Thanks, Holby! Yes, I ought to have specified what the ending was!
hobby, thanks for that info!
I was pleased to read this part:
As it is, he is now conspicuously rewarded, as well, for his infatuated folly in worshipping Estella.
It's nice to know I wasn't the only one who has a hard time regarding Pip's feelings and that quasi-relationship as love. It isn't so much that I object to the idea of Pip being rewarded for it, as that it never rang true to me as love, that is, as the basis for a true relationship. So that the altered ending also doesn't ring true for me. The altered ending does admit their relationship as love, which can finally now proceed without the impediments of internal confusion and external circumstance that previously limited it. So I'd say the original ending is much more satisfying to me because of being psychologically correct. Though I'll also agree that the altered ending is very nicely composed in its other aspects.
I'll copy your comments about the book in their entirety from the other page for reference, and then I'll respond to some of your points:
truehobbit wrote:Well, I made it!
I finished Great Expectations, and really enjoyed the story, although I thought the writing was exceedingly clumsy at times. (Maybe I'm just spoiled by the excellent German translations that are around - most of my reading of Dickens has been in German.)
I stand by my view that Dickens is amazingly hard on his hero. I find this quite unusual, compared to all other Dickens novels I've read (ok, that's only around half a dozen, so not all that much to compare to, I guess, but still...). GE presents us with a hero who is flawed to a degree that is rarely found in what I remember of other Dickens stories.
I would venture to say that the fact that other readers here don't find this noticeable may have to do with our being used to finding flawed (and even severely crooked) characters as heroes of modern books.
Some evidence for this interpretation can in my opinion be found in the ending of the story. (Which, btw, contrary to other parts of the story, I found excellently written.)
SPOILER WARNING!
One of the features Dickens is most reputed for is the "poetic justice" of his endings. His characters get "what they deserve", according to Dickens's own and the Victorian ethics of his time. Thus, the convict cannot outlive the end of the story, but is granted a peaceful death as a sign that his "sins" are forgiven (though not forgotten enough to grant him surviving the story).
Pip (and I claim that this is as a result of his failings) has to serve 11 years in solitary exile (so to speak - mitigated however by the presence of friends, who are good people and a good influence on him) to atone for his ingratitude and arrogance, even though he has changed from this by the end of the story and his friends have forgiven him, before he can find his own happy ending.
Joe gets Biddy and Biddy gets Joe - I remember when I saw the movie that I was disappointed with the ending, and in the middle of the book I was again hoping that Pip might wake up and love Biddy and have a happy ending. But getting towards the end of the book, it was clear that Pip's dreams of life with Biddy were delusional - he would not have been able to be happy with her. I was very pleased to see my two favourite characters of the book, Biddy and Joe, united in marriage at the end.
(Yeah, I'm a sucker for the good guys.
)
There is, however, one truly amazing end for a character here: Estella.
Are there any other instances in Dickens where a previously married female character gets a second chance at happiness?
I thought it was amazing that her former cruelty is forgiven not only as having been induced by Miss Havisham in the first place, but also as atoned for by her suffering from a brutal husband.
But she is still 'tainted' (in the Victorian view) - and so we don't actually
see the happy end. We are only led to expect it by Pip, and are informed that for Estella it will be quite the surprise, too (as we, Victorian readers that we are in Dickens's mind, would find it a bit too much if we heard such a woman actually
expected any happiness).
This is an odd story, and there's one more oddity (to me) in the resolution: Herbert getting his living "in the East". Often, emigrating is as much a punishment as a reward in Dickens. Characters who have failed but are forgiven may get a new start abroad (think of Steerpike's victim from David Copperfield - can't remember her name right now - Emily? and her father). Living in hot climes, away from England, is not really the fulfillment of all dreams for a Dickensian hero, I think? So, why does Herbert get sent away?
Sure, we hear he's successful, he lives there (wherever it is) with his wife, he's happy enough (why don't we hear whether he's got kids?) - but still... I liked Herbert, and I find the resolution of this part of the plot, well, not unsatisfactory, but inexplicable.
Some final thoughts to be drawn from these combinations, before I'll leave it at that: Pip and Biddy vs Pip and Estella
Even if Pip had developed a sincere love for Biddy instead of just a desire for ease to fuel his dream of life with her - would she have been suitable?
Had Pip not risen too high in society, so that Dickens was forced to deny any real feelings in him for her?
And that even though he had of course not
really risen - all his status, his "expectations" had been void. He had been raised above his station (as contemporary texts would say), but it's no fault of his that it was void. So, how apt that his designated partner should be a woman of no family at all, but genteelly raised - exactly like him, really.
I thought this was an amazing story, much different from other Dickens novels, but the more fascinating for that. And I wonder whether this was a particular phase of Dickens's development as an author or just one tale that is somewhat odder that others.
hobby wrote:I stand by my view that Dickens is amazingly hard on his hero. I find this quite unusual, compared to all other Dickens novels I've read (ok, that's only around half a dozen, so not all that much to compare to, I guess, but still...).
This was my first Dickens (yes, it is shocking) so I didn't have any preconceptions. I didn't find the author being so hard on his hero; that is, I thought all that happened could be seen as proceeding naturally from the circumstances and Pip's reactions, which to me were understandably human. I mean, there he was, addled by Estella at a very early age, and he needed some extreme circumstances to free him from the web of those wretched ideas and feelings. He then went on to a satisfactorily prosperous life; and knowing Pip's interactions with the good people he encountered in London, it was easy for me to imagine him in similarly pleasant and sound relationships wherever he went. In fact, I view Pip as having a very good life, given the amount of love, in family and friendships, that he was privileged to experience.
GE presents us with a hero who is flawed to a degree that is rarely found in what I remember of other Dickens stories.
I would venture to say that the fact that other readers here don't find this noticeable may have to do with our being used to finding flawed (and even severely crooked) characters as heroes of modern books.
Some evidence for this interpretation can in my opinion be found in the ending of the story. (Which, btw, contrary to other parts of the story, I found excellently written.)
We really differ in our perspective on Pip. I find Pip to be an uncommonly excellent person, excepting that one huge blindspot that was caused by the infatuation with Estella and which manifested in the snobbery aspects towards his former life. But otherwise -- in those aspects of his character not warped by that desire and Estella's poisoned posture toward the world -- he was a generous and loving person with a great capacity for frank self-examination. I'd say his most serious character flaw was revealed in the readiness and completeness with which he accepted Estella's assessment of him; but that may have had more to do with the timing of their meeting than anything else. I recall from early in the book, how lovely so many of his childhood observances were. They showed a very tender heart, and it was probably that same tenderness that left him so vulnerable to Estella's scorn.
There is, however, one truly amazing end for a character here: Estella.
Are there any other instances in Dickens where a previously married female character gets a second chance at happiness?
Regarding Estella, again I couldn't compare her fate to Dickens' other female characters, so didn't know that she was exceptional in being given a second chance at happiness. But reverting to the original ending (which I can't help regarding as more indicative of the author's true intent and more consistent with the characters as written), she isn't given a second chance at happiness. She never realistically had any chance at happiness, given her upbringing.
I thought it was amazing that her former cruelty is forgiven not only as having been induced by Miss Havisham in the first place, but also as atoned for by her suffering from a brutal husband.
But she is still 'tainted' (in the Victorian view) - and so we don't actually see the happy end. We are only led to expect it by Pip, and are informed that for Estella it will be quite the surprise, too (as we, Victorian readers that we are in Dickens's mind, would find it a bit too much if we heard such a woman actually expected any happiness).
I seem to have a much less harsh view of Estella as well. She was purely a victim in the story, in my view. How could she have been other than she was, given her upbringing? I think only a transcendentally good person could have survived that bizarre upbringing with a whole heart, and in that case, I think she would have had to be the protagonist of the story. Which wouldn't have suited.
So I think her final outcome (speaking of the original ending) is a very good one for her, given the limits the trauma of her upbringing imposed.
Some final thoughts to be drawn from these combinations, before I'll leave it at that: Pip and Biddy vs Pip and Estella
Even if Pip had developed a sincere love for Biddy instead of just a desire for ease to fuel his dream of life with her - would she have been suitable?
Had Pip not risen too high in society, so that Dickens was forced to deny any real feelings in him for her?
And that even though he had of course not really risen - all his status, his "expectations" had been void. He had been raised above his station (as contemporary texts would say), but it's no fault of his that it was void. So, how apt that his designated partner should be a woman of no family at all, but genteelly raised - exactly like him, really.
I think it was Biddy who was too good for Pip, and not vice versa. It seemed to me that Biddy and Joe, from the time of Pip's removal to London, represented a sort of pastoral idylle in contrast to the muck and mire (both physical and of the soul) of the ruined world that London represents. I have no idea if I'm perceiving something the author intended or if this is a recurrent theme in Dickens' writing.
So I'd say, no, Biddy was never suitable as a mate for Pip given her less alloyed, shall we say, character. Though perhaps there were all sorts of class issues insinuated, of which I'm simply oblivious. I think Biddy and Pip were intellectually compatible (which I think is a more important consideration than class), but he just never loved her that way. I was a bit troubled initially by the idea of the intellectual variance between Biddy and Joe (that is, wondering how fulfilling the relationship could be for her), but I managed to just brush those thoughts aside.
PearlyDi wrote:And it's great casting all round: Bernard Hill (Théoden) plays Magwitch and he is BRILLIANT. Bernard Hill is a fantastic actor.
BERNARD HILL! Say no more!