Lamron Lit Corner: The weight of Great Expectations

“Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but—I hope —into a better shape.”

- Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

To write a story that revolves around a young person changing into an adult so gradually that one doesn’t even realize anything has changed until one day, when they wake up and look into the mirror to find a stranger staring back at them, requires time and skill beyond that of many authors.

Charles Dickens, the man who innovated the popular novel over his career, proved to have that long-sought skill. No other novel shows this as clearly as Great Expectations.

We meet our protagonist and narrator, a young boy named Pip, out at the swampy graveyard of his parents and siblings. We are told immediately and directly in this introduction that Pip is alone, an outcast and near sole survivor of a family. As we listen to Pip, who writes from later on in his life looking back at the events that led up to his reflection, we quickly understand that the story begins here rather than years back, because at this moment, Pip ends his lifelong isolation.

Out of the mists around him, a prisoner still garbed in ragged clothes with chains around his feet grabs Pip and threatens to murder him if he does not help with an escape. Thus, the reader is launched into a plot that tackles themes of freedom, love, money, family, and countless more.

The story transcends years and years of the protagonist’s life; it weaves and winds side characters and plots like a perfectly made sewing project. Dickens grabs the reader just as the prisoner grabs Pip, demanding that they wake up and see what life and coming of age are really like, even for a man who’s given the world.

It should be stated here that I’m a massive fan of the Victorian/Industrial England setting and aesthetic, especially in books and especially in stories that were actually written from this time. Great Expectations is no different, and in fact, seems to be the source of many things we see as indicative or even mandatory for a story that tries to imitate this one. 

Ever seen a clock in a steampunk costume or location? Perhaps the author was pulling from Miss Havisham’s mansion, Satis House, where all clocks are stopped at the same time and in the center of the room lies a giant, rotting wedding cake. How about a boat riding down a polluted river, the factories nearby pouring gallons and gallons of toxic materials haphazardly? Perhaps they’re alluding to the chapter in which Pip takes a similar ride down a river, a ride that forever changes his life. A misty garden? Why, that’s the place Pip meets the love of his life, the one who would do anything to keep him away for his own protection.

It’s largely believed that Great Expectations was based primarily off of Dickens’ own childhood. It’s not exact, but just like Pip, Dickens was born into a family that was largely destroyed. He was not born into wealth, instead finding it on his own, even if by accident. 

And just like Pip, this fortune failed to solve any of the problems in his life. If anything, it made them worse.

That’s why I believe Great Expectations is one of, if not the best coming-of-age story ever written. Unlike many of Dickens’ other stories, it focuses on the personnel, the intimate. It tears at the same heartstrings that Dickens felt tugged in his own life. It rips the same part of the soul that Dickens felt he had lost.

Isn’t that what growing up is all about? Leaving behind one part of your soul, but learning to live happily with what’s left?