Summary
Pip, a young orphan, lives a humble existence with his hot-tempered elder sister and her strong but gentle husband, Joe Margery. On a Christmas Eve, he was forced to get some food and a file by a prisoner who has escaped from a prison ship nearly nearby. However, at last he was still caught by policemen. One day, Pip gets invited unexpectedly to the house of a rich old woman called Miss Haitian in the village. Miss Haitian was cheated and abandoned by Compassion, a big cheater, on her wedding day, so she adopts Estella and raises her as a cruel-hearted girl who will break men’s hearts when she grows up. Estella is a beautiful and attractive girl, and Pip falls in love with her since he met her at the first sight. But Estella always treats him coldly and contemptuously. At that time, Pip has a strong desire to get away from that kind of life controlled by his sister and become a gentleman in future. Fortunately, one day Jiggers, who is Miss Haitian’s lawyer, comes to the forge, where Pip is apprenticed to Joe. And he tells Pip that he has “great expectations” that will come to him from an unknown benefactor, whom Pip assumes that it must be Miss Haitian. Then he was sent to London and he accepts the formal education which he dreamt of since then. For many years, Pip has lived a family undisciplined life there, enjoying himself and owing amount of debts. Finally, he becomes a selfish and peacock man. After he knows that his benefactor is not Miss Haitian but rather a petty criminal named Magic, whom he helped in his childhood. It is he that left all his money to Pip and makes him a gentleman. Pip is shocked and feels shameful. Out of morality, Pip decided to help Magic escape from London. While their plan seems to be known, so when they take a boat down the river, they were intercepted by offices guided by Compassion. And in the end, Compassion was drowned during his fighting with Magic, and the latter was caught and sentenced to death. Finally he died of disease in prison. Without money or expectations, Pip, after a period of bad illness during which Joe comes to take care of him, decided to go abroad in mercantile trade. Returning many years later, he encounters divorced Estella in the ruined garden at Sates House, and he finds that Estella’s coldness and cruelty have been replaced by a sad kindness.
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