ShmoopTube
Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.
Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos
British Literature Videos 176 videos
Meet Charles Darnay, the nobleman who spends more time on trial and in prison than attending balls and drinking expensive wine. Don't feel too bad...
Written in Anglo-Saxon, or Old English, sometime between the 8th and 11th centuries, Beowulf is an epic poem that reflects the early medieval warri...
Brave New World is supposed be an exciting book about a negative utopia and the corrupt powers of authority. So where’s the big car chase? What's...
Great Expectations Summary 74875 Views
Share It!
Description:
Trying to live up to expectations can be stressful. Watching someone else struggle with it, though? That's just fine.
Transcript
- 00:04
Great Expectations, a la Shmoop. Pip pip, cheerio.
- 00:07
Charles Dickens novels are not generally what you would call uppers.
- 00:11
Anyone who's written a book called Bleak House could probably use a hug.
- 00:18
Great Expectations has an ambiguously happy ending.
- 00:22
but only because its author was persuaded to end the novel on a positive note by a good
Full Transcript
- 00:29
friend of his.
- 00:31
Not everyone is in love with depressing endings like Dickens was
- 00:36
If it was up to him, Katniss probably would have been the first one offed in The Hunger
- 00:45
Games. When readers finish Great Expectations, they
- 00:49
are left with a sense of optimism and romantic hopefulness
- 00:55
After running all over the English marshes in Pip's tiny shoes.
- 00:58
It feels good to be granted a cheerful resolution to his story.
- 01:07
Why then was Dickens initially so intent on an unhappy ending?
- 01:12
Was he just a huge downer?
- 01:13
Was his own life so miserable that the only way he could make himself feel better was
- 01:17
to drag everyone else down with him?
- 01:20
He did have a rough childhood...
- 01:22
Éand his wife divorced him shortly before the writing of this novel, which was rare
- 01:28
in those days
- 01:29
so he definitely had some reason to be grouchy.
- 01:33
Or, did he think it was genuinely the best way to end his story?
- 01:39
The book was titled Great Expectations maybe he was trying to make a point about having
- 01:47
such expectations?
- 01:48
That, no matter how pure our intentions and no matter how hard we work
- 01:55
not everything is going to go our way, and you can't earn the love of someone who isn't
- 02:05
feeling it? Dickens wasn't a Hollywood screenwriter
- 02:08
there wasn't the pressure back then to drive audiences to a theater.
- 02:15
Or was Dickens just trying to surprise his readers, and throw them for a loop?
- 02:23
Great Expectations was written serially. In other words, it was released a chapter at
- 02:29
a time, rather than all at once.
- 02:32
Could it be that his readers were all anticipating a happy ending.
- 02:36
and he didn't want to seem predictable? Which way are you leaning?
- 02:42
Morbid downer
- 02:43
Conscientious writer
- 02:44
... or lover of spontaneity? Shmoop amongst yourselves.
Related Videos
This video defines utopias and dystopias, and investigates how a utopia might become a dystopia. Can a seemingly perfect world actually be a dystop...
They say that honesty is the best policy, but Jack lies about his identity and still gets the girl. Does that mean we should all lie to get what we...
Ever wish you could remember everything that you ever studied? How about everything that everyone has ever studied? Yeah, pretty sure our brains ju...
Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is an American classic. Hope you're not expecting any exciting shower scenes though. It's not that kind of book.
Do not go gentle into that good night. In fact, if it's past your curfew, don't go at all into that good night. You just stay in your good bed and...