Resumen
Resumen de Great Expectations
Para quién es
For readers who love rich characters, secrets and a moral story told with humor and heart. It also suits anyone who has felt ashamed of where they come from.
De qué trata este libro
Great Expectations is a novel by Charles Dickens, first published in weekly parts in his magazine All the Year Round in 1860 and 1861. It tells the life of Pip, an orphan raised in the marshes of Kent, who is lifted out of a poor village childhood by a sudden change of fortune. Dickens wrote it in a tighter, more controlled style than his huge early novels, and it reads as one long confession by a man looking back on his younger self.
What do you get from it? You get a plot full of secrets, strange houses and sharp comedy, and you also get a close study of how a decent boy can slowly become a snob. Pip is neither a hero nor a villain. He is a young man who wants to be better, and who learns how costly and confused that wish can be.
In the next few minutes you will meet the people who shape Pip: a gentle blacksmith, a bitter woman in a stopped house, a cold and lovely girl, and a lawyer who never explains himself. We begin where the book begins, on a bleak marsh at dusk, with a frightened child and a stranger who rises from the grass.
En este resumen
- 1A boy meets a convict on the marshFree
- 2Joe's kindness against Mrs Joe's hard hand
- 3Satis House and the girl who wounds him
- 4Shame grows and Pip wants to be a gentleman
- 5Mr Jaggers brings a startling offer
- 6London, Herbert Pocket and the ways of Little Britain
- 7Pip drifts from Joe and falls into debt
- 8What the book says about class, guilt and love
- 9How Dickens tells it: voice, mist and symbols
Idea clave 1 de 9
A boy meets a convict on the marsh
The story opens in a country churchyard on the Kent marshes, on a raw evening. A small boy is looking at the gravestones of his parents and his five little brothers. His name is Philip Pirrip, but he has always called himself Pip, because that was all his infant tongue could manage. He is an orphan, and the world he knows is flat, wet and cold.
Suddenly a man leaps up from among the graves. He is a convict in heavy irons, soaked, lame and starving. He seizes Pip, turns him upside down and demands food. Then he makes a worse demand. Pip must bring him a file to cut off his leg iron, and he must tell no one.
The man frightens Pip with talk of a young man who hides nearby and who will tear out the heart and liver of any child who tells. Pip is terrified, and he promises. He runs home through the mist, sure that the cattle and the gates are watching him. The fear is real, but it is also the fear of a child who already feels guilty for being alive and in the way.
At home Pip steals bread, cheese, some brandy and a fine pork pie meant for the family's Christmas dinner. He takes a file from the forge. Dickens makes the theft both funny and painful, because the boy suffers all through the holiday meal, waiting for the pie to be missed. When the moment comes, soldiers arrive at the door, and Pip goes out into the marsh with Joe, Mr Wopsle and the soldiers.
The soldiers find the convict fighting with another escaped man in a ditch. The convict looks at Pip across the torches and gives him a small sign that he will not betray him. This one act of loyalty is easy to overlook, but it plants the seed of everything that follows. The book begins with a guilty secret between a child and a criminal, and the secret does not stay buried.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Who’s who
- Pip
- An orphan raised by his sister and Joe Gargery, Pip longs for social advancement and Estella's love.
- Joe Gargery
- Pip's gentle brother-in-law is a village blacksmith whose kindness contrasts with his wife's harsh treatment of Pip.
- Miss Havisham
- A wealthy recluse in a wedding dress, Miss Havisham raises Estella and invites Pip into her shuttered house.
- Estella
- Miss Havisham's beautiful, proud adopted daughter attracts Pip while treating his village upbringing with contempt.
- Mr Jaggers
- A guarded London lawyer, Mr Jaggers manages Pip's mysterious financial expectations without revealing his client's identity.
- Herbert Pocket
- Pip's cheerful London friend, Herbert Pocket teaches him social manners while struggling with his own limited means.
- Wemmick
- Mr Jaggers's clerk separates his dry professional manner from his affectionate domestic life with his father.
- Magwitch
- An escaped convict on the marshes, Magwitch encounters the frightened young Pip and demands his help.
- Mrs Joe Gargery
- Pip's strict elder sister, married to Joe Gargery, raises her younger brother with frequent scolding and blows.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 189,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 12 h 35 min
- Listening time21 h
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary; paperback and hardcover at cost
- LanguagesEnglish and 13 other languages
Questions about Great Expectations
What is Great Expectations about?
It tells the life of Pip, an orphan raised by his sister and her blacksmith husband in Kent. A sudden offer of wealth takes him to London, where he learns what ambition, shame and loyalty really mean.
Who is Miss Havisham in Great Expectations?
Miss Havisham is a rich, reclusive woman who lives in Satis House, wearing her old wedding dress with every clock stopped. She raises Estella and invites Pip to visit, and she shapes much of his life.
What does the title Great Expectations mean?
It refers to Pip's hopes of becoming a gentleman and gaining a fine future, and also to what others expect of him. The novel questions whether such hopes lead to happiness or to harm.
When was Great Expectations written and is it a true story?
Dickens wrote it as a weekly serial in his magazine All the Year Round in 1860 and 1861. It is a work of fiction, though it draws on his own feelings about class and ambition.
Is Great Expectations hard to read?
The plot is clear and the characters are vivid. Most readers find it among the easier of Dickens's novels, thanks to its tight structure and humor.