Great Expectations Essay

Elle Land
Great Expectations Great Expectations is filled with many passages that contribute heavily to the book. Many people don't realize that the content is just as important as the actual story line. Things such as characters and passages with meaning help make the book enjoyable and in-depth. Here are a few of the passages that make Great Expectations such a great, powerful book. "Pip is that heart welcome, to go free with his services, to honor and fortun', as no words can tell him. But if you think as Money can make compensation to me for the loss of the little child- what come to the forge- and ever the best of friends!-" Page 133.

This passage has so much meaning because it shows how much Joe loves Pip. We see Joe love and care for Pip many times in the book. In later chapters, when Pip was living in London, Joe practically saved Pip's life by taking care of when he was sick, even after Pip hadn't visited him at the forge for many years. Also, during the same time in Pip's life he was in debt and was going to go to prison. But, Joe paid the debt for him. It holds a lot of importance to the book because it shows that Pip had many good friends who were always there and willing to help him. To add color and happiness to the book, Dickens introduced the character Wemmick and his house, Walworth. It was important to add Wemmick to the story because the whole book is melancholy and has no true happiness in it until Pip goes to Walworth, where everything is beautiful, relaxed, and happy. Wemmick made his little cottage to look like a castle, with a moat and guns surrounding it: "Wemmick's house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted with guns." As Pip looked at the house he thought to himself, "I highly commended it. I think it was the smallest house I ever saw: with the queerest gothic windows (by far the greater part of them sham), and a gothic door, almost too small to get in at." Page 195

"Its other name was Satis, but it meant more than it said. It meant, when it was given, that whoever had this house, could want nothing else." Page 51. This description of Miss Havisham's house shows irony because Miss Havisham was so depressed and glum. It also shows that at one time Satis House was probably a beautiful, happy place instead of the dismal home it had become Throughout the entire book, Pip was always in love with Estella, who in return showed no love at all. Instead of caring for Pip, she was usually cold and unfeeling. Because of Estella, Pip becomes unhappy with his life at the forge and this leads him to resent Joe. He was once happy with his life at the forge, but from the time Estella called him "common" he began to hate the lifestyle he had. This is important because it shows a change in Pip, it also shows that he would do anything to please Estella and Miss Havisham. "Home had never been a very pleasant place to me, because of my sister's temper. But, Joe had sanctified it, and I believed in it. I had believed in the best parlor as a most elegant saloon; I had believed in the front door, as a mysterious portal with a sacrifice of roast fowls; I had believed in the kitchen as a chaste though not magnificent apartment; I had believed in the forge as the glowing road to manhood and independence. Within a single year all this was changed. Now, it was all course and common, and I would not have had Miss Havisham and Estella see it on any account." page 100.

Once Pip became a gentleman he began to distance himself from Joe and Biddy. During one of Joe's visits to Pip in London, Joe says goodbye to Pip in a tone that seemed to finalize Joe's visits. Although Joe does go again to take care of Pip, he can feel that he is out of place. "Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings welded together, as I may say, and one man's a blacksmith, and one's a whitesmith, and

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