Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

And here comes the last leg of BANG! The Literary Challenge, the SPECIAL PRIZE. Here the lucky winners were supposed to send the review of any book they had recently read....

So here's a book review by AMAN ARYA. Read on...

Title: Great Expectations

Author: Charles Dickens

In this book Charles Dickens weaves a beautiful story about a boy named Pip. The challenges faced by Pip in his narrative like poverty, cold and contemptuous treatment of him by Estella, the girl he loved and wanted to marry and the irony of his good fortune. The author has taken  great care to distinguish between  imploring the voice of Pip, the narrator with perspective and maturity while also imparting on how Pip, the character feels about his life as it actually happens.

The main theme underlying the story is quite simple-affective, loyalty and conscience is more important than social status, advancement and class. Pip learns his lesson, by exploring his ambition and self-improvement-ideas that quickly become both the thematic centre of the novel and the psychological mechanism that encourages much of the protagonist's development. Ambitious and self-development take three forms in Great Expectations, moral, social and educational. These motivate Pip to better his behavior throughout this novel. Being-treated hard, Pip desires self development. In love with Estella, he longs to become a member of her own social, ambitious class. Encouraged by Mrs. Joe and Pumblechook, he entertains fantasies of becoming a gentleman. Also, he desires educational improvement. This desire is deeply connected to Estella. A full education is the requirement of being a gentleman, or so he believes. As long as he is an ignorant country man, he cannot win the love of the woman, he desires to be with. Ultimately through examples of Joe, Biddy and Magwitch, he learns that social and educational improvements are irrelevant and that conscience and affection are to be valued above social standing. The story ends on a happy note with Pip encountering Estella in a ruined garden, learning the fact that her mask of cruelty had been replaced by sad kindness and they end up leaving the garden hand-in-hand.

An enriching novel, a must read if you are a book lover!!