Most Important 15 topics with Quotations about Great Expectations

1) Who wrote the Novel? 

One of the best Victorian novelists, Charles Dickens wrote the Famous bildungsroman Great Expectations, the Nobel was first published in the All The Year Round Magazine from 1860 to 1861.

2) What type of genre is Great Expectations?

*Novel :

#Bildungsroman: for the autobiography of the Writer.

#Gothic novel: For The Satis House's atmosphere and Miss Havisham's point of view.

#Social criticism: Judgement of the characters in the parameters of Social Status rather than inner character. 

#Victorian Novel: For the purpose of writing time in the Victorian Age.

3) What are the main Characters:

#Pip: The hero of the Novel,he falls in love with Estella, becoming a gentleman by the help of Magwitch.

#Miss Havisham: A wealthy, eccentric Spinster-woman with witty love experience.

#Estella: The beautiful but cold heroine, she represents the life of wealth and culture for which Pip strives.

#Abel Magwitch: A Convict to steal food and a good person to help Pip. 

4) What is the story of great expectations in summary?

It is a story of Pip from childhood to adulthood, from Poor to Rich, from struggle to success. Pip a blacksmith's apprentice in a country village. He suddenly comes into a large fortune of money from an unknown benefactor to study in London and that is the Great Expectations. After learning the blacksmith trade, he became a gentleman. Ultimately meet Estella not as a lover or husband but as a friend.

5) What was the relationship between Pip and Estella?

Pip was an orphan boy, by the help of Joe Gargery, Pip's brother-in-law, he visits the heroine Estrella's Satis House and falls in love. On the other hand, Estrella was an adopted daughter of Miss Havisham, she didn't like Pip at the beginning for his low status but gradually Estrella liked him. Pip went abroad to study with the help of a mysterious benefactor. Pip returns to Satis Hall to visit Estella and Pip declares his love to Estella, who coldly tells , she is ready to marry Drummle. Heartbroken, Pip walks back to London. After working eleven years in Egypt, Pip returns to England and meets the widowed Estella, who asks Pip to forgive her, assuring him of her misfortune, and her abusive marriage to Drummle until his death. Finally, They reunite once again as a friend or loved or husband, it is not cleared by the writer.

6) What are the ending lines of Great Expectations?

‘I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so, the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.’

7) What are the three stages of Pip's expectations?

#Stage One: Childhood and falls in love with Estrella,  the fortune to become a rich person

#Stage Two: Becoming a Gentleman with name and fame

#Stage Three: Reality comes crashing down to hear the merry of Estrella with Drummle and Magwitch is the real benefactor and ultimately reunites with Estrella.

8) What is the main message of Great Expectations?

affection, trust,  love and self-belief are more important rather than social status - wealth, and class.

9) Why is Great Expectations a classic?

Classic works always create a sense of reality that never dies. Great Expectations is a classic work in which Dickens is filled  with real experiences of alienation, ambition, failure, success, love, family, and self-discovery. 

10) Who was the real benefactor of Pip? 

According to Pip, Miss Havinism was the mysterious person but the actual reality was Magwitch. He is the person who helped Pip to become a gentleman but he played a double role. He doesn't show his honest behaviour at the society, society given the title of thief  to him and never  loved by society because he committed crimes such as stealing food in the name of survival. 

11) What was the role of Magwitch?

He plays a double role with good and bad characters. Good for Pip and Bad for Society. Society does respect him for his behaviour but Pip is given respect  for his noble work. 

12) What literary devices are used in Great Expectations?

# Anaphora: 

"A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag

tied round his head". (V-I, Chapter-1)

[repetitious use of “with.”]

# Hyperbole:

 "He was a broad-shouldered loose-limbed swarthy fellow of great strength, never in a hurry, and always slouching". (V-I, Chapter-15)

#  Metaphor: 

There was a door in the kitchen, communicating with the forge; I unlocked and unbolted that door, and got a file from among Joe’s tools. (V-I, Chapter-1)

# Simile: 

We walked to town, my sister leading the way in a very large beaver bonnet, and carrying a basket like the Great Seal of England in plaited straw. (V-I, Chapter-13)We walked to town, my sister leading the way in a very large beaver bonnet, and carrying a basket like the Great Seal of England in plaited straw. (V-I, Chapter-13)

# Irony :

“There’s Matthew!” said Camilla. “never mixing with any natural ties, never coming here to see how Miss Havisham is!"

13) What are some symbols in Great Expectations?

#Satis House: as a symbol of Gothic setting

#Money: As a symbol of social status Wedding Dress: Miss Havisham’s wedding dress becomes an ironic symbol of death and degeneration. 

#Stopped clocks: symbol of past time that froze the life of Miss Havisham’s for breaking her marriage.

14) Why are Great Expectations still relevant today?

We live in a society and judge people by their wealth and money as their social status rather than their inner character and feelings. On the other hand, it teaches how a person struggles for survival, discovers love, encounters failure, works hard and achieves success. 

15) *Quote*

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

"I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be."

-Pip, chapter- 29, page 258.

"I’ll tell you what real love is. It is blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the whole world…”

- Miss Havisham to Pip, chapter-29,page 267

“Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but—I hope—into a better shape."

-Estella., chapter-59,page 542.

“We spent as much money as we could, and got as little for it as people made up their minds to give us. We were always more or less miserable…”

- Pip, chapter-34,page 305.