Great Expectations. Charles Dickens

ARLES DICKENS

      Great Expectations

      GREAT EXPECTATIONS

      It is a great human weakness to wish to be the same as our friends. If they are rich, we wish to be rich. If they are poor, then we don’t mind being equally poor. We are not ashamed of being stupid, we are only ashamed of being more stupid than our friends. It is a matter of comparison.

      It is also a matter of expectation. We don’t miss things that we never expected to have. We are not disappointed at being poor if we never expected to be rich.

      Pip is poor and uneducated, but so are his friends. For them, this is normal; this is what life is like. But when Pip is told that he has ‘great expectations’, he becomes dissatisfied. He is ashamed of his friends, and he is ashamed of himself. His expectations are in danger of ruining his life.

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ISBN 978 0 19 479226 4

A complete recording of this Bookworms edition of Great Expectations is available on audio CD ISBN 978 0 19 479207 3

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Illustrated by: Susan Scott

Word count (main text): 24,045 words

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      PEOPLE IN THIS STORY

      Pip

      Joe Gargery, the village blacksmith

      Mrs Joe Gargery, Joe’s wife and Pip’s sister

      Mr Pumblechook, Joe’s uncle

      Mr Wopsle, the church clerk, later an actor

      Biddy, Mr Wopsle’s young cousin

      Orlick, a blacksmith working for Joe Gargery

      Abel Magwitch, a convict

      Compeyson, also a convict

      Miss Havisham, a rich lady

      Estella, adopted by Miss Havisham

      Matthew Pocket, Miss Havisham’s cousin

      Herbert Pocket, his son

      Clara, engaged to Herbert

      Startop, a young gentleman

      Bentley Drummle, a young gentleman

      Mr Jaggers, a London lawyer

      Molly, Mr Jaggers’ housekeeper

      Mr Wemmick, Mr Jaggers’ clerk

      The aged parent (the Aged), Wemmick’s father

      Miss Skiffins, engaged to Wemmick

      1

      Pip meets a stranger

      My first name was Philip, but when I was a small child I could only manage to say Pip. So Pip was what everybody called me. I lived in a small village in Essex with my sister, who was over twenty years older than me, and married to Joe Gargery, the village blacksmith. My parents had died when I was a baby, so I could not remember them at all, but quite often I used to visit the churchyard, about a mile from the village, to look at their names on their gravestones.

      My first memory is of sitting on a gravestone in that churchyard one cold, grey, December afternoon, looking out at the dark, flat, wild marshes divided by the black line of the River Thames, and listening to the rushing sound of the sea in the distance.

      ‘Don’t say a word!’ cried a terrible voice, as a man jumped up from among the graves and caught hold of me. ‘If you shout I’ll cut your throat!’ He was a big man, dressed all in grey, with an iron chain on his leg. His clothes were wet and torn. He looked exhausted, and hungry, and very fierce. I had never been so frightened in my whole life.

      ‘Oh! Don’t cut my throat, sir!’ I begged in terror.

      ‘Tell me your name, boy! Quick!’ he said, still holding me. ‘And show me where you live!’

      ‘My name’s Pip, sir. And I live in the village over there.’

      He picked me up and turned me upside-down. Nothing fell out of my pocket except a piece of old bread. He ate it in two bites, like a dog, and put me back on the gravestone.

      ‘So where are your father and mother?’ he asked.

      ‘There, sir,’ I answered, pointing to their graves.

      ‘What!’ he cried, and was about to run, when he saw where I was pointing. ‘Oh!’ he said. ‘I see. They’re dead. Well, who do you live with, if I let you live, which I haven’t decided yet?’

      ‘With my sister, sir, wife of Joe Gargery, the blacksmith.’

      ‘Blacksmith, you say?’ And he looked down at his leg. Then he held me by both arms and stared fiercely down into my eyes.

      ‘Now look here. You bring me a file. You know what that is? And you bring me some food. If you don’t, or if you tell anyone about me, I’ll cut your heart out.’

      ‘I promise I’ll do it, sir,’ I answered. I was badly frightened and my whole body was trembling.

      ‘You see,’ he continued, smiling unpleasantly, ‘I travel with a young man, a friend of mine, who roasts boys’ hearts and eats them. He’ll find you, wherever you are, and he’ll have your heart. So bring the file and the food to that wooden shelter over there, early tomorrow morning, if you want to keep your heart, that is. Remember, you promised!’

      I watched him turn and walk with difficulty across the marshes, the chain hanging clumsily around his leg. Then I ran home as fast as I could.

      My sister, Mrs Joe Gargery, was very proud of the fact that she had brought me up ‘by hand’. Nobody explained to me what this meant, and because she had a hard and heavy hand, which she used freely on her husband as well as me, I supposed that Joe and I were both brought up by hand. She was not a beautiful woman, being tall and thin, with black hair and eyes and a very red face. She clearly felt that Joe and I caused her a lot of trouble, and she frequently complained about it. Joe, on the other hand, was a gentle, kind man with fair hair and weak blue eyes, who quietly accepted her scolding.

      Because Joe and I were in the same position of being scolded by Mrs Joe, we were good friends, and Joe protected me from her anger whenever he could.