The great expectation of Pip and Magwitch

We all know that chapter 39 is the turning point of the whole novel. Pip knows that his sponsor is not Miss Havisham, but the escaped prisoner Magwitch, who is saved by Pip. This truth makes Pip’s great expectation shattered. From the context, we can see that “the great expectation” is a kind of ambition from both Pip and Magwitch. It is such an ambition that hold up the life of both two people and bring a lot of change to their character. And the ambition is also the indication of one’s life.

First, let’s see Pip’s ambition. Although the text don’t illustrate it clearly, we can infer from several details. At the beginning of the text, Pip states that “I had a taste for reading, and read regularly so many hours a day.” This state can fully demonstrate that Pip has a strong eager to learn knowledge, which means that he wants to become a real gentleman in the upper class. And when Pip is told that his benefactor is Magwitch, rather than Miss Havisham. He is shocked, disappointed as well as heart-broken. He repeats “Estella, Estella”, which tells us that his intention to become a gentleman was because of Estella, he wants to be able to match with her. From the above, we can conclude that Pip’s ambition is to be a gentleman and get access to Estella.

The great expectation describes not only Pip’s ambition, but also other people’s ambition, including that blacksmith Joe’s, Pip’s friend Herbert

and his benefactor Magwitch’s.

Let’s take Magwitch’s ambition in the text for example. I think his is rather complicated than Pip’s. There are two mainly ambitions: one is that he wants to repay Pip for saving his life, another is that he wants to show his greatness for making a little boy into a gentleman in upper class, which is also a kind of dissatisfaction to the society. Just as he mentioned in the text, “ I tell it, fur you to know as that there hunted dunghill dog wot you kept life in, got his head so high that he could make a gentleman”. The society treat him as a nasty dog and he is looked down upon those people in the upper class. But he has an ability to turn a village boy into a gentleman, and he thinks himself is nobler and greater than those people. He uses his action to satirize them.

The ambition in people’s heart is like a guiding light in their way. As one’s ambition changes, people’s behavior may change accordingly and unconsciously. Pip studies hard in order to get access to Estella. But at the same time, bad characters like selfishness and mammonism arises from him. In the front part of the text, when Pip sees Magwitch, he pays attention to his clothing first and emphasizes his substantially dress, but roughly. Suppose if Magwitch is not well-dressed and looks like poor just as the first time they meet, will Pip accept him and let him in? When Pip recognized Magwitch, his astonishment is more than his pleasance and he supposes there will be no connection between them. Why Pip

becomes so indifferent? It is because of the “different circumstances” he mentioned in the text. The circumstances that he is an upper class member now and he cannot have any connection with underclass people, let alone an escaped prisoner. Between social class and old relationship, he chooses social class. We can say that it is money that tempts him and makes him indifferent, or the money distorts his ambition, which misleads his behavior.

To conclude, I think Pip is more misfortunate than any other people. It is not because he is an orphan or he lost his money in the end, it is because he is treated as a tool by other people, unknowingly. He is treated as a money machine by his sister when he is little, and he is played by Estella as a tool to please Miss Havisham. Later, although being endowed with a large fortune, Pip is indeed an example who is made by Magwitch to manifest his greatness and to revenge to the world. Pip’s great expectation is made by Miss Havisham, Estella, Magwitch and himself, and ruined by them.

第二篇：An analysis of Miss Havisham 《远大前程》英文读後感 great expections 书评

An analysis of Miss Havisham’s character and her tragic destiny inGreat Expectations

An analysis of Miss Havisham’s character

and her tragic destiny in Great Expectations

by Mandy Huang

Great Expectations written by Charles Dickens is regarded as a masterpiece of English novels. It narrates the story of Pip, an orphan boy who has good luck and great expectations, and then loses both his luck and expectations. The main characters invented by Charles Dickens in the book have displayed their own charms completely because of the extraordinary wealth of Charles Dickens’ invention as exhibited in the number and variety of the characters introduced into his novels, his amazing keenness of observation and his descriptive power, and also his creative ability of humor.

Sometimes in Dickens’ novel, the protagonist is described comparatively feeble, while some secondary characters, particularly those with strange spirit are portrayed vividly. The female character Miss Havisham belongs to such figures. She is one of the figures portrayed quite successfully in the book. So in this essay,the focus is Miss Havisham’s character and her tragic destiny instead of the hero Pip.In Great

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By Mandy Huang

An analysis of Miss Havisham’s character and her tragic destiny inGreat Expectations

Expectations, Miss Havisham and her strange dress, life style and behavior attract the readers greatly. Most people regard her as a hateful person. However, she is a tragic person worthy of sympathy. And the causes of this tragic character will be analyzed through studying the society, family and Miss Havisham herself. In this way, we can have an objective and all-round understanding of this image.

Born in an aristocratic family, Young

Havisham is very proud and not truly compassionate and charitable who hates her poor relatives .On one hand she retorts those relatives who are fawning, insincere and just in an attempt to cheat her money sarcastically and exposes their lies ironically. On the other hand, she considers her cousin Matthew a man of integrity and honesty and kindness. Therefore Miss Havisham follows Pip’s advice and leaves a large legacy to Matthew and his son as a subsidy. Her life is totally changed by a single tragic event: her jilting by Compeyson on their wedding day. From that moment on, Miss Havisham is determined never to move beyond her heartbreak. With a kind of manic and obsessive cruelty, Miss Havisham adopts Estella and raises her as

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By Mandy Huang

An analysis of Miss Havisham’s character and her tragic destiny inGreat Expectations

a weapon to achieve her own revenge on men. Miss Havisham becomes a rich, eccentric old dowager living in a rotting mansion called Satis House. This not only ruined her normal life, but also ruined her stepdaughter Estella and Pip who loved Estella. Thus it seems that Miss Havisham is a hateful image, but in fact her revenge action cannot hide her kindness. She was very kind to Pip and arranged for his future. All in all, Miss Havisham is a lifelike image because of the complexity and richness of her character.

The social influence on Miss Havisham’s tragic destiny is too apparent to be neglected. Great Expectations is set in Victorian England, a time when great social changes were sweeping the nation. Although the Victorian Age meets a material prosperity, the polarization of wealth is widening and the class contradiction is becoming more serious, and this result in the corruption of money to human’s relationship. Marriage, love, courts, jails are based on this. Also,The Victorian Age is a male-centered society, the idea that women should be subjective to men roots in women’s mind. Miss Havisham is just the victim of this society. She is abandoned on her wedding

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By Mandy Huang

An analysis of Miss Havisham’s character and her tragic destiny inGreat Expectations

day, but she keeps the room like the day she got married, while on the other hand she tries every means to revenge men. Bearing these two conflictive thoughts in mind, Havisham certainly fails to live her own life out of the control or influence from male. She suffered greatly from the pain of love and her quest for revenge. As an ordinary woman, Miss Havisham can’t be independent from men and her fragile souls make her unable to envisage sufferings in life bravely .Thus the tragedy of Miss Havisham is inevitable.

Family also plays a vital role in Great Expectations, Biddy and Joe’ s warm and harmony family, Wemmick’s castle away from the noise of secular and Matthew’s family. Compared with the dark and deserted Satis House of Miss Havisham, this has highlighted Miss Havisham’s miserable fate. For a pretty young lady with high status, her jilting by Compeyson was a dishonored, disgraceful thing and also an unprecedented setback. Therefore the influence of family environment, the social norms have made her unable to bear the lover’s betrayal. In order to avoid worldly disdain, and also because all the illusions that has

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By Mandy Huang

An analysis of Miss Havisham’s character and her tragic destiny inGreat Expectations

shattered, she chose to be self-enclosed and isolated. This is a tragedy caused by society and family as well.

No matter how great the society and

family have influenced Miss Havisham’s destiny, her personality played the most important role in her life. Miss Havisham was a spoilt child; it was the pride that hurt her. Because of her pride, she discarded the advice of relatives and idolized her lover perfectly; and also because of her pride, she could not accept the tragic love. So she refused to accept other people’s sympathy and help, instead, she hid in the darkness of closed minds which cause she can’t cast off her heart shackles. A failure in her life destroys her faith and also arouses her strong desire for revenge. And the fire of revenge is burning, which hurt the others and also make the ultimate destruction of herself.

By describing the image of Miss

Havisham, Dickens has showed us the contradictions and the conflicts of the capitalist society in Victorian era. He has disclosed the corruption of money in the upper-class society. Through the analysis of society, family and Miss Havisham herself, it reveals the weak

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By Mandy Huang

An analysis of Miss Havisham’s character and her tragic destiny inGreat Expectations

position of women. Itsets people thinking that in a male-centered society, women should be self-respective, self-confident, self-reliant and self-developed; otherwise women would be in the subordinate status in perpetuity, or even undergo self-destruction.

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