Setting: Modern England v Dickens’ England
Group: Michaela, Samantha and Amy
Themes: The strange juxtaposition of being a young black woman from a small island and also an
expert Great Expectations and Dickens; both the effects of time on places and the timelessness of
some things in human behaviour; the writer’s use of places and buildings in the world around him to
build new imaginary worlds; desire to escape, to start anew.
Character Development: Matilda’s thoughts as an adult about Dickens, ‘Great Expectations, Mr.
Watts’ and her own dreams and needs.
Matilda finds that the modern day England is very different to her memories of places in the novel
‘Great Expectations.’ “I could tell them that the landscape from Great Expectations is gone, that its
fabled marshes lie beneath motorways and industrial estates. I could tell them that the story has
new custodians. These custodians were once a bunch of black kids, who I believe still wake in the
early hours to remember another time when they drifted between an island and a blacksmith’s”
215
“Gravesend is where I would have ended Great Expectations. Gravesend. This is where I came one
cold day in late May.” PAGE 214
Charles Dickens had two endings to the story ‘Great Expectations.’ One where Pip went home to
make peace with Joe and one where he just left Gravesend and left England. Matilda did not like the
ending where Pip never went home, so she states in the novel ‘Mister Pip’ that “Gravesend is where
I would have ended Great Expectations.” By the end of the book she says she will try to return home
too.
“Baby green leaves of spring growth, made no impression on my glum mood.” Matilda was in a
bad mood falling back in on herself. PAGE 216
This suggests that even the growth of the leaves could not cheer Matilda up. In England it is usually
dull and rainy so when there is a growth of something it is meant to make people happy but Matilda
was sinking into a depression. The use of contrast in the words chosen.
“I had decided to leave England but had one more farewell task to perform; this involved a visit to
Rochester, where Dickens pinched one or two landmarks for ‘Great Expectations’.” PAGE 218
Jones takes us to where Dickens came from and this helps us to understand about Matilda’s interest
in the novel ‘Great Expectations’ because she decides to go back the where Dickens is from to
explore what he was like. This suggests that she had a strong interest in the novel and wanted to see
where Dickens was inspired to write his novel.
“There it is a perfect postcard of how an English village is supposed to have looked like in
eighteen-hundred-and-something.” PAGE 218
This paints a picture of the setting of what old England was meant to look like. The use of the words
“of how an English village is supposed to have looked like” suggests that there is a big difference in
to what it really looked like.
(The inspiration for Satis House) “After a short walk through a park, we stood across the road
staring back at the gates, the same gates where Estella first receives Pip and condescends to call
him ‘boy’.” PAGE 219 this helps us to imagine the pictures in the novel ‘Great Expectations’ and
where everything took place. It helps us to understand what Matilda is doing because of the
comparison of ‘Great Expectations’ and where she is in Engand. The arrival of the “yuppyish young
man” wanting to go in brings the connection between old and new to mind. There are still young
men like ‘Pip’ struggling to ‘raise themselves up’ in England today.
“The tour ended back at Eastgate House. I followed the others up the stairs, and there I
encountered Miss Havisham in her white wedding gown. She was stuck behind glass, her back
turned to us sightseers. There for eternity. I wished she could turn, just for half an instant, to find
a black woman staring at her.” PAGE 220
Miss H’s body position is symbolic of her attitude to society and the symbolism of being stuck
appears in the novel e.g. for Dolores. When Matilda says, “To find a black woman staring at her” it is
telling the reader Matilda is aware of how far she has come from her beginnings and the oddity of
her own fascination with the novel and its characters, especially considering the gulf between them
in terms of colour, social position, history.
“The tour ended in Mr Dickens’ study. A mannequin of the author himself reclined in a leather
chair; his legs sprawled before him, his hands in gentle repose. His sleepily eyelids at half-mast.
We had walked in on Mr Dickens day dreaming. Behind the restraining rope, the man standing
next to me heard me whisper ‘I have met Mr Dickens and this is not him.’ He smiled and looked
away. I did not try and convince him, but if I had this is what I would have said.” PAGE 220
The reader is made aware of Matilda’s feeling of distance for the waxwork figure. For her, Mr. Watts
is her flesh and blood Mr. Dickens in that he was the storyteller who transformed her life.
Combine this with the handout about the forge and ideas of “home”.
Note: Re-read the last chapter several times. It has lots of important ideas in it.