Joe and Biddy are a great case study for people extremely content with what they have and need not pursue any more. We are never told much about these two characters, but when they do make an appearance, happiness and politeness reign in their lives. Joe is nothing but a common man, and Biddy a simple teacher, but they mange to find joy in all aspects. Even when neglected by their adopted son, or when Joe�s first wife dies, or when money is limited, they are always happy and nothing lets them down.
The character truly moving through the theme is Pip. He starts out as the adopted son of Joe and his first wife, Mrs. Joe, who is abusive. She beats him, causes him to partake of remedies that are more harmful then good, and debases him to lower then the family dog had they had one. He only gets bread and water for food, and is not allowed to play with other children. Despite all of this, Pip is happy and enjoys Joe�s company. Then one day Pip is invited to meet Miss Havashim and play for her; he continually goes back there for awhile until she is done with him. After being exposed to riches and the high life, Pip is miserable. He finds a woman to marry, and is guaranteed a job that will keep him from needing anything. Nevertheless, he possesses tumultuous feelings because of all that there is that he can�t have. After a few years of this, he finds out from a lawyer that a man is paying to have him brought up as a gentleman. Overjoyed at the news he departs at once leaving his old life entirely behind to forget them and deal with them no more. The only problem is that the more he pursues his riches, the more depressed he becomes and the more horrible his life is. He is always torn and undecided about what to do with these riches, whether to use them to help people or use them for enjoyment, or if even he should keep his riches or just go back to how he used to live and be much happier. The book is really focused on this decision and what he discovers about himself along the way.
B.
1. The theme of this book is that of happiness is not given but must be worked for. People cannot be happy because another person says, �here, have happiness.� If one wants to be joyous, then that person must continue work to help achieve it. The only ones who are ever happy in this book are those who have had to work for whatever they got and never had anything handed to them. The ones who never experienced strife in getting their possessions were always miserable.
2. The title is Great Expectations which is what everyone calls what Pip has. It is related to the theme because Pip expected to have everything in his life to turn out great without ever having to work for them. However it is also an ironic title because only the expectation were great; nothing else ever turned out great for him.
3. The ending was terrible, horrible, despicable, dastardly, appalling, noxious, lurid, revolting, and repulsive! I could not stand it. I had loved the book up until that point and after reading it I hated it. For 596 pages it was a great example of a person ruining their life by being pretentious and believing him to be better then others. But then in the last two pages he destroys that vision. Dickens gave Pip a job that gave him what he needed and what he wanted and also gave him the girl he had always wanted. It was so incredibly cheesy I never want to read the book again or really even think about it. I was put into such a bad mood by reading it because it completely disappointed me.
C.
1. I really liked the theme of this book probably because it aligns itself with my own feelings about money and happiness. The fact hat money does not bring jubilation into your life and that for any joy to be found you must work for it is great. I really enjoyed this great in depth study of this subject because you got to see people on either side of the spectrum and someone torn between the two. It was also an intimate look into their lives where you told their deepest secrets and feelings about all the subjects they encounter and how they deal with it with their perspectives.
2. Pip dealing with his feelings of rejection by Estella a girl he likes is a wonderfully written passage. Up until this time Pip has been a simple character and very childlike. He only has fear as an emotion. But when he is rejected for being too common, he experiences a flurry of emotions; they are the purest and rawest emotions. He is driven to kicking and beating inanimate objects, self destruction, and crying and weeping. It was so extraordinarily written.
3. I did not like this book. As read above, it was the ending that made this book bad. It was just to clich� to be put at the end of this otherwise phenomenal book.
D.
For this book, it was not really a help. I say this because as I read the book I was constantly discussing it and comparing it and evaluating it. Doing this book report has merely made me repeat wait I have already done and accomplished. On other books this would help me, but on this particular one, I was doing this all along as I read it.