Transcript Great Expectations Study Guide

1.
2.
What narrative point of view has Dickens
chosen for this novel?
What social class is the criminal, and how
can you tell?
1.
Contrast Pip’s description of Mrs. Joe with
his description of Joe.
1.
How does the setting mirror Pip’s state of
mind?
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3.
How does Chapter 4 begin and end?
What observation does Pip make about
Joe’s dress and appearance?
What are the sources of humor in this
chapter?
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3.
How is the capture of the two convicts
ironic?
What facts do we learn about the convicts
in this chapter?
Why does the convict go out of his way to
clear Pip of any blame for the missing food?
1.
Why does Pip love Joe? What reason does
he give for keeping the truth of his crimes
from Joe?
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2.
How are Biddy and Pip alike?
Compare Joe’s dialect with the convict’s
(which was shown in Chapter 1).
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3.
How is the name “Satis House” ironic?
Describe Miss Havishman in detail and her
interaction/feelings towards Pip.
How has Pip’s character developed after
interacting with Estella?
1. How does Dickens reinforce Pip and Joe’s closeness?
Use the following passage from the book to answer the
next two questions.
“That was a memorable day to me, for it made great
changes in me. But, it is the same way with any life.
Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think
how different its course would have been. Pause, you
who read this, and think for a moment of the long
chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would
never have bound you, but for the formation of the
first link on one memorable day” (55).
2. What “links” in Pip’s “chain” are begun the day he
visits Satis House?
3. Why do you think Dickens allows the narrator to pause
in the narrative and address the reader directly?
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3.
What steps does Pip take to improve
himself?
What two things does the stranger do to
suggest a connection with the convict from
the beginning of the book?
What two major plotlines begin to converge
at the end of this chapter?
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2.
3.
Describe the Pockets.
What is the significance of Pip’s saying of
the man he meets on the stairway, “He was
nothing to me, and I could have had no
foresight then, that he ever would be
anything to me”?
What suspicions about Miss Havisham are
confirmed for the reader in this chapter?
5.
6.
Pip fights a young man. How does the young
man inspire Pip with great respect?
In the following passage, what is the
significance of the light from Joe’s forge?
“…when I neared home the light on the spit
of sand off the point on the marshes was
gleaming against a black night-sky, and
Joe’s furnace was flinging a path of fire
across the road” (72).