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Great Expectations by Charles Dickens is about a young blacksmith boy (Pip) and his two dreams: becoming a gentleman and marrying the beautiful Est...
Trying to live up to expectations can be stressful. Watching someone else struggle with it, though? That's just fine.
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Description:
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens is about a young blacksmith boy (Pip) and his two dreams: becoming a gentleman and marrying the beautiful Estella. Luckily for Pip, Charles Dickens was persuaded to make the story end well, which means a happy ending for Pip. All that hard work paid off.
Transcript
- 00:04
Great Expectations, a la Shmoop. Pip pip, cheerio.
- 00:09
Charles Dickens' novels are not generally what you would call... uppers.
- 00:14
Anyone who's written a book called Bleak House could probably use a hug.
- 00:18
Great Expectations has an ambiguously happy ending...
- 00:21
...but only because its author was persuaded to end the novel on a positive note by a good
Full Transcript
- 00:27
friend of his.
- 00:28
Not everyone is in love with depressing endings like Dickens was.
- 00:35
If it was up to him, Katniss probably would have been the first one offed in The Hunger
- 00:39
Games. When readers finish Great Expectations, they
- 00:51
are left with a sense of optimism and romantic hopefulness.
- 00:55
After running all over the English marshes in Pip's... tiny shoes...
- 00:59
...it feels good to be granted a cheerful resolution to his story.
- 01:03
Why then was Dickens initially so intent on an unhappy ending?
- 01:08
Was he just a huge downer?
- 01:14
Was his own life so miserable that the only way he could make himself feel better was
- 01:18
to drag everyone else down with him?
- 01:20
He did have a rough childhood...
- 01:21
...and his wife divorced him shortly before the writing of this novel, which was rare
- 01:26
in those days...
- 01:26
...so he definitely had some reason to be grouchy.
- 01:29
Or, did he think it was genuinely the best way to end his story?
- 01:34
The book was titled Great Expectations... maybe he was trying to make a point about
- 01:39
having such expectations?
- 01:42
That, no matter how pure our intentions and no matter how hard we work...
- 01:47
...not everything is going to go our way, and you can't earn the love of someone who
- 01:54
isn't feeling it? Dickens wasn't a Hollywood screenwriter...
- 01:58
there wasn't the pressure back then to drive audiences to a theater.
- 02:02
Or... was Dickens just trying to surprise his readers, and throw them for a loop?
- 02:07
Great Expectations was written serially. In other words, it was released a chapter at
- 02:12
a time, rather than all at once.
- 02:14
Could it be that his readers were all anticipating a happy ending...
- 02:19
...and he didn't want to seem predictable? Which way are you leaning?
- 02:23
Morbid downer...
- 02:25
Conscientious writer...
- 02:26
... or lover of spontaneity? Shmoop amongst yourselves.
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