GREAT EXPECTATIONS
Chapter Summaries
Chapters 1-10
* means key chapter
CHAPTER
SUMMARY
1*
Pip and Magwitch meet on the marsh (worksheet &
questions, watch film)
2*
Pip’s home life, steals food and a file (social context,
themes)
3*
Pip meets the 2nd convict and helps Magwitch (social
context, themes)
4
Pip’s company make him feel guilty and unhappy
5*
Soldiers capture both convicts and Magwitch protects
Pip. (How is Pip’s conscience affected by this episode?
Keeping a secret isolates him. Joe’s Christian
forgiveness opposed to the ‘hunt’)
6
Pip tired
7*
Pip to go to Miss Havishams. (Theme of title:
‘expectations’)
8*
Pip meets Miss Havisham and Estella (What was she
like?)
9
Pip unhappy and Joe’s advice
10*
Pip shown the file by a strange man. (‘Two fat
sweltering one pound notes’ hints at Pip’s later
expectations.)
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
Chapter Summaries
Chapters 11-20
* means key chapter
CHAPTER
SUMMARY
11*
Miss Havisham’s birthday and visitors. (Hints at her
history through wedding feast. Comedy and dark
suspense are used, why? Pale young man introduced.)
12
Miss Havisham asks for Joe so Pip can be apprenticed
to him.
13*
Miss Havisham rewards Pip with £25 and he is
apprenticed to Joe but is unhappy. (Hint at his
‘expectations’ in final sentences. Finished at Miss
Havishams)
14
Pip feels ashamed of his home.
15*
Orlick and Pip returns to see Miss Havisham. (Focus on
characterisation of Orlick and his criminal tendencies
compared to Magwitch.)
16
Pip’s sister is harmed, by who?
17*
Biddy’s advice for Pip who wants to be a gentleman for
Estella. (What is it?)
18*
Jagger’s arrives to tell Pip he has ‘great expectations’.
(Pip believes it is by Miss Havisham. Look at
characterisation of Jaggers).
19*
Pip enjoys his wealth. Some people react differently to
him. Pip goes to Miss Havisham’s and then leaves home
with the world before him. (Episode with convict still
haunts Pip)
20
Pip enjoys his wealth. Some people react differently to
him. Pip goes to Miss Havisham’s and then leaves home
with the world before him. (Episode with convict still
haunts Pip)
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
Chapter Summaries
Chapters 21-30
* means key chapter
CHAPTER
21
SUMMARY
Mr Herbert Pocket is the pale young gentleman from
Miss Havisham’s.
22*
Miss Havisham’s history and Pip is taught the correct
behaviour of a gentleman. (Are social rules important?)
23
Wemmick’s double life.
24
Wemmick’s double life.
25
Wemmick’s double life.
26
Drummle
27*
Joe arrives and does not fit in with London or Pip’s new
life. Joe tells Pip Miss Havisham wants to see him. (How
does Pip feel? Embarrassed and ashamed of Joe.)
28*
Pip overhears two convicts talking about him and how
Magwitch gave £2 to one of them to deliver to Pip.
29*
Pip thinks he and Estella are to be married! Miss
Havisham pleas with Pip to love Estella. (What feelings
are behind this plea?)
30
Pip confides in Herbert his love for Estella.
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
Chapter Summaries
Chapters 31-40
* means key chapter
CHAPTER
SUMMARY
31
At the Theatre
32
Newgate prison
33*
Estella arrives in London (Estella’s attitude towards
wretches in prison, Pip is left alone feeling miserable,
hopelessness of his love for her)
34*
Moral decline of Pip. (He is clearly no longer the morally
upstanding boy he once was when he was with Joe. Pip
learns his sister is dead.)
35*
Pip returns for funeral and once again leaves Joe.
(Comedy and pathos – sympathy / pity – pathetic
fallacy)
36
Pip’s birthday and receives £500 but no news on who his
benefactor is.
37
Pip aids Herbert with Wemmick’s help. Why? To
improve Pip in our eyes?
38*
New relationship forming between Miss Havisham and
Estella. ‘How does she use you Pip?’(What is happening?)
39*
Magwitch/Provis returns and Pip learns the truth. (Do
we feel sympathy for Pip and Magwitch? How does
Dickens achieve this? Link idea of Miss Havisham and
Magwitch owning a gentleman as an act of revenge.)
40
Pip hides Provis
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
Chapter Summaries
Chapters 41-50
* means key chapter
CHAPTER
41
SUMMARY
Herbert and Pip plan Provis’ escape with Pip from
England
42*
Magwitch’s story. (Themes of social injustice, crime and
punishment, parents or lack of. For essay comment on
how our sympathy has shifted towards Magwitch.)
43
Pip meets Drummle again who is to marry Estella.
44*
Pip asks Miss Havisham to help Herbert and confronts
her about her cruelty to himself. Returns to London and
gets a note warning him not to go home (cliff hanger
ending).
45
Pip is anxious.
46
Pip concerned for Magwitch, building suspense.
47*
Pip is watched by a sinister figure (the convict
Magwitch fought with)
48*
Pip believes Jagger’s housekeeper is Estella’s mother.
(Theme: Parentage)
49*
Miss Havisham’s repentance is very melodramatic.(
Reflects Dickens’ interest in melodrama)
50*
Pip realises Magwitch is Estella’s father. (Keep a
secret?)
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
Chapter Summaries
(Chapters 51-59)
* means key chapter
CHAPTER
SUMMARY
51
Pip is asked by Jagger’s what good it would do to reveal
Estela’s parentage.
52
Pip learns how cruel he has been to Joe and does one
good deed from his expectations for Herbert.
53
Pip is held captive by Orlick who confesses he murdered
Pip’s sister. Pip rescued. (This confrontation helps Pip
purge his darker self.)
54
Magitch is captured and Pip stays beside him. (Pip has
now lost all his expectations. ‘I only saw in him a much
better man than I had been to Joe’)
55
Herbert makes Pip a clerk!
56
Trial. (Dickens’ morality and social criticism). Pip tells
Magwitch about Estella.
57*
Joe cares for Pip. (Does he deserve it?)
58*
Pip returns to see Joe and Biddy married
59*
Ambiguous ending: will Pip and Estella part forever?