Almost Done with Great Expectations!

This reads like a soap opera! I am not quite finished with Great Expectations, but the chapters detailing the discovery of Estella’s lineage (first her mother, then her father) and Miss Havisham repenting for the way she raised Estella was so drama-filled that I could have been watching Days of Our Lives rather than reading a classic novel!

I thought it was interesting that after so many chapters of seeing Estella as a reflection of Miss Havisham, it turns out that Pip is more like Miss Havisham. I also think it is interesting that Miss H. chooses to purge her sins through fire, especially since Pip clearly avoids fire (the forge fire, and also the flame of Orlick’s candle).

It’s so crazy that this charged novel is able to come to so neat a close. Estella’s parentage is not going to be revealed to her, and in fact Miss Havisham didn’t know the majority of the details. Miss Havisham has lost Estella, as has Pip, and it seems that Drummle will never really have her. The mysterious maid of Jaggers’ that Wemmick said to watch for has turned out to be Estella’s mother and Magwitch (!) her father, though neither parent knows of their daughter’s fate and they wouldn’t recognize her if they had seen her. The irony here is, of course, that Magwitch loves Pip because Pip reminds him of Estella, and surely Magwitch, if he had the power, would give Estella to Pip in marriage. As it happens, everyone seems left at a loss, and finally Pip sees that it is better to live simply and well than to live life in the fast lane.

Although, I’m not quite done, so there may yet be surprises…