The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.

Many people consider „Great Expectations“ to be Charles Dickens‘ masterpiece, his greatest work with the most impressive cast of characters. And while I cannot comment on its quality in comparison to other well-known Dickens novels like „A Tale of Two Cities“ or „David Copperfield“, it certainly managed to live up to my expectations and even more: to make me feel part of Pip Pirrip’s life, of his relations to Miss Havisham and Estella and Joe and Herbert and all the other memorable cast members of this novel.

Great Expectations accompanies the protagonist, a young boy called Pip, during his journey through life, his struggling and his attempts to overcome the obstacles life has thrown into his path. Being raised as an orphan by his elder sister and her kind-hearted and generous husband Joe, Pip faces the scales of fate, unease and love when being introduced to the eccentric Miss Havisham, a wealthy woman and one of the most memorable characters of the entire novel. Pip falls in love with Miss Havisham’s adopted daughter Estella, and several years later, a mysterious benefactor finances Pip’s climbing into the higher parts of English society. Confronted with dangerous secrets, friendships and enmities alike and a love foredoomed to failure, Pip is forced to find his place in life, to grow up and stand on his own feet – a task which proves to be more difficult than he would ever have imagined.

According to my experience, the conventional notion of a lover cannot be always true. The unqualified truth is, that when I loved Estella with the love of a man, I loved her simply because I found her irresistible. Once for all; I knew to my sorror, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Once for all; I loved her none the less because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection.

Apart from the perfect way Dickens weaves the words he chooses in, he also manages to characterize his protagonists in such an easily remembered style that you can’t help but feel sorry for what Pip, Estella or even Miss Havisham have to endure. Pip, the first-person-narrator and thus the character we have to spend the entirety of the novel with, is known to the reader from the very first days of his (conscious) existence, and Dickens allows us to accompany him on his troublesome way through life during his childhood and his early adolescence. While not always the most likeable person, Pip remains a realistic character with faults and mistakes of his own, the essential aspect which ultimately defines human beings.

“Oh! I have a heart to be stabbed in or shot in, I have no doubt, […], and of course if it ceased to beat I should cease to be. But you know what I mean. I have no softness there, no – sympathy – sentiment – nonsense.“

The character of Estella is another person we encounter during her childhood and whom we accompany while growing up. While Pip misses significant parts of her life, the reader is also able to judge Estella’s development through Pip’s eyes, which – of course – can’t be a reliable perspective, but even more emphasizes the love Pip feels for Estella. The true scales of Estella’s coldheartedness and her hostile behaviour will become clearer during the course of the novel, and it is not surprising that she is a character you find yourself wanting to know a lot more of. In modern days, Estella might be a (stereo-)typical prude, someone people are fascinated with, but never quite manage to get through to the core of her soul. Raised by Miss Havisham, Estella is far from the happiness other girls her age might be allowed to experience, yet those lessons of life she has to learn very early draw her character and her behaviour more significantly than anything else.

“Love her, love her, love her! If she favors you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces – and as it gets older and stronger it will tear deeper – love her, love her, love her! […] I adopted her, to be loved. I bed her and educated her, to be loved. I developed her into what she is, that she might be loved. Love her! […] I’ll tell you […] what real love is. It is blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the whole world, giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter – as I did.“

Oh, Miss Havisham. Throughout the entire course of the novel, she was the character I looked forward to meeting again the most, who I missed the most when not present in Pip’s narrations, who I want to know more of even now, after finishing the novel. Such a well-drawn character with a tortured soul and wishes and desires of her own based on her fateful experiences. In contrast to the time this novel was written in by Charles Dickens, today’s literature is partly marked by many authors developing trilogies out of their stories in order to write more stuff about their characters (which is a general direction I definitely don’t approve of due to various reasons), but if there ever was a story which I wanted to follow more closely, more elaborately, more intensively, it would certainly be Great Expectations. The mysterious appearances of Miss Havisham and Estella were very appealing to me; not knowing their true destinations, their true motivations before their reveal to the main character Pip was even more appealing; but reading something about their thoughts from their own points of view would have been most appealing. I wouldn’t want Charles Dickens to have written his novel from any other perspective – this merely emphasizes how memorably and full of potential he has managed to draw his characters.

There was a melancholy wind, and the marshes were very dismal. A stranger would have found them insupportable, and even to me they were so oppressive that I hesitated, half inclined to go back.

His ability of developing a setting, a Gothic atmosphere, which will allow you to feel part of the story, is one of the aspects which ultimately succeeded in allowing Dickens to become as popular as he later did. Psychologically the latter part of Great Expectations is about the best thing Dickens ever did. –I could not have expressed it in any better way than George Orwell did in this sentence. The novel did have some flaws, after all. I needed to read chapter summaries on the Internet to figure out how Pip was related to people like Mr. Jaggers, Wemmick or Bentley Drummle, party because I wasn’t particularly interested in those characters, partly because I only read one chapter at a time and thus was likely to forget aspects and not remember exact details when reading about them again. However, Great Expectations influenced me like few other novels managed to do before. Whether it was Pip’s friendship with Herbert, his love for Estella or the complicated relation to Joe – Dickens made me fear with Pip, feel for Pip, and hope for Pip to find happiness.
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the style of book that follows the story of a man or woman in their quest for maturity

Great Expectations was assigned reading when I was in ninth grade. I thought it was the most dreary thing I had ever read. Sensing that the memories from my youth might be mistaken, I tried again. I have not been disappointed. Reading Great Expectations has been a joy.
My memory was that Dickens wrote in a fussy, old-fashioned style, and I found that to some extent that’s true. Also, my memory was that Dickens wrote dialogue that no one would have spoken. Maybe so: Dickens often wrote in the voice of an elder, educated Pip recounting conversations he had as a boy. He wasn’t like Mark Twain writing in the voice of Huck Finn. But dialogue in Great Expectations is often difficult to understand simply because the terms are archaic.

Contrary to the stereotype of being fussy and old-fashioned, there are colloquialisms that remind me of Mark Twain, e.g., p. 115, "clean gone." Also lines that could have been spoken by modern teenagers: “. . . it really is extra super.” (p.118)

The descriptions are often poetic. One of my favorites is on page 322: “Wednesday morning was dawning when I looked out of window. The winking lights upon the bridges were already pale, the coming sun was like a marsh fire on the horizon. The river, still dark and mysterious, was spanned by bridges . . . and millions of sparkles burst out upon its waters.”
Much of the action that takes place in the Third Stage of the book is barely believable. How would Pip's enemies and the police know enough to begin pursuing, and where to go? In spite of explanations like “I’ve looked arter you to know your ins and outs” (p. 318), it seems it would have been impossible for the Thames River Police to intercept Pip and his crew without the aid of modern communications.

At the end of the chase, the police would have arrested Pip and his comrades as accomplices, but inexplicably they don't. The premise for the Third Stage’s adventures falls apart (p. 243 note 7) for another reason, but if we can’t put that aside, there’s no story.

Although Dickens maintains Victorian reticence about sexual desire and sexual activity, he does mention them in obscure ways, e.g., Wemmick discussing his trinkets: “Is the lady anybody?” “No. . . . Only his game (You liked your bit of game, didn’t you?) . . .” (p. 156). While never explicit, Pip’s longing for Estella is palpable. Dickens never describes her appearance other than to say she is “beautiful” and “so much more womanly” (p.181) than before her time in France, but that is enough. And a reader who identifies with Pip will feel flashes of jealousy, not only of Drummle, but also Oedipal jealousy of Joe (p. 354). ( )

TEST
Great Expectations depicts the differences between the classes, and how money can corrupt. The novel makes clear that money cannot buy love, nor does it guarantee happiness. One of the happiest--and most morally correct--people in the novel is Joe, Pip's sister's husband. And, Miss Haversham is one of the richest (as well as the most unhappy and loneliest). Pip believes that if he can be a gentleman, he will have everything he wants from the world. His world collapses and he realizes that all his money has been based on Magwitch's dishonest earnings. And, Pip finally understands the true value of life. Great Expectations features some of Dickens's greatest characters and one of his trademark convoluted plots. The novel is a fantastic read, and a wonderful morality tale. Full of romance, courageousness and hope--Great Expectations is a brilliant evocation of a time and place. Here's a view of the English class system that is both critical and realistic.
source:(http://classiclit.about.com/)

Part of my enjoyment in re-reading books is that, often, I haven’t read them in many years and it’s like opening them for the first time. So it was with Great Expectations, a book I first read as an assignment at age 13. All I remembered was that I had loved it, that Miss Havisham had in her house a molding cake with mice and bugs running through it, and that it was about a boy named Pip who loved a snotty girl named Estella.

What I had totally forgotten is that it’s a book which is at turns funny, exciting, touching, and always, always beautifully written. My memory was excised of the faithful Joe, the nasty Mrs. Joe, the ridiculous Mr. Pumblechook, the stalwart Biddy, the awful Compeyson and Orelick, and the wonderful Abel Magwich.

Others will tell you the plot. I tell you not to miss this incredible book filled with depth, rich characters, important lessons about life, and loads of fun. ( )