Great Expectations

Reading report

《Great Expectation》

By England Charles Dickens

“Great Expectations” was the penultimate novel completed by the most popular novelist of Victorian England, Charles Dickens. one of the most popular writers of all the time, who created some of the best-known characters in English literature. "Great Expectations "it has been considered to be one of Charles Dickens? most mature and relatively late works. Charles Dickens Born in Kent, England, in 1812 to a family of modest means but great pretensio ns, Dickens?s early life was marked by both humiliation and ambition. Dickens never forgot the period of financial crisis during his childhood, when following his father?s bankruptcy, he was taken out of school and forced to work in a shoepolish warehouse.

If we never possess anything, we will not mind we lost somethin g. Since we don?t want to be very rich, we will not feel despon d because poor.

The protagonist of this novel is Pip. Pip is a boy around 13 years old, easy to fright, and goes through his life suffering lots of sadness. He is in love with a girl named Estella and wants her to find his love, but for him being shy and not showing himself to

her, it makes it very hard for him. His parents died when he was a baby. His sister had brought him up by hand. His sister married to Joe Gargery, the village blacksmith. They didn…t have much money, and Pip never went to school to study. But he was often very happy .Because all of his friends are like him. It isn?t very unfortunate to them, this is their lives. But by a chance, Pip helped a convict; he gave much food to him. Then he met Miss Havisham, a very strange old woman and she was very rich. Four years later, Miss Havisham wants Pip to be removed from his home and educated as a gentleman who expects inherit a fortune when he grow up. After hearing that, Pip started to despise his poor friends. From then on, he became a gentleman without question at the price of losing everything.

The whole structure of the novel is well and elaborately designed. The plot is extremely attractive and full of unexpected twists. Quite a few characters have a distinguishable personality. The title of this book is …Great expectations” which make an impression on us that the character would have great expectations just as the title goes. But in fact this title has a tone of sarcastic on the other way around. This story full of quirkiness from the very beginning to the end, the relations among characters are anfractuous as well which actually

attracted me a lot. Among the characters, which impressed me most are not Pip and Estella who should be regarded as the leading roles, but Joe . Yes, he is not the main characters in the novel. However, what he said and what he did deeply touched me. Joe is kind, tolerant and selfless. “Nothing is so mild and gentle as courage, nothing so cruel and pitiless as cowardice”says a wise author.

Ambition and self-improvement take three forms in Great Expectations, they are respectively moral, social, and educational. These are the motivation of P ip?s best and his worst behavior throughout the novel.Ultimately, through the examples of Joe, Biddy, and Magwitch, Pip learns that social and educational improvement are irrelevant to one?s real worth and that conscience and affection are to be valued above erudition and social standing.Except all above, I realize that growing of a child is a long process of development. And during this long process, the children not only need to obtain a lot of knowledge from the textbooks, but also need to find the right way to be a decent person. And there is no doubt that being a human is the one which is more important between the two. This is a truth in the past, in this era, and in the future. In conclusion, the most

important theme in Great Expectations is that no external standard of value can replace the judgments of one?s own conscience. Characters such as Joe and Biddy know this instinctively; for Pip, it is a long and hard lesson, the learning of which makes up much of the book.

Having read the novel, I know that only we have clear and objective thoughts about ourselves, can we have great expectations. Especially in the present life, there?re so many temptations-- much wealth, high status, and great power around us, so it?s important for us to set up our own b eliefs and cherish the sincere love that friends, family and lover give us. What?s more, instead of just sitting there in hope of getting wealthy, we should rely on ourselves to struggle against life and to deal with the moral, physical and financial challenges to reach our goals. Otherwise we are a total failure. Whoever we are, we should be ourselves-- believe in the possibility of advancement of life and put our mind to do it, which pushes us forward a bright future.