Study Questions & Essay Topics
Study Questions
1. Discuss Pip
as both a narrator and a character. How are different aspects of
his personality revealed by his telling of his story and by his
participation in the story itself?
Pip’s story—the story of the novel—traces
his development through the events of his early life; his narration,
however, written years after the end of the story, is a product
of his character as it exists after the events
of the story. Pip’s narration thus reveals the psychological endpoint
of his development in the novel. Pip’s behavior as a character often
reveals only part of the story—he treats Joe coldly, for instance—while
his manner as a narrator completes that story: his guilt for his
poor behavior toward his loved ones endures, even as he writes about
his early life years later. Of course, Dickens manipulates Pip’s
narration in order to evoke its subjects effectively: Pip’s childhood
is narrated in a much more childlike voice than his adult years,
even though the narrator Pip presumably writes both parts of the
story at a single later date. Dickens also uses Pip’s narration
to reinforce particular aspects of his character that emerge in
the course of the novel: we know from his actions that Pip is somewhat self-centered
but sympathetic at heart to others; Pip’s later narration of his
relationships with others tends to reflect those qualities. When Magwitch
reveals that he is Pip’s benefactor, for instance, Pip is disgusted
by the convict and describes him solely in negative terms; as his
affection for Magwitch grows, the descriptive terms he chooses to
apply to the convict become much more positive.
2. What role
does social class play in Great Expectations? What
lessons does Pip learn from his experience as a wealthy gentleman?
How is the theme of social class central to the novel?
One way to see Pip’s development, and the
development of many of the other characters in Great Expectations, is
as an attempt to learn to value other human beings: Pip must learn
to value Joe and Magwitch, Estella must learn to value Pip,
and so on. Throughout the novel, social class provides an arbitrary,
external standard of value by which the characters (particularly
Pip) judge one another. Because social class is rigid and preexisting,
it is an attractive standard for every character who lacks a clear
conscience with which to make judgments—Mrs. Joe and Pumblechook,
for instance. And because high social class is associated with romantic
qualities such as luxury and education, it is an immediately attractive
standard of value for Pip. After he is elevated to the status of
gentleman, though, Pip begins to see social class for what it is:
an unjust, capricious standard that is largely incompatible with
his own morals. There is simply no reason why Bentley Drummle should
be valued above Joe, and Pip senses that fact. The most important
lesson Pip learns in the novel—and perhaps the most important theme
in Great Expectations—is that no external standard
of value can replace the judgments of one’s own conscience. Characters
such as Joe and Biddy know this instinctively; for Pip, it is a
long, hard lesson, the learning of which makes up much of the book.
3. Throughout
the novel, Pip is plagued by powerful feelings of guilt and shame,
and everywhere he goes he tends to encounter symbols of justice—handcuffs, gallows,
prisons, and courtrooms. What is the role of guilt in the novel?
What does it mean to be “innocent”?
At the beginning of the novel, Pip’s feelings
of conscience are determined largely by his fear of what others
might think, a state of mind no doubt reinforced by Mrs. Joe’s “Tickler.”
He has strong feelings of guilt but an inadequate system by which
to judge right from wrong; unable to determine the value of his own
actions, he feels guilty even when he does the right thing. He acts
with compassion and sympathy when he helps the convict, but he nevertheless
feels deeply guilty and imagines that the police are waiting to
take him away. As the novel progresses, Pip comes closer to trusting
his own feelings; when he helps Magwitch at the end of the novel,
he feels no guilt, only love, and he remains with the convict even
after the police arrive to take him away. Throughout the novel,
symbols of justice, such as prisons and police, serve as reminders
of the questions of conscience that plague Pip: just as social class
provides an external standard of value irrespective of a person’s
inner worth, the law provides an external standard of moral behavior
irrespective of a person’s inner feelings. Pip’s wholehearted commitment
to helping Magwitch escape the law in the last section of the novel
contrasts powerfully with his childhood fear of police and shows
that, though he continues to be very hard on his own shortcomings,
Pip has moved closer to a reliance on his own inner conscience—which
is the only way, as Joe and Biddy show, that a character can truly
be “innocent.”
Suggested Essay Topics
1. What significance does the
novel’s title, Great Expectations, have for the
story? In what ways does Pip
have “great expectations”?
2. For much of Great
Expectations, Pip seems to believe in a stark division
between good and evil, and he tends to classify people and situations
as belonging to one extreme or the other: for instance, despite
their respective complexities, he believes that Estella is good
and the convict is evil. Yet, both socially and morally, Pip himself
is often caught between extremes; his own situation rarely matches
up to his moral vision. What is the role of moral extremes in this
novel? What does it mean to be ambiguous or caught between extremes?
3. Discuss the character of Miss
Havisham. What themes does she embody? What experiences have made
her as she is? Is she a believable character? How does she relate
to Pip and Estella?
4. Think about the novel’s two
endings—the “official” version, in which Pip and Estella are reunited
in the garden, and the earlier version, in which they merely speak
briefly on the street and go their separate ways. Which version
do you prefer? Which version seems more true to the thematic development of
the novel? Why?
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