English 9 Honors-----Journal Topics for Great Expectations
Here are some possible journal topics to do during your reading.
1. Discuss Pip as both a narrator and a character. How are different aspects of
his personality revealed by his telling of his story and by his participation in the
story itself?
2. What role does social class play in Great Expectations? What lessons does
Pip learn from his experience as a wealthy gentleman? How is the theme of
social class central to the novel?
3. Throughout the novel, Pip is plagued by powerful feelings of guilt and shame,
and everywhere he goes he tends to encounter symbols of justice—handcuffs,
gallows, prisons, and courtrooms. What is the role of guilt in the novel? What
does it mean to be “innocent”?
4. What significance does the novel’s title, Great Expectations, have for the
story? In what ways does Pip have “great expectations”?
5. For much of Great Expectations, Pip seems to believe in a stark division
between good and evil, and he tends to classify people and situations as
belonging to one extreme or the other: for instance, despite their respective
complexities, he believes that Estella is good and the convict is evil. Yet, both
socially and morally, Pip himself is often caught between extremes; his own
situation rarely matches up to his moral vision. What is the role of moral
extremes in this novel? What does it mean to be ambiguous or caught between
extremes?
6. Discuss the character of Miss Havisham. What themes does she embody?
What experiences have made her as she is? Is she a believable character? How
does she relate to Pip and Estella?