Description
Great Expectations reflects on an orphan nicknamed Pip. The plot revolves around his life and depicts the education of Pip. The novel traces the psychological growth of Pip in three stages: Pip spent his childhood in the marshes of Kent, his journey from rural background to the London metropolis, and finally his reluctant reconciliation with false promises and values. Pip meets a wealthy, eccentric spinster, Miss Havisham and her beautiful ward, Estella. He: instantly falls in love with her. Though he is constantly reminded that Estella is heartless, Pip yearns to become a wealthy gentleman in order to be worthy of her. When he learns about the expectations from a benefactor for him to be trained in the gentlemanly arts, he goes to London. A series of events follow, including Estella's marriage to the brutal nobleman, Bentley Drummle. After many years, Pip encounters Estella in the ruined garden at Satis House. Her husband, Drummle treated her badly, but he is now dead. Pip finds that Estella's coldness and cruelty have been replaced by a sad kindness. Both Pip and Estella leave the garden hand in hand. Great Expectations was published in 1861 and has not only been adapted into films but has also influenced a number of writers.
Author's Description
Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, in Portsea, England. His parents were middle-class and suffered financially. When Dickens was twelve years old, his family faced financial crisis, which forced him to quit school and work in a shoe polish manufacturing factory. Dickens's mother and siblings eventually joined him. Dickens continued to work at the factory for several months. In the factory the horrific conditions haunted him throughout his life. Dickens never forgot the day when a senior boy in the warehouse took it upon himself to instruct Dickens how to do his work more efficiently.
As a young adult, Dickens worked as a law clerk and later as a journalist. He perceived the darker social conditions of the Industrial Revolution. A collection of semi-fictional sketches entitled Sketches by Boz earned him recognition as a writer. Dickens began to make money from his writing when he published his first novel, The Pickwick Papers in 1836. The Pickwick Papers was hugely popular and Dickens became a literary celebrity at the age of twenty-five. Dickens's themes included wealth and poverty, love and rejection, and the eventual triumph of good over evil. In 1836, Dickens married Catherine Hogarth, but after twenty years of marriage and their ten children, he fell in love with Ellen Ternan, an actress many years his junior. Soon after, Dickens and his wife separated. Dickens remained a prolific writer to the end of his life, and his novels – Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, and Bleak House – continued to earn critical and popular acclaim. He died of a stroke in 1870, at the age of 58.
Country Of Origin :- India