Great Expectations

Title: Great Expectations

Author: Charles Dickens

Main Characters: Pip - The main character, Estella - The rich girl, Joe - Pip's uncle the blacksmith, Miss Havisham - The rich old lady, Magwitch - The convict and Pip's benefactor

Setting: Kent a town full of marshes by the river

Point of View: Dialogue

Theme(s): Becoming a gentleman and living in poverty, falling in love with a beautiful girl named Estella who is very rich.

Summary: Pip is a young boy who lives in poverty with his sister Mrs. Joe and brother-in-law Joe who is a blacksmith. Pip is paid by Miss Havisham a very wealthy lady to play with Estella who is very proud and stuck up. He falls in love with her but she doesn't like him because she feels he can never be a gentleman and become wealthy like her. His great expectations start coming true when he helps a convict who later becomes his benefactor. With the help of his benefactor he becomes a wealthy gentleman. Pip tried to do everything to win Estella after many years he finally gets her.

Biography of Author: Charles Dickens (1812-1870), was born in England, the second of eight children of a debt ridden government clerk. At age 10 he was sent to work in a London factory. This experience upset him so greatly and left such an impression on him that he later created suffering and abandoned children as the heroes of many of his novels. He finally broke free of the slave factory and returned to school. He became a newspaper reporter, a job that helped him to observe people and to create scenes that live in his readers' memories. With the appearance of The Pickwick Papers in 1836 and 1837, at age 24, Charleston became the most popular novelist in England. His popularity increased with the publication of David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities, and Great Expectations. So many of Charle's books deals with the evil influence of money. He shows the changes in the values from selfish vanity to sympathy for others. Much of Charles Dickens' life was spent writing, editing touring to read his novels, and promoting many charities to help the