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Summary of Lesson 1
In today’s lesson we began studying Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. The powerpoint with all of the resources is attached below, which should be used to help plan and write the paragraphs assigned for homework. The powerpoint contains loads of information on the context of Great Expectations thinking about how the backdrop of Victorian England, and particularly the events of the Industrial Revolution, influence the themes in the book. The powerpoint also contains ideas on the genre of bildungsroman, and the class did an absolutely fantastic job of thinking of other books and films that fit within this genre and thinking about why Dickens may have used this genre to explore themes of social class and poverty. We also considered how Dickens’ own childhood could help shed some light on his motivations for writing the novel and his views of Victorian society, thought about what the phrase ‘great expectations’ alludes to in the novel, and had a really interesting and sparky conversation about unconcious biases, discussing ideas around social class and the way Dickens plays with our assumptions about particular characters in order to make a greater political point about Victorian inequality. The students worked fantastically today, there was a lot of enthusiasm for this book and the main ideas it deals with, and I really enjoyed hearing the students discuss various opinions they had formed on particular characters and plot points. Everyone was very switched on in today’s lesson and offered some really great contributions, particularly thinking about Victorian history and the way it impacts the story Dickens chose to tell. Really well done everyone, you were all excellent today and I will see you all next week. Keep up the fab work! 🙂
Homework
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Great Expectation Homework
I think there is more than one moral to this story. I think the morals are kindness, friendship, hope and forgiveness, because these points make the centre of the main points of the story.
For friendship, I would say taht when Pip and Herbet met at the Inn, at that moment the spirit of friend intermingled around the essence of the night. It means that friendship could last a lifetime but fade at the very end if you don’t trest it well, it also says in the structure that friendship, is the way to sucess and glory and the victory of life. It is important to have friendship and die with it too. If Pips didn’t make friends then maybe the story wouldn’t be like it is with the happy ending. The friendship of Pip made him stand to the end of the bok. If he hadn’t had friendship. It will be hard for Pip to go through his time of debt. Luckily, his friend Joe got his back and that is how friendship grows!
Next is kindness. With kindness Pip achieved his wildest dreams of accelerating through the ranks to a gentlemen. Magwitch had enough kindness and courage to work hard enough and become Pip’s benefactor, without Pip being so kind and ever managed his wildest dreams. Then spread his kindness and respect to other
Next on the list is forgiveness, a really big theme here. Forgivness is explored throughout the book from Joe forgiving Pip to Miss Havisham forgiving Pip. This theme is wildly explored, and that nearly every chapter’s have one! It is really important to do this as it is the Victorian era and they are really deep in Chrisianity and it is said in nearly every prair! It is like a seed scattered around a plain field making life a relief and hope! The main subject of forgivness in ‘The Great Expectations’ is that it is vital to forgive someone since they have regretted it and you wil regret it too if you make them suffer with embaressment.
The last and final one! Hope! This one is really vital since our everyday lives!
It is important, because if you didn’t have hope, then you would give up everything! In this case Pip had hope to go on and to battle against his debts ending up having no debts just by believing and hope! Hope is a very goog model to put in books to show that children and adults should persevere to the end.
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Question C:
The moral of the story in Great Expectations is that your social status and your affluence aren’t as important as love, devotion, and your instinct. Pip mainly decides to become a gentleman so that he can become richer and raise his social status, after thinking he’s “coarse and common” (which is ironic because Estella is Magwitch’s daughter, who is a criminal). However, he soon realises that life as a gentleman is very similar to his job as a blacksmith in terms of satisfaction.
When Pip first meets Magwitch, he feels guilty and afraid of Magwitch because he’s a convict. At the end of the book, he discovers Magwitch’s inner virtues and can view him as a good man, instead of the criminal the public regards him as; this then leads him to helping Magwitch escape the country. Pip has learned to trust his conscience now.
When Pip first meets Estella, he is deeply self-conscious and describes himself as having coarse hands and thick boots. He desires to become sophisticated to win over Estella, but he ends up falling into debt. Consequently, sophistication is shown to be a worthless value, as it negatively impacted Pip without any benefit of the doubt.
Pip grows up knowing that Joe is fond of him, but he doesn’t notice how much love Joe has for him: the first time that he acknowledges this is when he catches a fever and Joe nurses him back to health. This broadens his view on what is important – money is highly unstable, while prolonged bonds aren’t (at least that’s what I think), and family is one of the most valuable things you have.
Both Biddy and Pip receive education; however, Pip’s one doesn’t teach him about his conscience and common sense, unlike Biddy’s. This leads to Pip and Herbert failing to manage their money well, putting them into serious debt. As a gentleman, all Pip seems to do is pile up bills and go around the city with his friends.
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To Beth
Sorry for the lateness!
Alicia
Question C: What is the moral of Great Expectations?
In Great Expectations, the moral seems to be quite simple. It is not so simple though. The moral is:
Never waste money, even when you are rich because you might lose it all.
This is shown through the character Pip (Philip Pirrip) the main character. At the start he could not have wasted any money since he was looked after a poor blacksmith Joe Gagery and Pip’s sister married to Joe.
Eventually though, Pip has a sponsor, who makes him a gentleman, who is revealed to be the prisoner Mr Magwitch. Pip is taken away to London where he lives with Herbert, a relative of Miss Havisham, Estella’s mother by adoption.
It is here where humongous debts descend on Pip and his friend Herbert. Pip cannot repay his debts and it is here in my opinion the moral slides in. It warns others to not fall into the trap of wastefulness and nearly suffer from debtors’ prison, when it is not needed at all.
The context of Dickens’ writing might have affected the morals he chose to explore since back then, the upper-class society were all the richest. They could spend money freely, like Pip and so maybe Dickens wanted to warn them to not waste like Pip.
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Question c :
The moral of Great Expectations is : affection, loyalty, and conscience. They are more important than social advancement, wealth, and class. Dickens establishes this to show that Pip is learning a lesson, largely by exploring ideas of ambition and self-improvement throughout the book itself— slowly,ideas quickly become both the thematic center of the novel and the psychological mechanism that encourages Pip’s development in his life. At heart, Pip is an idealist; whenever he can conceive of something that is better than what he already has, he immediately wishes to obtain improvement. When he sees Satis House, he longs to be a wealthy gentleman; when he thinks of his moral shortcomings, he longs to be good; when he realizes that he cannot read, he wants to learn . Pip has seen all of this and wants to become like that which is why the book is called Great Expectations because Pip has “Great Expectations” for his up coming future.
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Question C:
The Moral of Pip’s strenuous and gruelling journey is to never judge a book by its cover. This is clearly conveyed when Pip was immensely scared of am escaped convict; Magwitch. Later on, it is told that Magwitch gave him a tremendous amount of money and devoted his life to make Pip becoming a gentleman. Additionally, Pip fell in love with Estella, however, she had turned out to be a half-horrible person. Furthermore, Miss Havisham looked like a wealthy, nice person, however she treated Pip extremely badly and taught her own daughter how to break people’s hearts for revenge and retaliation. In real life context, judging a person by his/her looks could affect everything. e.g. judging a homeless person is wrong because you do not know what he/her has been through.
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Summary of Lesson 2
In today’s lesson we continued studying Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. The powerpoint with all of the resources is attached below, which should be used to help plan and write the paragraphs assigned for homework. The powerpoint contains loads of thoughts on the themes of the novel, some model P.E.E. paragraphs analysing the thematic content of the book and linking it to key quotations, ideas surrounding narrative voice and perspective and the effect of this on the tone of the book, and our thoughts and examples of foreshadowing. We finished the lesson with a really interesting debate on the question of whether Pip was destined to suffer or whether he creates his own unhappiness, which the class engaged with brilliantly, coming up with some excellent examples from the text and responding to each others’ arguments expertly. The class analysed the themes of the book fantastically, finding some really nice connections between the text and the key ideas of the novel and wrote some amazing P.E.E. paragraphs in response. Today’s lesson was really fun to teach, I really enjoyed hearing everyone’s ideas on themes, narrative voice and foreshadowing, and thought that the class offered up some really excellent contributions. Well done everyone, your energy and engagement in our lessons together is amazing and you are all very thoughtful and insightful when considering some quite complex and intricate ideas. I was really impressed by the debate you had with each other- keep up the great work! I look forward to seeing you all next week & well done for your hard work today! I am super impressed with you all 🙂
Homework
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Question B:
Great Expectations is written in the past tense and first person so Pip can now ridicule himself juvenile self and express his thoughts on what he did or his wrong opinions, as characters come out wiser at the end of bildungsroman books (“I often wondered… conceived the old idea of his ineptitude… perhaps the ineptitude had never been in him at all but had been in me”). During his life, Pip undergoes a gargantuan change in personality, like from naiveness in his childhood, to pride and haughtiness as a gentleman, to self-realisation when he matures.
If it were written in the present tense, the reader would find many more thoughts in the present that display his current feelings, like when he: fails to manage his finance; is disgusted when he finds out Magwitch is his benefactor, or when he is shocked to find out Estella is Magwitch’s daughter. The reader would be limited to what young Pip thought or felt, rather than the whole picture. The audience would also sympathise with him more because they can understand how Pip was feeling at the time, leading to how he reacted.
Like all present tense novels, it will make the story feel more active, so the reader feels that the events are happening in real-time. Consequently, they will picture the scene better and feel more like they are in the action. Pip would become a more undependable narrator for information, since he makes several mistakes in assumptions, such as who his benefactor was (Magwitch, not Miss Havisham, who he thought was his benefactor), misleading the reader.
In conclusion, if Great Expectations was written in the present tense, it would mostly mean the audience’s knowledge of situations would be confined to his understandings – or misunderstandings – and thoughts. This would make it impossible for ‘omniscient readers.’
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Question A
I think that Pip was initially a failure, because he had two main goals of life: to win
Estella’s heart and to become a gentlemen for life. He had failed both of his tasks
making him a failure. Also his debt also make his failure even worse, even though
he had good times like his large sum of money but he lost nearly as more as he had
making that a failure, and also the end result is always the real proof right? Who was
also kind of destined to be a failure since , because of Magwitch’s death who is to fall
in such a big debt And also because Miss Havisham’s greed for revenge, Estella was
to marry Drummle really you can’t blame him he didn’t do anything bad in reality
after all. He wasn’t always unlucky although he still got more things unlucky than
lucky so what is the point? Mr Pumblechook also created the downfall of his life, if it
wasn’t him then he wouldn’t go to Satis house and Find Estella making him flexible
and not yielding for Estella so that he would not spend nearly all his life for that one
goal making him thoughtless and emotionless from Estella’s beauty. That is why I
think that Pip is ultimately a failure. -
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Dear Beth,
I hope you are well, I’m really confused with this website so sorry if I get anything wrong! And I’m really sorry for the late homework!
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Question A is Pip ultimately a success or a failure? Why?
In my opinion, Pip is going to be a failure but there is still a chance that he can be successful. My reasons are:
Firstly, Pip was technically blinded by greed, he wanted more development and wealth, it was his “high expectations” that caused him to not notice his surroundings and not appreciate the people that truly cared for him, but he chose to treat them cruelly. An example would be when Joe went to visit Pip in London, Pip did not appreciate it but thought it some sort of embarrassment, “if i could have kept him away by paying money”this implies that Pip is ungrateful and friends/family did not weigh much in his heart. However, Pip later realized that the people around him when he was successful were selfish and self-absorbed which made Pip regret treating Joe that way. Secondly, Pip was too arrogant, he got angry too often, an example would be when Drummle boasted that he was having dinner with Estella, even though Pip is in love with Estella he shouldn’t have been so quick to act which cause Drummle to be aware of the relationship between Pip and Estella. On the other hand, if Pip realizes his mistakes early and makes a change to his attitude then I think there is a chance of regaining his success.
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Summary of Lesson 3
In today’s lesson we continued studying Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. The powerpoint with all of the resources is attached below, which should be used to help plan and write the paragraphs assigned for homework. The powerpoint contains our work on character analysis, using both skills of inference and close textual analysis to find evidence for opinions formed on this basis, along with our ideas on the technique of parallelism employed in the novel and ideas surrounding perspective in the book and the two alternate endings. We had a really interesting discussion about how Dickens’ use of doubling mirrors the themes of good and evil in the novel, and the class came up with some fantastic explanations for Dickens’ language use in an excerpt describing Miss Havisham. I also really enjoyed our discussion at the end of the lesson about which of the two alternate endings for Great Expectations was more in keeping with the tone of the book and thought that all the students grasped the complex ideas surrounding parallelism exceptionally well. Everyone worked really hard today and produced some really interesting character studies, using some excellent vocab to do so! Well done for all your fab work this lesson guys, keep it up and I will see you all next week for our final lesson on this book! 🙂
Homework
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<p style=”text-align: left;”>Question A:</p>
If Mrs Joe was writing the story through her perspective, it would be a lot shorter as she was killed by Orlick halfway through the book. However, it would be interesting. She could express hatred about things that we wouldn’t know through Pip’s life and see the world through her eyes. As Mrs Joe treated Pip quite badly, she might have said how annoying and immature Pip was. It could be an antagonistic autobiography aiming towards Pip.P.S sorry for the lateness
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Hi Beth! sorry about the lateness!
Question C: What does Miss Havisham represent?
In Great Expectations Miss Havisham was a mean, cold hearted, revengeful woman. However, what does she really represent?
Miss Havisham was betrayed by her to-be -husband on her wedding day, a day for a fresh start, a day when a part of the soul is re-born. But how does this affect her? Well without this betrayal, she would not have represented what she does.
Miss Havisham represents three things. She represents love, betrayal and revenge.
Miss Havisham represents all these through being jilted at the altar. Revenge on the male sex is shown through her coldness and training Estella to torture every man.
Love is shown through her “blind love” for Compasson after he had convinced her of true love for her.
Betrayal is represented through Compasson and the betrayal he made, causing half of what happened in Great Expectations.
What Miss Havisham is, solely relates to Compasson and his behaviour to Miss Havisham on their wedding day.
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Summary for Lesson 4
In today’s lesson we completed our study of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, applying all we had learnt so far to an exam paper on the topic. The powerpoint with all of the resources and the exam paper are attached below, which should be used to help plan and write the mock exam question assigned for homework. The powerpoint contains lots of information on how to identify what a comprehension question is asking you to do (retrieve, infer, language analysis), contains ideas on how students can put themselves in the examiner’s shoes and anticipate particular types of questions, and has our work on the 1861 contemporary book review of Great Expectations, along with our final reflections on the book. The students worked fantastically today, completing and self-evaluating the comprehension questions very adeptly and thinking very deeply about the reasons that the novel is still important to read today. I particularly enjoyed hearing the exam style questions the students came up with themselves, and felt they had understood the exam format brilliantly. I also loved all their contributions and debate on the 1861 book review of Great Expectations, and thought that their reasons for either agreeing or disagreeing with the author were very sophisticated and interesting. Really well done everyone, it has been an absolute joy to teach you all and I hope to see you all in my lessons again. Keep up the amazing work, you should all be super proud of yourselves! 🙂
Homework
Here is the book review if you would like to read the rest of it: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1861/09/great-expectations-by-charles-dickens/306679/
Here is the exam paper: http://aldenham.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Sample-paper-11-English.pdf
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Hello, attached is my answers for the paper (lesson 4, Great Expectations). Hope you can give some feedback.
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