Great Expectations

Pip begins by reading a world he cannot yet understand. He imagines his dead parents from the lettering on their graves, then faces a stranger whose threats turn food and a file into urgent necessities. Later, Estella's contempt gives him another frightening set of instructions: his hands, boots and manners are suddenly wrong.

Miss Havisham's house preserves a wedding that never happened. Her dress, clocks and rooms make disappointment visible, while her treatment of children allows that disappointment to shape other lives. Pip mistakes the attention he receives there for evidence that a desirable future has already been arranged.

The adult narrator can recognize errors that his younger self defends. His embarrassment about Joe, the blacksmith who cares for him, gives the comedy a painful edge. Money changes what Pip can buy much faster than it changes what he understands about affection and obligation.

The lawyer Jaggers announces Pip's expectations but withholds the donor's identity. Pip assumes Miss Havisham intends him for Estella and goes to London to become a gentleman. His friend Herbert Pocket offers practical kindness while Pip is embarrassed when Joe visits.

The benefactor proves to be Abel Magwitch, the convict Pip fed as a child. Magwitch has made money in Australia and returned illegally to see the gentleman he has financed. Pip's first horror gradually gives way to concern for the vulnerable man whose life is now in danger.