INTRODUCTION TO
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
HONORS STUDENTS: TURN IN
YOUR READING RESPONSES TO
HOW TO READ LITERATURE LIKE
A PROFESSOR.
Western
Literature
April 20, 2015
WARM – UP: WHAT CAN WE LEARN
ABOUT PIP?
 For your warm-up, read the quote from the first
paragraph of the story below. Then, in your
journals, answer the question: What can we learn
about Pip from the passage below?
“As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any
likeness of either of them (for their days were long before the days
of photographs), my first fancies regarding what they were like
were unreasonably derived from their tombstones. The shape of
the letters on my father’s, gave me an odd idea that he was a
square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair. From the character
and turn of the inscription, ‘ Also Georgiana Wife of the Above .’ I
drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and
sickly” (Dickens 3).
HONORS: TURN IN YOUR READING RESPONSES TO THE ORANGE BIN.
WHAT CAN WE LEARN
FROM AN EPITAPH?
 Charles Dickens begins his novel in a graveyard
where Pip meditates the gravestones of his
parents to imagine what they are like:
“As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of
either of them (for their days were long before the days of photographs),
my first fancies regarding what they were like were unreasonably derived
from their tombstones. The shape of the letters on my father’s, gave me an
odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair. From
the character and turn of the inscription, ‘ Also Georgiana Wife of the
Above .’ I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and
sickly” (Dickens 3).
 What can we learn from an epitaph? Let’s look at
some famous epitaphs together.
WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM AN EPITAPH?
EPITAPH#1
Benjamin Franklin
“The Body of B. Franklin, Printer; like the
Cover of an old Book, Its Contents torn
out, And stript of its Lettering and Gilding,
Lies here, Food for Worms. But the Work
shall not be wholly lost; For it will, as he
believ’d, appear once more, In a new and
more perfect Edition, Corrected and
amended By the Author.”
WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM AN EPITAPH?
EPITAPH #2
3.14145926535897…
Ludoph van Ceulen (Dutch
mathematician)
WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM AN EPITAPH?
EPITAPH #3
Good Friend, for Jesus’ sake
forbear, To dig the dust enclosed
here: Blessed be the man that
spares these stones, And curst be
he that moves my bones.
William Shakespeare
WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM AN EPITAPH?
EPITAPH #4
This Grave contains all that was
Mortal of a Young English Poet Who
on his Death Bed in the Bitterness of
his Heart at the Malicious Power of
his Enemies Desired these words to
be engraved on his Tomb Stone
“Here lies One Whose Name was writ
in Water.”
John Keats
WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM AN EPITAPH?
EPITAPH #5
That’s All Folks.
Mel Blanc
(voice of Warner Bros. characters)
HAPPY MECHANICS
MONDAY! WEATHER IN
LITERATURE
Objective & Guiding
Question
Analyze the weather
in Great Expectations.
How does the weather
act as both a plot
device and a symbol?
CHAPTER 10: IT’S MORE THAN JUST RAIN
OR SNOW
 “Thomas Hardy…has a delightful story
called ‘The Three Strangers’ (1883) in
which a condemned man (escaped), a
hangman, and the escapee’s brother all
converge on a shepherd's house during a
christening party…all of which takes
place on a, well, dark and stormy night,”
(Foster 76).
“HERE’S WHAT I THINK: WEATHER IS
NEVER JUST WEATHER. IT’S NEVER JUST
RAIN,” (FOSTER 75).
He uses it to force the men together. (Plot
device)
Rain is good for setting the mood, as
anything (good or bad) can take place in the
rain. (Atmospherics)
No one likes being stuck in the rain. (Misery
factor)
All sorts seek shelter from the rain.
(Democratic element)
RAIN CAN REPRESENT MANY THINGS
(FOSTER 77-78)
A stroll through rain can be deciphered as a
symbolic cleansing, yet if you fall into the
mud, you can become more stained than
before.
It is used in works for its restorative
properties. (i.e. the ending to A Farewell to
Arms when the protagonist walks out of the
hospital into the rain)
Symbol of Spring, so associated with new life.
RAINBOWS
 “ When
you read about a rainbow, as in
Elizabeth Bishop’s poem ‘The Fish’ (1947),
where she closes with the sudden vision
that ‘everything / was rainbows, rainbows,
rainbows,’ you just know there’s some
element of this divine pact between
human, nature, and God,” (Foster 79-80).
In literature, it is used to symbolize
promise and peace between earth and
heaven.
FOG IS USED TO SUGGEST AMBIGUIT Y,
THAT THE OUTCOME IS UNCLEAR.
“Dickens uses a miasma, a literal and
figurative fog, for the Court of Chancery,
the English version of American probate
court where estates are sorted out and
wills contested, in Bleak House (1853)”
(Foster 80).
“Fog…always signals some sort of
confusion” (Foster 80).
SNOW CAN BE ANY THING…
 Snow can be “clean, stark, severe, warm (as an
insulating blanket, paradoxically), inhospitable,
inviting, playful, suffocating, filthy (after enough time
has elapsed)” (Foster 80).
 “And in ‘The Dead,’ Joyce takes his hero to a moment
of discover; Gabriel, who sees himself as superior to
other people, has undergone an evening in which he
is broken down little by little, until he can look out at
the snow, which is ‘general all over Ireland,’ and
suddenly realize that snow, like death, is the great
unifier, that it falls, in the beautiful image, ‘upon all
the living and the dead’”(Foster 80 -81).
GREAT
EXPECTATIONS
BACKGROUND ON ENGLAND IN THE
1800S
The 1800s were a turbulent time in
England.
Poverty and disease were rampant.
The legal system was unjust.
Many abuses
No rights for children
Money could solve any problem
Women had few legal rights.
If a divorce should occur, the husband received
the children and any and all property or
belongings of the wife, even if they were in her
possession before the marriage.
CHARLES DICKENS
1812-1870
 Worked in a factory as a child
 This experience had a profound effect on his writing.
 Campaigned for social reform
 Critique of the harsh living conditions of England are
often seen in his novels
 One of the most celebrated and important
English authors because he wrote some of the
most memorable characters in all of literature
 Ebenezer Scrooge
 A Christmas Carol 1843
 Oliver Twist
 February 1837 – April 1839
 David Copperfield
 May 1849 – November 1850
 Wrote Great Expectations in two chapter, weekly
installments in the publication All the Year
Round from December 1860 to August 1861
GUIDING QUESTIONS
Protagonist: Phillip Pirrip – “Pip”
 Guiding Questions
 What does it mean to have “great expectations”?
 How do the hopes and dreams of the characters in the
book grow and change as the story progresses?
 What are the possible benefits and downfalls of
achieving everything you have ever wanted? How
does this relate to the characters in the book?
BILDUNGSROMAN
(BILL-DUNGS-ROW-MAHN)
Story is an example of a
bildungsroman
A German word meaning “a novel of selfcultivation”
a novelistic form that concentrates on the
development and growth of the protagonist
usually from childhood to maturity
“Coming of age story”
The protagonist goes on a journey of some kind.
The novel ends with an understanding by the
protagonist of himself/herself and his/her new
place in the world.
THEMES
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Good vs. Evil and Right vs. Wrong
Struggle Between Social Classes
Ambition
The Burden of Guilt