Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
page last updated 07/06/2009
Great Expectations is one of Charles Dickens’ well known and best loved novels. Hugh Leonard’s play tells the story of how the orphan Pip comes into the ‘great expectation’ of future wealth from a mysterious benefactor. The setting is around 1830 and the play opens when Pip is being brought up by his tyrannical sister and her gentle but ineffectual blacksmith husband, Joe. Pip’s life takes an unexpected turn when he is assaulted in a graveyard by Magwitch an escaped convict; an event that is to haunt Pip for the rest of his days. Pip is taken to be a child companion to the haughty Estella, adopted daughter to the recluse, Miss Havisham, where he discovers from her lawyer, Jaggers, that he has been singled out for his ‘great expectations’.
In spite of her treatment of him, Pip falls in love with Estella but she does not reciprocate, conditioned as she is by the emotional abuse of her adoptive mother. Miss Havisham had never got over being jilted at the altar and seeks to use Estella to wreak her revenge on all the male of the human species and in particular, Pip. Although he is now financially secure Pip has difficulty reconciling his old and new lives; he cannot be both the blacksmith’s boy and a London gentleman of leisure and becomes embarrassed by his old affections for the simple, but not simple-minded Joe.
This is not a tale of rags to riches. The main themes of the play include gratefulness and pretentiousness, physical and emotional suffering, social mobility both up and down the scale. Pip appreciates the gentle Joe, but treats him with indifference after leaving for London. Pip’s failure to keep in contact with Joe never causes Joe to complain. Joe's selfless nature is frequently contrasted with his uncle Pumblechook's constant criticism of Pip's ingratitude.
Suffering is shown in several characters, including Magwitch, Joe, Pip and Miss Havisham. Magwitch through increasingly severe punishments for a desperate life of petty crime compounded by the loss of his child, Joe through the callousness of his wife, Miss Havisham was jilted on her wedding day and tricked out of part of her money, while Pip suffers by seeming never to gain Estella's love. Estella criticizes Pip for his low and country upbringing and Pip in turn develops contempt for his own family's lack of wealth. Pip persistently tries to impress Estella by moving up the social ladder, though the benefits of this climb are uncertain.
Here is powerful drama on a grand scale, but in spite of all this, there are some happy endings to this emotive and complex tale.
A synopsis of the plot of Hugh Leonard's play of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens...
The
orphaned Pip, lives quietly with his bullying older sister, Mrs. Joe, and her
dominated but kind husband, Joe Gargery. While visiting his parent's grave Pip
meets Magwich, an escaped convict, and brings him food and a file after the man
threatens his life. Magwich is then caught again and sent away.
Pip
is content with his life until he is hired by an embittered wealthy woman, Miss
Havisham, as an occasional companion to her beautiful but haughtily spiteful
adopted daughter, Estella. Pip falls in love with Estella. Pip aspires to leave
behind his simple life and be a gentleman. After years as companion to Miss
Havisham and Estella, he becomes an apprentice to Joe, so that he may grow up to
have a future working as a blacksmith.
Pip’s
life is turned upside down when Mrs Joe suffers a stroke who is then cared for
by the younger Biddy. Pip is visited by a London lawyer, Mr. Jaggers, who
informs Pip that he is to come into the "great expectations" of
handsome property and is to be trained to be a gentleman on the behalf of an
anonymous benefactor (whom he assumes to be Miss Havisham).
Pip
travels to London and is directed by Jaggers to stay with Herbert Pocket (a
relative of Miss Havisham), who informs Pip of Miss Havisham's past and how
Estella was raised to take her revenge on the male of this species. From Herbert
Pocket, Pip receives an education and tutoring in manners, fine clothing, and
cultured society.
When
young he always engaged in honest labour but now is supported by a generous
allowance, which he frequently lives beyond. He learns to fit in this new level
of society, and experiences not only friendship but rivalry as he finds himself
in the same circles as Estella, who is also pursued by many other men,
especially Bentley Drummle, whom she seems to favour.
As
he settles into his new position in society, he also adopts the class attitudes
that go with it, and when Joe comes to visit Pip and his friend and roommate
Herbert to deliver an important message, Pip is embarrassed to the point of
embarrassment and hostility by Joe's country ways, despite his own protestations
of love of and friendship for Joe.
Then
Pip is contacted by his anonymous benefactor, Magwitch, the escaped convict he
helped long ago.
Pip's
life changes from the safety of his elevated position and he must now deal with
moral, physical and financial challenges. The truths he learns cast into doubt
the values that he once so eagerly embraced, and he finds he cannot regain the
simple but important things that he has now thrown away.
Pip
visits Miss Havisham who contrives to set fire to herself and dies.
Pip
learns that Estella is Magwitch’s daughter by the gipsy murderer (probably but
never proved) Molly whom Jaggers keeps as a trophy and proof of his legal
powers.
Pip
attempts to get Magwitch from England by sea. This attempt fails when Compeyson
(Magwitch’s betrayer and Miss Haversham’s gilting lover) guides police to
the ship that Magwitch is about to board. A fight ensues and both are drowned.
Pip has lost his benefactor and also his expectations.
In
the bitter-sweet end, Wemmick, Jagger’s clerk, marries a Miss Skiffins, Biddy
marries Joe, but Estella and Pip agree to be friends apart as Estella has had
all natural feelings destroyed by her emotionally abusive guardian, Miss
Haversham.
The
characters
Pip and Young Pip, Philip Pirrip,
nicknamed Pip, an orphan, and the protagonist. Pip is destined to be trained as
a blacksmith, a lowly but skilled and honest trade, but strives to rise above
his class after meeting Estella Havisham. Handel, Herbert Pocket's nickname for
Pip (he is given this name from The Harmonious Blacksmith, a piece by Handel)
which he uses to address Pip from their first formal meeting.
Joe Gargery, Pip's brother-in-law,
and his first father figure. He is not clever, rustic but not a fool, but he is
kind and unassuming. He is a Blacksmith and is the only person Pip can be honest
with. Joe represents the poor but honest life that Pip rejects. He is
comfortable when at home but awkward in other society. A gentleman by virtue of
being a man who is gentle.
Mrs. Joe Pip's hot-tempered
adult sister, who brings him up ‘by hand’ after the death of their parents,
but complains constantly of the burden Pip is to her.
Uncle Pumblechook, Joe Gargery's uncle,
but taken over by Mrs Joe, an officious bachelor who tells Mrs. Joe how noble
she is to bring Pip up by hand and holds Pip in disdain. As the person who first
connected Pip to Miss Havisham, he even claims to have been the original
architect of Pip's good fortune. He is a tradesman, one step up the social scale
from Joe. Pip despises him as he constantly makes himself out to be better than
he really is. He is a cunning impostor.
Miss Havisham, wealthy spinster who
takes Pip on as a companion and whom Pip suspects is his benefactor. Miss
Havisham does not discourage this as it fits into her own spiteful plans to
destroy all men. She has never got over being jilted at the altar.
Estella, Miss Havisham's adopted
daughter, whom Pip pursues romantically. She is secretly Molly, Jagger's
housekeeper's daughter but given up to Miss Havisham after a murder trial.
Estella represents the life of wealth and culture that Pip strives for. Since
her ability to love any man (or anyone for that matter) has been ruined by Miss
Havisham, she is unable to return Pip's passion. She warns Pip of this
repeatedly, but he is unwilling or unable to believe her.
Herbert Pocket, Pip first meets him as
a "pale young gentleman" who challenges Pip to a fist fight at Miss
Havisham's. He is Pip's fast friend who is there to share Pip's happiness as
well as his troubles. He becomes Pip’s informal tutor in social etiquette.
Magwitch, The
Convict, an escapee from a prison ship, whom Pip treats kindly, and who turns
out to be his benefactor, at which time his real name is revealed to be Abel
Magwitch, but who is also known as Provis in parts of the story to protect his
identity. We never discover his crime, it may just be that he has been in and
out of escalating petty theft or it may be murder.
Biddy, A kind and intelligent
but poor young woman, like Pip and Estella, is an orphan, she is the opposite of
Estella and of Mrs Joe.
Jaggers, A prominent London
attorney who represents the interests of diverse clients, both criminal and
civil. He is hard but sharp and has no time for simple pleasantries. He is a man
of business and the law is his business. He represents Pip's benefactor and is
Miss Havisham's lawyer as well. When he is on stage he is the centre of the
action.
Wemmick,
Jaggers’ clerk. In Jaggers’ office he adopts Jaggers’ character but
subservient to him. Out of the office he is more a guide and friend to Pip.
Molly, Mr. Jaggers's
maidservant whom Jaggers saved from the gallows for murder. She turns out to be
Magwitch’s former lover, and the birth mother of Estella.
Miss Skiffins, fiancée
to Wemmick.
Great
Expectations - Director’s notes
This is my second outing with RTG as
director, following last year’s “Under Milk Wood”. This play of Dickens’
is from an older time and indeed was written by him as a historical novel; the
action taking place about 40 years earlier than publication. Then, life was hard
for the common man. One in five died before they reached the age of one. Public
execution was still the penalty for many crimes including that for returning to
England while being a convict under sentence of transportation. Even the well
off were only secure providing they remained well off; the penalty for failure
could be life in a debtor’s prison such as Newgate or the Marshalsea where
Dickens’ own father was imprisoned in 1824.
Against this background is the story
of Pip, an orphan, who is brought up by his abusive older sister and her kind
but ineffectual husband Joe, the village blacksmith. Pip’s encounter one day
with a convict is a churchyard is probably one of the most well-known incidents
in the whole of the Dickens canon; an event which comes back to haunt Pip later
in life. When Pip is sent as a companion to Estella, adopted daughter, of the
recluse Miss Havisham, he suffers more emotional abuse at the hands of both, but
at the same times discovers that he is due for ‘great expectations’ of
present and future wealth. Little does he realise the shaky ground that wealth
is built upon.
This is not a simple sentimental tale
of rags to riches where, to take Oscar Wilde’s definition of fiction, the good
end happily and the bad unhappily. There are much deeper sub-texts in this story
of inability to deal with loss, betrayal, unrequited love, growing apart,
alienation, pride and place in society.
The novel contains about 200,000
words; the play of course is somewhat shorter. One of the playwright’s tasks
was to decide which characters and what elements of Dickens’ plot to retain
and which to discard. If you have read the novel you will find that a number of
minor characters missing and some of the plot changed to accommodate this. The
play is not the same as the original book. Indeed the character of Pip has been
split into two which has cleverly allowed the author to show how Pip develops
through moments of reflection as the two Pips, young and older, occasionally
confront each other and right from the opening scene.
Dickens wrote two endings to his
novel. The original ending was more true to the earlier part of the story, but
he was persuaded to rewrite the end in a more upbeat and optimistic style (see
Wilde above). It is fortunate that the words in this play-script have been so
cleverly written that they can be delivered to reflect either Dickens’
original, or later intentions. The ending we portray … you will have to wait
and see. I hope you enjoy the performance.
The 2009 production
Pip Terry Cox
Herbert Pocket Robert Place
Estella Emmy Wilcock
Joe Gargery Richard Turner
Magwitch Andrew Cook
Mrs Joe Josephine Kinnaird
Uncle Pumblechook John Birch
Jaggers Ken Renno
Miss Havisham Julie Cox
Biddy Mandy Buckley
Wemmick John Birch
Molly / Miss Skiffins Josephine Kinnaird
