Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens, is a book filled with ups and downs, twists and turns and is all linked together by the main character, Pip. Great Expectations is about how a young boy named Pip wants to become a gentleman and gets the chance to do it. As a boy, he lived with his sister and her husband who worked as a blacksmith. He lives with them because Pip's parents dies when he was very young. A couple days after the book begins, Ms. Havisham invites Pip to "play" at her estate with Estella, her niece whom she has trained to reject all men. Pip believes Estella is extremely beautiful, but she rejects him and calls Pip a "common boy." This is one of the reasons Pip accepts his Great Expectations. Later in the book a man who calls himself Jaggers approaches Pip. Jaggers says Pip has received Great Expectations and is to go to London at once to become a gentleman. He goes to London learning everything he needed to know without knowing how this fortune had been brought upon him. As the book progresses Pip encounters many obstacles and goes through several experiences that changed his life forever. The person who arranged for all of this is completely unknown to Pip for most of the book although he does have an idea of who it may have been. As Pip is staying at a hotel one night, a man called Magwitch reveals himself as Pip's benefactor. Magwitch at the beginning of the book is the convict whom Pip gave food and a file to, Pip was also the only person to ever be nice to Magwitch. Later, we find out the Estella is Magwitch's daughter who he thought he had lost. The book concludes with Pip and Estella agreeing to be friends and walking out of the ruins of Ms. Havisham's estate. In Great Expectations, Charles Dickens shows his amazing ability to create and develop compelling characters in his beautifully written novels. "His world is fuller and richer than other novelists' worlds. He squanders enough characters on one novel to last any other novelist for five- (Reference Guide to English Literature, 2nd ed.
