Great Expectations (Charles Dickens)

Pip, an orphan living with his sister and her simple husband, Joe, has great expectations.  Apprenticed to his brother-in-law as a blacksmith, he's unhappy with his station when made aware of his humble status by the odd Miss Havisham (who's frozen her life and home since being left at the aisle decades ago) and her adopted daughter, the haughty Estella.  One day, out of the blue, he receives a benefactor, who insists on both providing for him and remaining anonymous.  Overjoyed, Pip abandons his simple life for London, where he learns to be a gentlemen- and overspend like one.  He immediately notes the change in how people act towards one with money.  But does this new life truly satisfy- and is it permanent?

I enjoy Dickens for many reasons.  Here as elsewhere, his eloquence is unmatched, characters excellent, story captivating, and themes profound (not to mention humbling).  He can be verbose- at times unnecessarily- but in general, this is another excellent Dickens story.  Like A Tale of Two Cities (reviewed here) and A Christmas Story (here), put Great Expectations on your reading list.

Rating: A

POSTSCRIPT: Here ends my typical review- what follows is deeper analysis of themes presented in the book, and contains mild spoilers.

I need to heed the main theme of Great Expectations: contentment with one's lot.  Pip doesn't have a great life before he receives a benefactor- his sister is abusive, and others around town are condescending and insulting towards him.  Still, when he comes into money, he states that

this first night of my bright fortunes should be the loneliest I had ever known.

Once in London and 'a gentlemen,' things don't improve for him:

We spent as much money as we could, and got as little for it as people could make up their minds to give us. We were always more or less miserable, and most of our acquaintance were in the same condition. There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did. To the best of my belief, our case was in the last aspect a rather common one.

Pip notes that, in general, we find ourselves doing things we don't want to impress those we don't like:

throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise.

Eventually, when Pip's benefactor is revealed to him, Pip concludes:

O that [he/she] had never come! That [he/she] had left me at the forge,—far from contented, yet, by comparison happy!

Very similar to the Biblical story of the Prodigal Son, Pip eventually outspends his resources and falls back into the life of a commoner.  Years later, he encounters someone who knew him before, during, and after he had 'expectations.'  She asks him how he's doing, and he responds:

“I work pretty hard for a sufficient living, and therefore—yes, I do well.”

Pip learns the truth of Ecclesiastes 4:6:

Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind.

In other words, be content with your station in life, love those around you, and don't strive for riches.  Pip abandons his family for wealth, and pays the price- in many senses of the word.  He and others in the novel learn through their self-imposed suffering:

suffering has been stronger than all other teaching,

It's a tough pill to swallow.  But, there is hope:

I have been bent and broken, but—I hope—into a better shape.

A second Great Expectations theme is love and forgiveness.  Like in A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens looks at those wronged and how they react to it.  We see several bad examples in this story, the most obvious of which is Miss Havisham.  As previously stated, since being jilted on her wedding day, she has stopped her life.  Stopped the clocks, kept the wedding dress on, kept the wedding feast (now long rotted) on the table; stopped living.  But she goes one step further: through her adopted daughter, she attempts to wreak vengeance on all by raising Estella to be cruel towards others.  Pip rightly notes that

in shutting out the light of day, she had shut out infinitely more; that, in seclusion, she had secluded herself from a thousand natural and healing influences; that, her mind, brooding solitary, had grown diseased, as all minds do and must and will that reverse the appointed order of their Maker . . .

We cannot allow the wrongs of others to so dominate- and destroy- our own lives.  We ourselves wrong others, and Pip says to Miss Havisham, when she realizes her error near the end of her days,

I want forgiveness and direction far too much, to be bitter with you.

None of us is righteous- so we can't judge others of that which we are guilty without terrible consequence.

By contrast, the model of love in the novel is the simple Joe.  He's not educated or intelligent- but his contentment with his low station and dedication to his family despite their wrongs toward him is humbling to see.  He loves Pip's sister, despite her abusive nature, and demonstrates unending kindness towards her; he loves Pip, caring for him and paying his debts despite his abandonment.  Pip, who spends much of the novel being ashamed of Joe, concludes:

I often wondered how I had conceived that old idea of his inaptitude, until I was one day enlightened by the reflection, that perhaps the inaptitude had never been in him at all, but had been in me.

The simple, loving folk are the ones who have it right.  They should be honored rather than pitied or abused.

Though simple, Joe has wisdom.  I'll end with one of his lines I especially enjoyed:

If you can’t get to be uncommon through going straight, you’ll never get to do it through going crooked.