Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

1. education and reading

   • Jaggers opposite of Joe
     • Joe doesn't care about reading/what words he used, but what he says is genuine
     • Jaggers carefully constructs the words he uses, but it's all fake
   • Compeyson
     • education and language used immorally, to distort and obscure

2. imagery

   • hands
     • When Pip goes to London, hand points him back home
       • thinks he's escaping criminality, but everything in London is connected to criminality
     • Jaggers won't hold hands/connect
       • washes his hands compulsively
   • light/fire/stars
     • Estella
     • something becoming clear = light, dark is repressed
       • Magwitch coming back
     • fire/for
     • Magwitch's father took fire with him, symbol of home
     • fire connected to home/warmth, to Joe who is the moral center
   • iron
     • Pip sees himself as guilty/aligns with convicts
     • file = return of the repressed

3. doubles

   • Orick
     • Aspect of Pip's consciousness
     • "comes behind pip"
       • Compeyson
     • names himself, like Pip, but this annoys Pip
     • externalizes Pip's feelings, punishes who is mean to Pip
   • Drummle
     • feels superior because of slight class
     • Pip increasingly driven by money/status, further from Joe's values
   • Jaggers double of Joe, use of language opposite
   • Magwitch and Havisham
     • train and disturb childhoods

4. legal profession

   • Jaggers
     • reality/appearance split
   • Wemmick
     • only shakes hand in public sphere, to get portable property out of clients
     • Thomas Carlyle: Cash nexus, Wemmick bought into cash nexus
       • begins to influence Pp as well

5. Bildungsroman

   • education of novel/experiences undermined by ending?
   • sheds delusions from childhood

6. angel in the house

   • women in angel/whore dichotomy
   • Mrs. Joe
     • described through marriage
     • get's beat up - becomes angel in the house
       • uses signs/symbols as language
         • can't use language to distort/must be genuine
     • Bib has pins/not comforting domestic
   • Ms. Havisham
     • uses estella as commodity, revenge plot
     • can't leave domestic sphere, like a woman should be but distorted
     • dies in fire, begs for forgiveness
       • Fire is purifying, burns Pip's hands
   • distorted mother figures (Mrs. Joe + Pip, Ms. Havisham + Estella)
   • Molly
     • opposite of mothering/nurturing Victorian ideal
   • Biddy is angel in the house, key domestic figure of what a women should be, so she ends up with Joe, the moral center

7. unconscious mind

   • identity
     • give's himself a name
   • Pummelchuck drinks tar water - plot enacts Pip's unconscious desires
   • book is about Pip's consciousness
     • coming to terms with subconscious

8. representations of the theatre and acting

   • Mr Wopsle
     • loves the sound of his own voice

9. narrative closure

10. middle class/social mobility

    • Dickens seen as a moral center
    • wanted equality, but wrote certain qualities as belonging to a class
    • Magwitch
      • makes his money without criminality, but because of his class is seen as a criminal
      • Pip doesn't want money once he knows it's from Magwitch
      • homeless, abandoned child, society makes him a criminal
    • education connected to status, the upper class is the real criminal
    • Compeyson
      • real criminal, but because of his appearance gets off

11. Names

    • Pip
      • names himself
      • seed, growth, just starting out
      • palindrome
    • Havisham
      • have a sham, living a lie
      • a real criminal, money connected to liquor, class as criminal
      • satis house = sadist, violence for no reason
        • violence to get upper class
    • Estella
      • (I mean it isn't but I'll let that go)
    • Mrs. Pocket, obsessed with class
    • Abel Magwitch
      • 'witch' suggests fantasy
      • mag = magician/magical
      • Abel: Cain and Abel, society should treat everyone as their brother, they betrayed him and made him into a criminal
    • Biddy
      • Biddable, does as she's told, ideal victorian woman