Great Expectations #4

I read all afternoon and evening, but it was absolutely delightful because the plot is moving along so quickly now. The character to talk about today is Estella. She is cunning and cold, and drags Pip everywhere with her. He isn't a suitor, and she flirts with the other boys more. After Pip sees her smiling at the jerk Drummle, he says to her:
“There is no doubt you do,” said I something hurriedly, “for I have seen you give him looks and smiles this very night, such as you never give to- me.” “Do you want me then,” said Estella, turning suddenly with a fixed and serious, if not angry look, “to deceive and entrap you?” “Do you deceive and entrap him, Estella?” “Yes and many others- all of them but you” (290). Estella seems to be trying not to hurt him, by not flirting with him. Although she is cruel on the outside, it seems as if she is trying to be nice on the outside. As a reader, I feel like I should despise her for being so mean, but I don't, and maybe it is because she isn't trying to be mean, it's just who she is. On more than one occasion she seperates Pip from everyone else. In her own way, she is being kind to him, trying not to hurt him, trying not to lead him on. Why does she do this? To be completely honest, this novel doesn't have that much in common with what we have studied in class. The main theme of Great Expectations are that money and social standing don't make you any happier, and that is not a theme in other things we have studied. Perhaps a theme that would go along with The 400 Blows or Black Boy is that you can't make someone love you. Pip cannot make Estella love him, just as Antoine and Richard Wright couldn't get their mothers to love them. Pip is facing a major conflict right now. Pip needs to figure out how to get his benefactor out of the country. His benefactor has been revealed, and it is not Miss Havisham like he thought, but instead it is a man known as Provis or Magwitch, who is the convict that Pip helped when he was young. For awhile he was very confused. He knows that he won't marry Estella now. Anyway, Pip and Magwitch are being watched, so Magwitch has to go into hiding. Pip is going to great lengths to protect someone that he had just met for a few days when he was young, although he does owe him a lot because Magwitch paid for him to be a gentleman. Now Pip feels bad about that, and doesn't want to spend anymore of his money now that his future is so uncertain. Pip narrates, "Even I myself began to know the want of money (I mean of ready money in my own pocket), and to relieve it by converting some easily spared articles of jewellery into cash." He is selling his stuff so that he doesn't have to trouble Magwitch (although it wouldn't trouble him anyway).

Great Expectations #3

First off, I want to observe that Pip doesn't know what a theme is. "... I must give one chapter to Estella. It is not much to give to the theme that so long filled my heart" (279). Estella is not a theme, she is a topic. Thanks to Ms. Froehlich, I know the difference.


Anyway.... In the past two posts, I have only discussed Pip. I will now move on to other characters. Miss Havisham is the woman who is believed to have given Pip his "expectations". She is a strange woman. She hasn't taken her wedding dress off since the day she was supposed to be married, when she was a young lady. Nothing in that room has changed since then, the clock is at the same time, and she spends her days thinking about how her heart was broken. It is suspected that she has given Pip these expectations so that someday he can marry Estella.

She says to Pip, : "Love her, love her, love her! If she favours 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!" Never had I seen such passionate eagerness as was joined to her utterance of these words. I could feel the muscles of the thin arm round my neck swell with the vehemence that possessed her (223).

Her only joy in life, is living through her adopted daughter Estella. Without Estella, she just sits in her old, unkempt house all day long. But Estella gives her something to live for. It lets her look forward to the day that she'll break Pips heart. Miss Havisham's main conflict is with herself. She is unable to overcome an event that happened dozens of years ago. Her fiance never came to the ceremony. It happens to a lot of people, and they were able to go on with their lives. She is unable to do that. It might be due to the fact that she is spoiled and wealthy. Most people wouldn't be able to afford to live such a life, and also most people would have someone in their lives who wouldn't let them do this.
Another character in the story is Pumblechook. He was mean to Pip as a boy, but now he takes credit for Pip's expectations. When he was saying the eulogy at Pip's sister's funeral, Pip hears him "...cough a reservation of the case of a young gentleman who came unexpectedly into a large property" (263). It seems to bring him much satisfaction to think that he is the cause of such an honor.

Great Expectations #2

A man named Mr. Jaggers comes to inform Pip that an unknown person has decided to make him into a gentleman. Pip is excited, because he wants nothing more that to become more than a commoner. Just like Richard goes off to the big city in Black Boy, Pip leaves his little village to go to London. He says goodbye to Joe and Biddy, everything he has ever known. But of course before he says goodbye he tells Biddy to help Joe with his manners. "Hear me out-but if I were to remove Joe into a higher sphere, as I shall hope to remove him when I fully come into my property, they would hardly do him justice" (139). He doesn't just want to become an "important" person, he wants to bring his family with him. Estella is always in the back of his mind as motivation, but it's more than that now. After being acquainted with a more genteel lifestyle, it is what Pip want.
The greatest conflict at this point in the book is Pip becoming comfortable with his new lifestyle. He has been away from home for less than a week, yet he feels like it has been months. He is enjoying his new lifestyle yet, "...in the dead of night...feel hollow in my heart" (172). Everything has changed so much since he has left his little village. He has changed from a poor laboring boy apprenticed as a blacksmith, to an independent, educated young man. His daily activities are very different, as are the people that he is meeting. He finds it hard to believe how much things changed in so little time. "That I could have been at our old church in my church-going clothes, on the very last Sunday that ever was, seemed a combination of impossibilities, geographical and social..." (171). As I read more, I'll be discovering whether Pip is really cut out for this life of a gentleman.

(through p. 197)

Visual Literacy #1

Great Expectations #1

First off, I would just like to say that Charles Dickens is the best writer that ever lived. He's just so clever. I never get tired of reading anything he writes. But I like David Copperfield more than Great Expectations...just an opinion. anyway...

The protagonist in the book is Pip. His prime motivation in life is a young girl named Estella. She is beautiful, yet she treats him terribly. After he meets her, he questions his life, wondering if it is good enough for her. Everytime he thinks about this, he comes to the conclusion that it is not. He thinks that being an apprentice to his sister's husband as a black smith isn't good enough. "...yet my young mind was in that disturbed and unthankful state that I thought long after I laid me down, how common estella would consider Joe, a mere blacksmith: how thick his boots, and how coarse his hands" (66). He tries to become more educated to impress Estella. She motivates him like nothing else can. He is ashamed of his house, he doesn't even want Estella to ever see it.
One struggle that Pip has is with his conscious. He occasionally lies to his sister or brother-in-law, and it weighs on him differently depending on who he lies to. If he lies to his sister, he doesn't care, but if he lies to Joe, he feels very badly. He feels badly about lying to Joe, because he respects Joe. "It was not because I was faithful, but because Joe was faithful, that I never ran way...It was not because I had a strong sense of the virtue of the industry, but because Joe..." (100). But what will Pip do when Joe isn't around? Maybe we'll find out....later.

#3

Why do people write memoirs?
What power is there in telling our own stories?

People write memoirs to tell other people about their life and to come to terms with things that have happened to them. For someone like Richard Wright, it might be therapy for him to write about his abusive family. By writing about it, he can reflect about why they treated him badly with a more clear mind. People who think that they are important or think they have exciting lives are more likely to write memoirs than people who don't. This is because they think people will want to read it. People write memoirs to entertain others with the crazy things that have happened to them in life. Politicians and musicians write memoirs to make money. Students write memoirs to fulfill the requirements of their English class.
The power in telling our stories goes back to the human need of being loved. If we are loved, then people will want to know about our lives. We want to feel needed, and if people are asking to hear our stories, that is exactly how we feel. Our stories can be the key to our soul, and it is very powerful if someone else knows who you are, who you really are as a person.

Black Boy #2

The basic thing that Richard "hungers" for is food. "There were hours when hunger would make me weak, would make me sway while walking, would make my heart give a sudden wild spurt of beating that would shake my body and make me breathless" (127). Richard finds it difficult to do everyday things because he can't function on the calories he's getting. He also hungers for the elder's wife. "I would gaze at the elder's wife for hours, attempting to draw her eyes to mine, trying to hypnotize her, seeking to communicate with her with with my thoughts" (113). This is negative because his family believes he is thinking about God, and instead he is fantasizing about somebody else's wife. Maybe he should think about girls his own age. At the same time, it could be positive that he has a crush on someone so much older because nothing will ever happen between them and it's harmless. Finally, Richard hungers to be a normal person and live. He says so himself. He just wants to be like everyone else, instead of having to stay home on Saturdays because of his Granny. He doesn't want to be abused and hungry. The negative to this is it might be hard for him to achieve being normal, because he's extremely poor, and his family is rather closed-minded. He also gets into fights so that he'll be accepted. The positive is that if he can achieve this, he might be happier being normal.

Black