Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (Summary)

 

Great Expectations

by Charles Dickens

(Summary) 

Pip had been left an orphan as a young boy, to be grudgingly reared by his sister, whose husband, Joe Gargery, a blacksmith, was kind and loving. The trio lived in a cottage in the marsh country of Kent, where Pip, wandering alone one day, was accosted by a wild- looking stranger who demanded food and a file to cut the iron chain that bound his leg. When Pip returned with a pork pie and a file, he saw another mysterious figure on the marsh, who, after a desperate struggle with Pip’s stranger, escaped into the fog. The man Pip had aided turned out to be an escaped convict who was later recaptured. He promised Pip he would somehow repay him for his help.

Miss Havisham lived in a gloomy house where all the clocks had been stopped on the day her bridegroom failed to appear for their wedding; she still dressed in her bridal robes and the remains of an uneaten wedding breakfast cluttered the tables of an unused room. At Miss Havisham’s request, Mrs. Joe periodically sent Pip to this house, where the shy boy also encountered a beautiful young girl named Estella, who delighted in tormenting him. Miss Havisham enjoyed watching the two children together, and encouraged Estella in her haughty teasing of Pip.

Although Pip was apprenticed to Joe, a solicitor named Jaggers one day presented him with the opportunity to go to London and become a gentleman. Pip imagined that the backer of this proposal was Miss Havisham, who wished to make him fit to marry Estella some-day.

Before Pip left for London, his sister was attacked by an unknown assailant and was struck unconscious; she never fully recovered from this blow. (The attacker was Orlick, Joe’s assistant, who had been on bad terms with the Gargery family for some time).

In London Pip found a small apartment set up for him, and for a living companion he had a young relative of Miss Havisham, Herbert Pocket. When Pip needed money, he was instructed to go to Mr. Jaggers. Pip quickly adapted himself to his new circumstances, spent money at a great rate, and received some tuition from Herbert’s father. When Joe came to visit Pip in London, the latter had outgrown his rural background and was ashamed of Joe’s rustic manners.

A few years later, Miss Havisham expressed a wish to see the young man, and Pip went to visit her. She told him that it was time for Estella to come to London and that it would not be out of place for him to fall in love with the beautiful girl. Estella, however, had not been in London long before she had many suitors, and although Pip saw her frequently and she treated him with friendship, he knew she did not return his love.

On his twenty-third birthday, after moving with Herbert to better quarters near Temple Inn, Pip received a visit from the man he had helped on the marshes many years before and learnt that his benefactor had been this ex-criminal, Abel Magwitch, who had been transported to Australia, where he had grown rich. He warned Pip that he (Magwitch) faced the death penalty should the authorities learn of his return to England, but he was so anxious to see the boy to whom he had tried to be a second father, that he was willing to take this risk. Pip now realized that Miss Havisham had nothing to do with his great expectations.

Magwitch was using the name Provis to hide his identity. Pip learnt, too, that the other convict on the marshes was Compeyson, his benefactor’s bitter enemy, who was also the lover who had jilted Miss Havisham.

Pip lost no time in visiting Miss Havisham to upbraid her for having allowed him to believe she was helping him. During this visit he was informed that Estella was to marry Bentley Drummle, a disagreeable fellow whom Pip had come to know in London. Since Miss Havisham had suffered at the hands of one faithless man, she had reared Estella to inflict as much hurt as possible on the many men who had come to love her. After Estella had married, Pip again visited Miss Havisham at her request and she asked his forgiveness for the wrong she had done to him. As Pip left the gloomy old mansion, an accident started a fire and the old lady died in the blaze.

Pip’s main purpose in life thereafter was to ensure the safety of Magwitch, who, because of the machinations of Compeyson, remained in great danger of capture. With Herbert’s assistance, Pip arranged to smuggle the old man across the Channel to France; he would then join him there, and they would go abroad together. Elaborate and secretive as their plans were, Compeyson managed to overtake them as they were putting Magwitch on the boat. The two enemies fought one last battle, Compeyson was killed, and Magwitch taken to jail, where he died before he could be brought to trial.

When Pip fell ill shortly afterwards, it was Joe Gargery who came to nurse him. Older and wiser from his many experiences, Pip no longer felt ashamed of his uncle. His sister, Mrs. Joe, had died of her injuries, and Joe married again- his choice falling on Biddy, a kindly village girl who had kept house for him since Orlick’s attack. Pip had discovered, meanwhile, that Estella was Magwitch’s daughter.

Later, Herbert and Pip set up a business partnership in London. Estella’s brutal husband, Drummle, died in a horse-riding accident, and, eleven years thereafter, Pip by chance met the widowed Estella on the site of Miss Havisham’s mansion and they resolved to marry.