Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Dickens Notes

•Bildungsroman: a novel of education and maturity. Going from ignorance to enlightenment. 
•childhood is about having great expectations
•Pip: orphan who wants to do nothing and get something out of it. Sensitive, mature-ish, desire. Doesn't fit it. Wants more than just to live and then die. 
•Joe, Jaggers, and Magwich. Father figures. 
•Magwich is the stranger. Animal-like. Magwich embodies the threat of abandonment. He has no emotional bond to Pip. 
•Pip thinks he is like Magwich. He thinks he's evil. 
•Havasham: crazy. Has resentment and anger towards men. Not nice. A symbol of decay and anger. 
•Estella: Cinderella. Heartbreaker. A vision of promise. Like the fairy godmother. Trained to destroy men. 
•when Pip describes Magwich and Havasham he doesn't tell the truth. 
•Havasham- old spinster with a house of sad memories. Left at the alter, and that's represented in her home. Indirect characterization of her room.
•Hav-a-sham: living a lie. Having shame. 
•fairy godmother to Pip, adopted Estella, mother figure. Pip sees positive in Havasham. Sees her as a success bc she has money and materialistic items, but she is not happy. 
•Pip realizes she's not all that. The things in her house (old food, wedding dress, shoes) symbolize possibility and fertility. 
Her home is an act of destruction, considered a "monster". 
•adopted Estella to train her to destroy men for revenge. 
•the fathers that Pip selects for himself are just role models that he sees himself in. 
•Joe is the emotional father, Jaggers is cold. Pip sees a possible mirror of himself in both these men. Joe is strong physically, Jaggers is a blackmailer. 
•Joe lives by feeling. Sort of a romantic character. 
•Jaggers breaks everything down. Needs Havasham and Estella. Threatens Havasham with a secret for power. 
•Joe tends to trust people. Jaggers is opposite (except money). 
•Magwich is the representation of what Pip will be like if Pip doesn't change. 
•Pip learns evil can be turned around, and redemption is possible. 
•Pip realizes Havasham is not his fairy godmother and is not important. Estella is not meant for Pip, he was just part of the training session being destroyed by her. And Estella is not a wonderful girl. Magwich was just a convict, but gave Pip ideas that he never really believed belonged to him. 
•He learns that life IS awful and terrible, but this is the life which things become possible, but we just have to try and create the life we want. 
•Pip is unsure of himself. Estella and Pip are a middle aged failed couple.
•Pip means seed. Symbolism of Joe and his wife making a baby named "Pip", a seed. A new seed. Everything is possible. 

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