Great Expectations, Charles Dickens

LITTERATURE ANGLAISE

We learn more about Miss Havisham plan of death, Pip fighting against a man and allowed to give a kiss to Estella as a reward. Miss Havisham paying for the apprenticeship to be set-up with Joe: made to tempt us into thinking that it’s her who’s going to pump Pip’s desire to become a gentleman.

Pip’s sister badly injured after being attacked; discovery of a leg iron. Pip feels guilty and responsible for it. Detective coming to solve this mystery but fails.

• CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Pip obsessed with the idea of becoming a gentleman, he finally gives voice to that desire. Idea of an uncertain future.

Pip being quite violent in his language, some degree of frustration with Biddy because he is unhappy with the life he lives. Using very powerful words. Biddy seems to be very calm and wise; she is level-headed. Interesting opposition between these two characters. Externalization of the question, the distress, the frustration that Pip has been having in his conscience.

Biddy is almost the voice of Pip’s conscience. Pip knows she is right, but he cannot help himself: it is almost like he is bound to follow a tragic destiny. Grain of hope here, he shows that he is human and that he does have a good side but that it cannot be realized at the time because of this obsession of being a gentleman.

 “If I could have been… I would…”: feeling that it is too late, that there is no way out, feeling that he is damned or condemned to a different kind of future.

Pip is revealing that he is uncapable to really read or understand Biddy. Reveals that his feelings are so powerful that he cannot really control them. We also learn that he is very depressed, reference to suicide.

Realistic acknowledgement of human nature. Love is being presented here as a form of madness. Tears of regret and frustration.

Theme of education, Biddy helping Pip in his early attempt to read. Not based purely upon formal education, Biddy wishes she could teach Pip to be happy in his situation, to be self-confident and not care about his class.

Return to the inner dialogue, comparing his actual life to the one he would like to have; acknowledgement of his own foolishness.

• CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Pip has become a gentleman, moved to London, the identity of his benefactor is unknown. He is living in his lodging with a friend who helps him becoming a gentleman.

Pip gets the news that Joe is coming to visit him, which he does not receive with pleasure. Two references to money in the same sentence, he’d rather pay money to keep Joe away when he has taken care of him: sign of Pip’s moral decline, emphasized by the repetition of money. By rejecting Joe, he rejects his origins and his class.

Pip almost turns Joe into a figure of ridicule in this description.

“How AIR you?”: Joe trying to imitate the “aristocratic” accent, or Pip ashamed of Joe’s country accent. Joe is very happy to see Pip, but Pip is quite embarrassed. Joe is not speaking naturally; he is trying very hard to raise the level of his language but is unable to do that and shows his true level of education. Pip is not doing a lot to make Joe feel at ease.

...