Great Expectations Plot Summary

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  • Created by: bv9397
  • Created on: 26-02-18 19:39
  • A young orphan called Pip meets an escaped convict in the graveyard who tells him to bring a file and food and threatens him.
  • After giving him the food, Pip returns to the Christmas celebrations which are interrupted by some soldiers
  • Pip, Joe, Mr Wopsle and Pumblechook accompany the soldiers on their hunt for the two escaped convicts and find them brawling in a ditch
  • Pip is ordered to "play" at Miss Havisham's house (Satis House) where he meets the young and beautiful Estella who acts cruelly towards him, mocking his social class
  • Pip continues visiting Miss Havisham, one occasion meeting a pale young gentleman whom he beats in a fistfight, being shown the rotten wedding cake of Miss Havisham and earning a slap and a kiss from Estella who remains cold and distant
  • Pip works hard to learn at school with Biddy, aiming to be a scholar when he is older
  • Miss Havisham orders Joe to visit her, who humiliates Pip. Pip's apprentice to him to be a blacksmith is paid for by her although Pip dreads working in the forge and wants to be a gentleman to be worthy of Estella who he loves deeply.
  • Pip meets a stranger in the pub who has the leg iron sawn off by the convict he helped as a child. He gives Pip money. 
  • Pip returns home to find his abusive sister, Mrs Joe, has been attacked and is left severely disabled. Pip suspects Orlick after a confrontation earlier and Biddy moves in to help out around the home. 
  • One evening Mr Jaggers, a lawyer in London, visits Pip and informs him that he has a secret benefactor who wants him to be brought up in the Capitol as a gentleman. Pip is thrilled and assumes his patron is Miss Havisham but Joe is distressed and hurt when Jaggers offers him money as "compensation".
  • Pip buys new clothes and travels to London where he meets Wemmick, Jaggers' clerk and find out he is staying with Herbert Pocket who he finds out is the pale young gentleman he met in the gardens of Satis House.
  • Herbert and Pip discuss Miss Havisham and Pip finds out she was jilted at the altar and brought Estella up to "wreak revenge on all the male sex". Herbert and Pip become best friends, Herbert nicknaming him "Handel" after a composer. 
  • Pip goes to a gentleman's club where he meets Bentley Drummle, his

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