Book 11: Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

Date Started: February 7, 2014
Date Ended: April 16, 2014

Wow what a journey! This was another book I had started a few times before, and could never get past the marsh scene when he first meets the convict. I had only been aware of the movie adaptation with Gwenyth Paltrow and Ethan Hawk, not that I ever saw it, but I figured it was some sort of love story, which is what made me want to read. Then I would read about Pip and his crazy sister and this convict he meets, I'd get bored, then I'd quit. This time of course I finished! And boy am I happy I did.

The book starts out a little slow to me. Again, reading about this boy Pip, who lives with his abusive crazy Sister and her husband Joe. Out on a walk Pip runs into this convict in the marshes who still has his shackles on. The convict threatens Pip to go get him a file and food, otherwise he'll come find him and hurt him. Pip does as he's asked, the convict escapes. The next day the convict and another are arrested again and sent back to prison.

One day Pip is invited to a house where an old rich lady Miss Havisham resides with a young adopted girl named Estella. Miss Havisham keeps inviting Pip over to play in hopes that Pip will fall madly in love with Estella, all while she does not give back any feelings. Miss Havisham was hurt in her past, and she adopted and raised Estella to be cold and heartless as part of her revenge on men. Her plan works, Pip falls in love, and Estella couldn't care less.

Some time down the road Pip gets a letter from a lawyer Mr Jaggers that he has come into a lot of money and great expetations and he is to live in London to become a gentleman. He isn't allowed to find out who his benefactor is. He assumes it's Miss Havisham and that she is setting him up to be married to Estella. He spends a lot of his time taking Estella out as Miss Havisham requests. Estella ends up marrying Bentley, a foe of Pip, and breaks his heart. Confused, he confronts Miss Havisham, and finds out she was not his benefactor after all.

Now into adulthood and living with great debt, the convict he helped out turns up and confesses that he was his benefactor. He had escaped from prison again, earned lots of money the honest way, and wanted it to go to good use. He wanted to return the favor to Pip since he helped him out back in the day. Pip was shocked and upset and didn't want to be in debt to this convict. They try to get the convict to leave London, but they get caught and the convict, now going by Provis, gets sentenced to death. After this happens, Pip realizes how much he was thankful of Provis and visited him every day in jail until he passed away from his injuries.

After Provis dies, Pip gets really sick, and Joe comes up to visit and take care of him. Pip is sorry for leaving Joe and wants to thank him for everything he's ever done for him. He travels back home to visit Joe, then plans to travel abroad to go live and work with a friend.  11 years later he returns to visit Joe and his wife Biddy, then runs into Estella again. They meet and he sees " no shadow of another parting from her. " I'm assuming they finally get married

This was such a journey to be on with Pip, starting from when he was a young boy, to almost a gentlemen, to losing it all, to working for himself, then to finally getting the woman of his dreams. Sometimes stuff has to work out that way in life. If he had married Estella back then, she would have still been heartless and wouldn't have appreciated him the way I'm sure she did now. She had married Bentley, suffered abuse from him, then he passed away. After all that happened she was able to realize what she had missed out on by not marrying Pip. Also, this gave Pip a chance to experience gains and losses and to figure himself out.

This was my first time reading Charles Dickens. I'm so happy I was finally able to finish this book. This definitely won't be my last.