Classics have an old world charm, especially the works of someone like Jane Austen. Yet, a writer like Charles Dickens is different because most of his stories are built in stark reality of life. Not many writers can talk about poverty, sadness, tragedy with both a poetic angle and human poignancy as well.
David Copperfield was one such sensitive work but though many will not agree, ’’Great Expectations’’ stays Dicken’s best work acoording to me.Gloomy, uncomfortably intense in sillouhetted in the dark corners of the human mind and the human heart, it is an unusual canvas of the protagonist Pip’s life.
Pip is someone who is destined to play the lost-found game of life.A parentless child, he is brought up by the whip by his tyrannical sister and her simple lovable husband who balances out the initial lonliness of Pip’s childhood.
Life takes a new turn for him when he is introduced to arguably the most fascinating and intriguing character of the novel, the sadistically intersting old lady Miss.Havisham.It is there that he meets the love of his life, the proud and beautiful Estella who is destined to be the poison in his veins forever because throughout she enchants him, ridicules him but never belongs to him.
Miss.Havisham becomes an integral and destructive factor in his life, Pip recieves ’’great expectations from a benefactor and Pip moves ahead in life and progresses as well.Yet, there’s a continuoos turmoil inside him , he never seems to be at peace.The plot moves along by concentrating on each and every character and the incidents linking them and these make Pip essentially an observer.Pip’s sister’s death, the angle of Orlick, Pip’s understated devastation on Estella’s marriage , Pip’s heart-rending bond with Joe and Biddy , the mystery of Estella’s roots keep the story going and if the book catches your interest , it makes one of the best reads.
There are no heroes in ’’Great Expectations’’, only human-beings who cry when they are hurt and laugh when they are happy, loving and giving in prosperity and revengeful when wounded, maybe excepting Joe, whom Pip calls ’’a true Christian soul’’.All major characters of the novel are very well sketched-out but not all of them are believable.For example, it is both difficult and heart-warming to believe that people full of benevolence and human goodness like Joe can ever exist.In direct contrast is the intriguing and eccentric Miss.Havisham who traps herself in a moment of time and refuses to come out of it. Her hatred for the male gender ( read to find out!) and her conniving shaping of Estella to grow up and break hearts of men is full of malevolence but the author still manages to create sympathy for her.Especially the scene when she dies in Pip’s arms and her frail soul asks for forgiveness, a sensitive reader is bound to be moved.Estella’s character is powerful only in a shadow because inspite of the great potential that her arrogant personality had , Dicken’s is not able to do justice to it.
Pip’s last meeting with her in the ruin’s of Miss.Havisham’s gloomy mansion where he finds that life’s hardships have robbed her off the arrogant charm her beauty had and her snobbery is well done.Also, the symbolic importance that cards have which Miss.Havisham plays with Pip is also worth applause because it reflects the life game which the old lady plans for both Pip and Estella.
Pip is not a hero, he is just a man who has walked off the streets right into Dickens’ mind. He is a common man, he could be me, he could be you.He tends to be wobbly , the author could’ve lent him more spine and more guts. But, then maybe ’’Great Expectations’’ wouldn’t have been what it is.My liking for this book is mainly due to the fact that am so intrigued and enamoured by Miss.Havisham.
I find her one of the most intriguing characters ever created in Literature. Of course, Rhett Butler, Darcy, Captain(Arms and the Man), Elizabeth Bennet are also few of my favourites. ’’Great Expectations’’ if full of gloom , intensity, poignancy , tragedy and depression.Yet, it has a beauty of its own and that beauty emanates from the wisdom that it tris to convey to the reader.There can be no middle-of-the-road opinions on this classic.
You can either completely love it or completely hate it.This text is difficult to understand and even more difficult to take in, so it is matter of chance that you have the patience and the book has the capacity to strike a chord with you.Think me stupid, if you like but I found that there was a sadistic lyricism in the story and I read it with a picture in my mind.
’’Great Expectations’’ makes you realise that people in your life have a lot to do with what you become in life and what happens to you in life.
DOMINUS VOBISCUM SPIRITUO TUO.
take care,
GOD BLESS EVERYONE.