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 9, 2015
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What’s to say about this that hasn’t been said already? If you read Dickens already you’ll know what you are in for, so maybe I should try to persuade those yet to try.

As Dickens goes this is fairly lightweight and accessible – sure the sentences are long and a bit old-fashioned, but savor them and go at a relaxed pace and the wonderful evocation of place and people of Victorian Britain will surely draw you in unless you have a heart of stone. As you might expect from Dickens the book is tightly and cunningly plotted, with great characterization and plot twists that will catch out the inattentive reader, but there’s also a vein of humor and gentle fun in the people you meet. And you could bump into rogues, lovers and heroes like them today, so accurate is Dickens insight into human nature.

You can read it as a tale of the adventures of a young man growing up or, perhaps on second reading, you might interpret it as a satire on class and the power of money in society, with Dickens putting his own views into the mouths of the main protagonists. Either way, give it and yourself some time and I think you will thoroughly enjoy a classic story.

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