Great Expectations Study Questions

(first 100 pages)

1. What is the title, "Great Expectations" refering to?
2. How does Pip's life represent Charles Dickens life when he was young?
3. What happened to Pip when he was visitng his parents grave stones?
4. Why does Pip live with village blacksmith Joe Gargery?
5. What is surprising about the attitude of the two convicts towards one another?
6. How did the first convict show his appreciation for Pip's loyalty?
7. How does Dickens satirize public education in chapter 7?
8. What is implied about England's government when Dickens has Joe tell Pip that Mrs. Joe, being given to government, does not want him to be able to read and write?
9. How does Estella criticize Pip, and what does his reaction to her criticism reveal about Pip?
10. Pip is ashamed of his home, and is unhappy there: why doesn't he run away?




Answers:
1. Pip runs into a lwayer who tells him that Pip will recieve money and great expectations in the near future.
2. Like Pip, Charles Dickens had a tough childhood. Dickens had to live on his alone and had to earn his own money as did Pip.
3. A convict dressed in rags seized him and demanded Pip to give him food and a way to saw of the chains that were on his foot.
4. Since Pip is an orphan, he has to live with his sister and her husband who is Joe Gargery.
5. Both the convicts, Magwitch and Compeyson, are sworn enemies and given half a chance they would immediately kill one another. Both of them have escaped from the prison ships and are in hiding on the marshes waiting for a suitable opportunity to make good their escape.
6. The convict shows appresciation by making sure Pip does not get in trouble for helping him escape.
7. Dickens explains that all public education cares about is the profit they recieve from housing the children and not the education they get.
8. Mrs. Joe is being compared to the Englush government because Dickens says that the English government does not want its lower classes to be educated. He believes that if the lower class recieves education they could rebel and take over the goverment.
9. She critisizes how Pip is just a common labouring boy. Pip for the first time feels ashamed of being "common". He felt inferior to her and later cries because of her cruelty.
10. Pip decides not to run away because he had no where lese to go and Joe had always been friendly and nice to him.