INTRODUCTION TO

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Western Literature April 20, 2015

HONORS STUDENTS: TURN IN YOUR READING RESPONSES TO

HOW TO READ LITERATURE LIKE A PROFESSOR.

WARM – UP: WHAT CAN WE LEARN ABOUT PIP?  For your warm-up, read the quote from the first paragraph of the story below. Then, in your journals, answer the question: What can we learn about Pip from the passage below? “As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them (for their days were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies regarding what they were like were unreasonably derived from their tombstones. The shape of the letters on my father’s, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair. From the character and turn of the inscription, ‘ Also Georgiana Wife of the Above drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly” (Dickens 3). .’ I HONORS: TURN IN YOUR READING RESPONSES TO THE ORANGE BIN.

WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM AN EPITAPH?

 Charles Dickens begins his novel in a graveyard where Pip meditates the gravestones of his parents to imagine what they are like: “As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them (for their days were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies regarding what they were like were unreasonably derived from their tombstones. The shape of the letters on my father’s, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair. From the character and turn of the inscription, ‘ Also Georgiana Wife of the Above .’ I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly” (Dickens 3).  What can we learn from an epitaph? Let’s look at some famous epitaphs together.

WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM AN EPITAPH?

EPITAPH#1 Benjamin Franklin “The Body of B. Franklin, Printer; like the Cover of an old Book, Its Contents torn out, And stript of its Lettering and Gilding, Lies here, Food for Worms. But the Work shall not be wholly lost; For it will, as he believ’d, appear once more, In a new and more perfect Edition, Corrected and amended By the Author.”

WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM AN EPITAPH? EPITAPH #2

3.14145926535897… Ludoph van Ceulen (Dutch mathematician)

WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM AN EPITAPH?

EPITAPH #3

Good Friend, for Jesus’ sake forbear, To dig the dust enclosed here: Blessed be the man that spares these stones, And curst be he that moves my bones.

William Shakespeare

WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM AN EPITAPH?

EPITAPH #4 This Grave contains all that was Mortal of a Young English Poet Who on his Death Bed in the Bitterness of his Heart at the Malicious Power of his Enemies Desired these words to be engraved on his Tomb Stone “Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water.” John Keats

WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM AN EPITAPH?

EPITAPH #5

That’s All Folks.

Mel Blanc (voice of Warner Bros. characters)

HAPPY MECHANICS MONDAY! WEATHER IN LITERATURE

Objective & Guiding Question

Analyze the weather in

Great Expectations.

How does the weather act as both a plot device and a symbol?

CHAPTER 10: IT’S MORE THAN JUST RAIN OR SNOW  “Thomas Hardy…has a delightful story called ‘The Three Strangers’ (1883) in which a condemned man (escaped), a hangman, and the escapee’s brother all converge on a shepherd's house during a christening party…all of which takes place on a, well, dark and stormy night,” (Foster 76).

“HERE’S WHAT I THINK: WEATHER IS NEVER JUST WEATHER.

IT’S NEVER JUST RAIN

,” (FOSTER 75).  He uses it to force the men together. (Plot device)  Rain is good for setting the mood, as anything (good or bad) can take place in the rain. (Atmospherics)  No one likes being stuck in the rain. (Misery factor)  All sorts seek shelter from the rain. (Democratic element)

RAIN CAN REPRESENT MANY THINGS (FOSTER 77-78)  A stroll through rain can be deciphered as a symbolic cleansing, yet if you fall into the mud, you can become more stained than before.

 It is used in works for its restorative properties. (i.e. the ending to

A Farewell to Arms

when the protagonist walks out of the hospital into the rain)  Symbol of Spring, so associated with new life.

RAINBOWS  “ When you read about a rainbow, as in Elizabeth Bishop’s poem ‘The Fish’ (1947), where she closes with the sudden vision that ‘everything / was rainbows, rainbows, rainbows,’ you just know there’s some element of this divine pact between human, nature, and God,” (Foster 79-80).

 In literature, it is used to symbolize promise and peace between earth and heaven.

FOG IS USED TO SUGGEST AMBIGUITY, THAT THE OUTCOME IS UNCLEAR.

 “Dickens uses a miasma, a literal and figurative fog, for the Court of Chancery, the English version of American probate court where estates are sorted out and wills contested, in

Bleak House

(1853)” (Foster 80).

 “Fog…always signals some sort of confusion” (Foster 80).

SNOW CAN BE ANYTHING…  Snow can be “clean, stark, severe, warm (as an insulating blanket, paradoxically), inhospitable, inviting, playful, suffocating, filthy (after enough time has elapsed)” (Foster 80).  “And in ‘The Dead,’ Joyce takes his hero to a moment of discover; Gabriel, who sees himself as superior to other people, has undergone an evening in which he is broken down little by little, until he can look out at the snow, which is ‘general all over Ireland,’ and suddenly realize that snow, like death, is the great unifier, that it falls, in the beautiful image, ‘upon all the living and the dead’”(Foster 80-81).

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

BACKGROUND ON ENGLAND IN THE 1800S  The 1800s were a turbulent time in England.

 Poverty and disease were rampant.

 The legal system was unjust.

 Many abuses  No rights for children  Money could solve any problem  Women had few legal rights.

 If a divorce should occur, the husband received the children and any and all property or belongings of the wife, even if they were in her possession before the marriage.

CHARLES DICKENS

1812-1870

 Worked in a factory as a child  This experience had a profound effect on his writing.

 Campaigned for social reform  Critique of the harsh living conditions of England are often seen in his novels  One of the most celebrated and important most memorable characters in all of literature  Ebenezer Scrooge  A Christmas Carol 1843   Oliver Twist  February 1837 – April 1839 David Copperfield  May 1849 – November 1850  Wrote Great Expectations in two chapter, weekly Round from December 1860 to August 1861

GUIDING QUESTIONS  Protagonist: Phillip Pirrip – “ Pip ”  Guiding Questions  What does it mean to have “ great expectations”?

 How do the hopes and dreams of the characters in the book grow and change as the story progresses?

 What are the possible benefits and downfalls of achieving everything you have ever wanted? How does this relate to the characters in the book?

BILDUNGSROMAN

(BIL L -DUNG S -RO W-MA HN )



Story is an example of a bildungsroman

 A German word meaning “ a novel of self cultivation ”  a novelistic form that concentrates on the development and growth of the protagonist usually from childhood to maturity  “

Coming of age story

”  The protagonist goes on a journey of some kind.  The novel ends with an understanding by the protagonist of himself/herself and his/her new place in the world.

THEMES

• • • • Good vs. Evil and Right vs. Wrong Struggle Between Social Classes Ambition The Burden of Guilt