Great Expectations Photo Post

To represent Great Expectations, I chose a picture of a rose with it's petals falling. I believe that this is a good representation because it reminds me of Pip. This is like a flower growing up from the ground, which represents Pip starting as a child in the marshes and then growing to be a respectable gentlemen in London. Although the more you grow, you should get stronger, but Pip doesn't seem to. This flower keeps losing petals the higher up it goes. The petals represent everything that Pip is losing the more he becomes a gentlemen and chooses to make all of the decisions he making. From Pip's decisions, he has lost Joe, Biddy, Estella, and all of his happiness. Now he is starting to realize and miss what he used to have, but will it be to late? This photo accurately represents Great Expectations in many ways but the most important ways are that it represents the motifs and themes of becoming a gentlemen, shame, and guilt.

Making Connections

I read the blog assignment this week and had some trouble trying to decide what to write about this week. I read other classmates and they had some insightful ideas.I had thought of some of the ones that were already written by other classmates, but I wanted something more original. After more thinking, it hit me. Annie is a musical that I think could very easily be related to Great Expectations.

Annie is an orphan, living at an orphanage, with other orphan friends, and a mean old lady who they all hate. When she was younger, she was dropped off at the orphanage with half a locket and a statement that her parents were later coming to pick her up. She is later adopted when she is ten years old by Mr. Warbucks who comes to really enjoy her presence. But then, her "parents" come to take her home.

Pip's life and Annie's lives are similar because they are both orphans. One of the major themes in the book is Pip wanting more than what he has, and once he gets it, he still isn't happy. When Annie is at the orphanage she wanted to leave the mean lady and be adopted. Once she was adopted by a rich man, she still wasn't happy because she wanted to find her parents. She didn't know they were dead though, and was taken by people who lied to be her parents. For the little time in the car she was with them, she was miserable and unhappy. She wanted the man who first adopted her back and missed her friends back at the orphanage. Pip has gotten all of the fortunes he's wanted, but I think he is just as miserable as being kidnapped like Annie.

Annie learned and became happy when she saw her friends and went back to live at Mr. Warbucks. I don't know how Great Expectations will end, but I hope Pip will learn from his mistakes and turn his life into a happy one rather than a miserable one.

Great Expectations, the Second Stage

"If I could buy the furniture now hired for me," said I, "and one or two other little things, I should be quite at home there." (Pg. 197) Pip is asking his guardian Mr. Jaggers at his office for his money to buy things. Pip is becoming greedy for money and buying things. With Pip becoming a gentlemen, he has gained many things, but not for the better.

This event relates to the motif of Pip becoming a gentlemen. With that motif, the more Pip wants and becomes a gentlemen, the more the readers don't like him. In the first stage of the novel, Pip goes to Miss Havisham's and meets Estella. He wants to become a gentlemen to impress her even though she is so mean to him and Biddy is so perfect for him. Pip also starts to feel ashamed of his best friend Joe and the place where Pip lives. Pip is now becoming a worse and worse person which is also a reoccurring motif within the novel. This event really enhances the motif to show you that that Pip's bad character is building and that maybe by the end he will be a gentlemen, but have the downfall of being a terrible person.

Great Expectations- Chapter 9 Quote

This quote is a little confusing to me and I don't understand it completely, but I think he is talking about his life and the person he is. He is saying that each thing that happens to you affects you and makes you the person you are. That there is always one beginning moment that sets you on the path to be the person you are meant to be and have the life you are meant to have. For Pip, this day changed his way of thinking by being curious about Miss Havisham, started to be embarrassed of his less rich and proper family, and starting to really experience guiltiness and decide what's right and wrong. In the later chapters Pip doesn't really change positively because he is embarrassed of his best friend Joe and he lets Estella be mean to him and still likes her. It seems like he cares a lot about what other people think rather than just being happy with who he is.

I can't think of one exact beginning life altering day that changed me to be who I am. I remember various things that have happened to me that I know have affected me and who I am. Without those things I wouldn't be so respectful of other people, care about people's feelings, know to be who I am, and many other lessons I have learned over the course of my life. Some bad things have happened to me in my life, but even though I regret them or wish they didn't happen, every event has affected me and I am happy with the person that I am. Every single one of these life altering days changed me and I wouldn't be the same without them.

Great Expectations- Question About a Passage

"For such reasons I was very glad when ten o'clock came and we started for Miss Havisham's; though I was not at all at my ease regarding the manor in which I should acquit myself under that lady's roof."

Why did uncle Pumblechook keep quizzing Pip about multiplication problems and why would Pip be excited to go be at a place with an old lady he didn't even know?