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Great Expectations, written by Charles Dickens, is an acknowledged masterpiece and is rightly considered one of the greatest novels ever written. Its depth and breadth are overwhelming, as it follows its main character, Pip, from his early childhood through his later life. During the course of his life, the reader encounters a vast list of raw human emotions: love, hate, hope, jealousy, sadness, despair, anger, pity, empathy, sympathy, and so many more. The story is cherished and adored for many reasons. One of its main strengths is its plot. After a quite introductory section, the author puts his story in fifth gear and delivers a fast-paced and breathtaking story that progresses along without ever losing clarity or interest. The incredibly complicated plot is full of separate stories and incidents that seem totally unrelated to each other, but then they are all tied together as the story heads straight toward its denouement. The book is also full of twists which continue up until the last paragraph.
Dickens’ Great Expectations is an incomparably rich and wonderful book. The reader will sink into the story’s mysteries, its great grotesque portrait of Miss Havisham in her rotting bridal finery, its painful recounting of a young boy’s awakening to a seductive world beyond the blacksmith’s forge to which fate has condemned him. This book is about any reader. It is about wanting to learn, to transcend, and to achieve while everything seems hopelessly beyond one’s dreams.