Study these quotes from Great Expectations to enhance your enjoyment of the novel.
Quote: I give Pirrip as my father's name on the authority of his tombstone (Chapter 1).
Analysis: We discover immediately that Pip is an orphan and one with whom we sympathize.
Quote: But I loved Joe--perhaps for no better reason than because the dear fellow let me love him (Chapter 5).
Analysis: Pip gives us a tender look at the only man who cared for him when he was a child, making Pip's snobbishness later on even more reprehensible.
Quote: Miss Havisham's house, which was of old brick and dismal, and had a great many iron bars to it. Some of the windows had been walled up; of those that remained, all the lower were rustily barred.
Analysis: Satis house resembles a prison. It's made of brick and is dismal and dark, has few windows, and many bars (Chapter 8).
Quote: I thought I heard Miss Havisham answer--only it seemed so unlikely, "Well? You can break his heart." (Chapter 8).
Analysis: Pip learns early on what Estella and Miss Havisham's plans are, yet he continues to pursue her. This introduction to the two shows the reader immediately what Estella and Miss Havisham are like.
Quote: The felicitous idea occurred to me a morning or two later when I woke that the best step I could take towards making myself uncommon was to get out of Biddy everything she knew.
Analysis: Pip is not one to accept failure. Ironically, Biddy is just as common as he.
Study these quotes from Great Expectations to enhance your enjoyment of the novel.
Quote: It was spacious and I dare say had once been handsome, but every discernible thing in it was covered with dust and mold, and dropping to pieces (Chapter 11).
Analysis: Satis house and its rooms are symbolic of Miss Havisham, dismal on the outside--rotten on the inside.
Quote: I could hardly have imagined dear old Joe looking so unlike himself or so like some extraordinary bird, standing as he did, speechless, with his tuft of feathers ruffled, and his mouth opened as if he wanted a worm (Chapter 12).
Analysis: Joe's description is the epitome of Dickensian characterization.
Quote: It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home (Chapter 13).
Analysis: Pip's desire to impress Estella makes him ungrateful and blind to the things that once made him happy.
Quote: I promised myself that I would do something one of these days, and formed a plan in outline for bestowing a dinner of roast beef and plum pudding, a pint of ale, and a gallon of condescension upon everybody in the village (Chapter 19).
Analysis: The reader sees Pip's snobbishness developing shortly after inheriting his money and his social status..