《远大前程》简介(英文版)

Great Expectations

Charles Dickens

Pip,a young orphan lives a humble existence with his ill-tempered older sister and her strong but gentle husband,Joe Gargery.On a Christmas Eve,Pip helps a convict who escaped from a prison ship by giving him some food and a file.One day,Pip gets invited unexpectedly to the house of a rich old woman in the village named Miss Havishamas.Miss Havisham is an old woman who was abandoned on her wedding day , so she raise her adoped daughter Estella as a cruel-hearted girl who will break men's hearts.Estella is beautiful, and Pip develops a strong crush on her, but she treats him coldly and contemptuously.From that time on, Pip aspires to leave behind his simple life and be a gentleman.Fortunatly one day Pip is given a large fortune from a secret benefactor and get a chance of education to become a gentlemen.For many years Pip has led a fairly undisciplined life in London, enjoying themselves and running up debts,and finally becomes a selfish and peacockery youngman.It lasts until one day,Pip learns the true identity of his benefactor——it is not Miss Havisham (who has made many misleading comments indicating it was her) but rather a petty criminal named Magwitch who is the convict Pip helped in his childhood.It is he that left all his money to Pip in gratitude for that kindness and also because young Pip reminded him of his own child.Pip is appalled, but he feels morally bound to help Magwitch escape London, as the convict is pursued both by the police and by his former partner in crime.Before Magwitch’s escape attempt, Estella marries an upper-class lout. Also,they are discovered by the police and captured to the jail, because of their convict partner's tipping off.Pip by now is devoted to Magwitch and recognizes in him a good and noble man and Pip has discovered that Magwitch is actually Estella's father.Without money or expectations, Pip, after a period of bad illness during which Joe cares for him.Pip decides to go abroad in the mercantile trade. Returning many years later, he encounters divorced Estella in the ruined garden at Satis House. Pip finds that Estella’s coldness and cruelty have been replaced by a sad kindness, and the two leave the garden hand in hand, Pip believing that they will never part again.

Plot summary: Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens

Philip Pirrip, who is known as Pip because, not surprisingly, he finds it difficult to pronounce his name, has a terrifying childhood experience in a graveyard on the Kent marshes.

A prisoner, who has escaped from a nearby prison ship, grabs hold of Pip and demands that he fetch food and a file to remove his manacles.

Pip is an orphan, and he lives with his older sister and her husband, Joe Gargery, a village blacksmith. Soldiers come to the forge to repair some manacles, and then set off to search for the convict, whose name is Abel Magwitch. The latter allows himself to be caught, because the same fate then awaits his fellow escapee, the hated Compeyson.

Pip is invited to Satis House, ostensibly to be the playmate of Estella, who is the ward of Miss Havisham, a recluse who, many years previously, had been jilted at the altar. For Miss Havisham, time stood still on that day, so the clocks are never wound, the wedding cake stands where it always did, now covered in cobwebs, and she still wears her wedding dress. She has sworn to revenge herself on men, and she is bringing Estella up to think the same way.

However, Pip falls in love with Estella, and at Satis House he also meets a boy of his own age who is playing in the grounds. This is Herbert Pocket.

Jaggers, who is Miss Havisham's lawyer, comes to the forge, where Pip is apprenticed to Joe, to tell Pip that he has "great expectations" that will come to him from an unknown benefactor, whom Pip assumes must be Miss Havisham.

Joe releases Pip from his apprenticeship and he travels to London, where he is befriended by Wemmick, Jaggers's clerk, and Herbert Pocket. Meanwhile, his sister, Mrs Joe, is brutally murdered at the forge.

Pip has a hard time of it in London, including financial difficulties caused by his belief in those "great expectations" coming to fruition, and the knowledge that Estella has rejected him in favour of Bentley Drummle. The worst shock is the reappearance of Magwitch, who has escaped from the penal colony in Australia to which he had been transported. Magwitch tells him that it is he, and not Miss Havisham, who is his mysterious benefactor. However, this horrifies the somewhat

snobbish Pip, and he determines to help Magwitch to get out of the country.

Returning to Satis House, Pip asks Miss Havisham for help to set Herbert Pocket up in business. However, she gets too close to the open fire and her dress catches light. Pip is able to douse the flames, but Miss Havisham dies from her burns. Before she does so, she implores Pip's forgiveness and gives him clues that Estella is the daughter of Magwitch and Jaggers's housekeeper.

Pip gets a mysterious message that calls him back to the Kent marshes. There he is nearly