In the second part of the novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Pip sets off to London with some apprehension but also enthusiastic for his new life in the belief that it is part of the plan of Miss Haversham to one day enable him to marry her adopted daughter Estella. The second part covers the years to his 21st birthday and then to when in his twenty third year his actual benefactor declares himself.
I have been given further reflection to the character of Pip an ordinary working class young man who espouses middle class pretensions through the misguided and untreatable rather than Machiavellian actions of Miss Haversham who herself is the victim of cruel confidence trick in which she had given money to a rogue who had proposed marriage and then left her alone with her guest and the weeding breakfast arranged.
Both the 1946 film and the 2012 BBC TV adaptation in three episodes corresponding to the divisions in the book are loyal to the text sometimes in detail, sometimes with dramatic licence but always in the spirit of the book. Both the film and series fail to give appropriate recognition to the role of Biddy and the development of her relationship with Joe as well as the influence she exerted on the development of Pip prior to his departure to London. The 1946 film excludes a number of characters while the recent series alters their role and involvements to varying degrees.
The visit of Joe to London, his older brother in role rather than father substitute, is covered and Pips realization that he has little in common with Joe and would have preferred not to be reminded of his past until realizing that the purpose is to advise that he is summoned to Miss Haversham as Estella has returned from Paris. Instead of staying at his former home he takes a room at the hotel in the closest town used by the gentry.
When Miss Haversham tells Pip to love Estella he believes that his dream is to become true and has no idea that her intention is for her adopted daughter to break his heart and that of as many as she can encourage to fall in love with her. She is to be Miss Haversham’s weapon in the world.
Pip also returns home after he is informed that his sister has died and he reacts angrily when Biddy criticises him for failing to keep in touch. Joe in his gentle manner, played brilliantly by Bernard Miles in the 1946 film mentions as if in passing that he and Biddy talk of Pip and what is happening to him every evening when sitting in the kitchen after their meal. Joe understands that Pip now lives in a different world; he has no expectation but hopes
There is great excitement when Estella writes to say she is coming to live in London and that Miss Haversham has decreed that Pip should meet her off the coach and then escort her to Richmond where she is live and participate in London society with a view to becoming engaged and married. Pip cannot wait for the arrival and spends the greater part of the day exploring the area around the coach station. They take tea before he escorts her to Richmond with Estella insisting that she pays for the coach after this is required by Miss Haversham. It takes time for Estella to begin to challenge the control of her adopted parent.
Pip also accompanies Estella on one visit to Miss Haversham when Estella has been summoned back as the frustrated and angry parent has found that behaviour of her daughter towards her does not meet her expectations. The daughter explains that she has been brought up to have a cold and cruel heart and this she applies to everyone, without exception including her mother. What else should her mother expect? Happiness? A sense of justice? Vindication? Estella also warns Pip.
Previously I incorrectly suggested that because Pip was told he was to share accommodation with one Herbert Pocket this meant he knew in advance that this was the same individual who when a boy they had fought at the home of Miss Haversham. The text confirms that it is only on their meeting again at the rooms that Pip appreciated who Mr Pocket is. Mr Pocket had been to the market for fruit and was out when Pip arrives at the accommodation
This accommodation is close to the office of Jaggers who hires the furniture which Pip subsequently says he wishes to buy and also expand.
Pip then spend much time at the family home of the Pockets of Hammersmith, in part because it is on the way to Richmond further along the Thames where Estella is lodged. It here he makes the acquaintance with Mr Drummle and another young man lodging with the Pockets and their many children. In the recent series he encounters Drummle at a gentleman’s club. In the films he learns to dance, to fence and box and other gentleman pursuits but not to ride which was still considered an essential accomplishment for a gentleman of the period. In the book there is reference to being educated as gentleman but no detailed description of activities.
Drummle does not come across as the important aristo in the book as he does in the recent series although he is a mirror for Pip to see the difference between the gentleman from birth and the nouveaux arrivé. In the series Herbert explains his present being disinherited because of his relationship with a young woman disapproved by his family. My understand from the book is that he just has no means and is therefore concerned without a job how he will be able to marry and provide home and future for his wife and any family. Pip does use his resources to help Herbert get a position. Herbert does also leave to work abroad but this is before and not after the arrival back in England of Magwitch.
There is also some accuracy in the recent series and the film regarding their finances. I did not find reference in the text to Pip being allowed £250 a year until reaching majority where there is reference to the sum being increased to £500 and drawn quarterly. Jaggers does use the occasion of the majority to warn Pip about living well beyond his means and in the book Pip and Herbert have already undertaken an exercise of working out the extent of their unpaid bills with Herbert owing over £150 rounded to £200 and he more than three times as great which is also rounded up for the purpose of continuing to amass debt and to raise the margins if necessary. This he continues because of his need to keep up with the life now led by Estella who has become the interest of Drummle.
When I went to work as a clerk in central London in 1957 nearly one hundred years later my initial income was £260 a year and three years later as a result of passing a clerical division examination and other improvements my income had reached £500. Therefore the allowance given Pip was indeed a handsome one
However Pips life is shattered with the arrival of Magwitch to his rooms and the former convict is his benefactor. While to the first time watcher of film or recent series without prior knowledge of the story this may have come as a surprise, it is not so in the text in the sense that Dickens prepares his reader. There are references to convicts on their way to transportation. Pip while waiting for Estella to arrive in London encounters the chief clerk of Jaggers and undertakes a visit to Newgate where he learns of the high position his guardian holds among the prison staff and the high reputation in which the clients hold him. He has already viewed the death masks kept in the office of the firm and the Chief Clerk has told Pip to look out for the housekeeper. Jaggers against the repeated wishes of the housekeeper insists that she displays her wrists to Pip and other dinner guest on one occasion to make the point that the woman wrist stronger than any male. Who this woman is and what other links and relationships remain to be disclosed in the third part.
The BBC has also created a two part two hour film on the Mystery of Edwin Drood. This is the dark and unfinished novel by Charles Dickens which has led to much speculation and attempts to provide an ending which would be in keeping with the other works of Dickens. The BBC film keeps the main points of the text story in tact but havening determined the outcome introduces new elements into the first part of the story. .
The film begins with the cathedral choirmaster late for service. We are introduced to John Jasper who from the outset is wracked by an opium/laudanum induced dream that he has murdered his nephew Edwin Drood. Jasper apologises to the unmarried vicar Mr Crisparkle kindly Vicar who is cared for by his mother. Mr Crisparkle is sponsoring the arrival of Neville and Helena Landless twins and perhaps from Ceylon. While the book is unclear about their ethnic origin the BBC has them as indigenous which adds a contemporary aspect to an important part of the story.
The twenty year old Edwin Drood is a young man who consults his guardian over a long standing engagement arranged by their respective families with Rosa Bud aged 17 years . She resides in a residential establishment for young ladies in the city arranged by her guardian played by the great Alun Armstrong who also played a lawyer in the recent other BBC series about Victorian England Garrows Law.
When Edwin visits Rosa she is cold towards him and soon she is consulting her lawyer guardian that if she chooses not to marry it will affect her inheritance. She is reassured that her father would have only wanted her happiness and that if does not continue with the engagement she will still inherit when she is twenty one less says married beforehand when the inheritance becomes her dowry
When the Landless twins arrive in the city for their education, the Rev Crisparkle and his mother find communication hard going so they have the idea of inviting Rosa and Edwin to a social evening at which Rosa sings while Jasper plays he piano. When Edwin appears to press Rosa about a matter Neville intervenes and the two young men get off on the wrong foot. This is something which Jasper exploits using it to blacken the character of the new arrival. When his sister shares a room with Rosa at the residential education establishment she suggests that Jasper is in love with her and the talk about the nature of love While Rosa has doubts about the depth of her affect for Edwin she is horrified by the interest of Jasper. She tells Helena that she cannot stand the man who is her music teacher. Both newcomers appear more intelligent and thoughtful than their years and all those immediately around them with perhaps the exception being the lawyer.
As he reaches his 21st birthday, Rosa’s guardian gives him her mother’s ting which is for Rosa but only if he is certain she is for him, otherwise he must return the ring. When he is about to give the ring to Rosa she admits that she regards him as a brother rather than a lover and he willing accept the situation and the two become closer and more relaxed through their agreement. Jasper observers at a distance and misunderstands the situation.
It is time to introduce two further characters. Durdles (Stony) is a stonemason handyman at the Cathedral and her shares his lunch with a young scamp who appears to be a street kid living by his wits. He throws objects at Durdles and at anyone he catches and in one instance in the Cathedral grounds Jasper and the boy clash Jasper taking the boy by the throat.
Jasper persuades Durdles to show him around crypt of the Cathedral where there are a number of family tombs each gates with separate keys. Jasper has bribed Durdles to make the tour at night with drink and which appears to be spiked as soon after taking a couple of wigs Durdles passes out and Jasper takes one of the keys to explore one of the tomb areas. Durdles has said that while he had not encountered a ghost he has heard a great cry.
It is at this point that the BBC production takes on a life of its own. The young Edwin Drood disappears and Jasper claims the culprit must be the newcomer. The newcomer is question but with no body he is released into the care of the Rev Crisparkle. Jasper begins to pursue Rosa who makes it plain she is not interested but her rejection is ignored.
When the lawyer advises Jasper that the relationship between the young couple ended amicably he becomes distressed. A young lawyer/investigator arrives on the scene puzzled by the fact that although Drood’s father was supposed to have died in Egypt nine years before his pension has continued to be paid and he becomes to the city and questions the Mayor. Eventually the focus of attention centres on the crypt and the Rev Crisparkle and others accompany Durdle as they open the tomb of the wife of the Major where the missing key is till in its lock. The body is that of the former Mayoress. It is then that the young boy draws attention to another key, a smaller one which has been found among the possessions of Jasper. This leads to the Drood family vault and where the body inside appear to have only to have been there for no more than a year and not the nine that are recorded. It is then that the young Edwin Drood reappears have been out of the city after the break up of his engagement and has not heard of the claims that he is missing presumed murdered. So the mystery deepens.
We learn that Jasper is not Edwin’s uncle but his older half brother and that he was rejected by his father throughout his life. For a reason not explained their father had chosen to remain out of the country giving the family the official impression that he had died abroad. He has now returned to see his young son reach maturity and marry his childhood betrothed. Encountering Jasper in the Cathedral he rejects his son and Jasper in rage kills his father in the same way he subsequently has dreams killing his younger brother. He has been haunted by his action since. He commits suicide by falling from a position high up in the cathedral to its floor. The film ends with Neville going off on an expedition abroad. I am not sure if Edwin accompanies him but the two have become friends. Helena has developed an understanding with the Rev Crisparkle much to the delight of his mother and Rosa. It will be interesting to learn how the Dickensian fans greet this latest of several attempts to finish the novel.
I have been given further reflection to the character of Pip an ordinary working class young man who espouses middle class pretensions through the misguided and untreatable rather than Machiavellian actions of Miss Haversham who herself is the victim of cruel confidence trick in which she had given money to a rogue who had proposed marriage and then left her alone with her guest and the weeding breakfast arranged.
Both the 1946 film and the 2012 BBC TV adaptation in three episodes corresponding to the divisions in the book are loyal to the text sometimes in detail, sometimes with dramatic licence but always in the spirit of the book. Both the film and series fail to give appropriate recognition to the role of Biddy and the development of her relationship with Joe as well as the influence she exerted on the development of Pip prior to his departure to London. The 1946 film excludes a number of characters while the recent series alters their role and involvements to varying degrees.
The visit of Joe to London, his older brother in role rather than father substitute, is covered and Pips realization that he has little in common with Joe and would have preferred not to be reminded of his past until realizing that the purpose is to advise that he is summoned to Miss Haversham as Estella has returned from Paris. Instead of staying at his former home he takes a room at the hotel in the closest town used by the gentry.
When Miss Haversham tells Pip to love Estella he believes that his dream is to become true and has no idea that her intention is for her adopted daughter to break his heart and that of as many as she can encourage to fall in love with her. She is to be Miss Haversham’s weapon in the world.
Pip also returns home after he is informed that his sister has died and he reacts angrily when Biddy criticises him for failing to keep in touch. Joe in his gentle manner, played brilliantly by Bernard Miles in the 1946 film mentions as if in passing that he and Biddy talk of Pip and what is happening to him every evening when sitting in the kitchen after their meal. Joe understands that Pip now lives in a different world; he has no expectation but hopes
There is great excitement when Estella writes to say she is coming to live in London and that Miss Haversham has decreed that Pip should meet her off the coach and then escort her to Richmond where she is live and participate in London society with a view to becoming engaged and married. Pip cannot wait for the arrival and spends the greater part of the day exploring the area around the coach station. They take tea before he escorts her to Richmond with Estella insisting that she pays for the coach after this is required by Miss Haversham. It takes time for Estella to begin to challenge the control of her adopted parent.
Pip also accompanies Estella on one visit to Miss Haversham when Estella has been summoned back as the frustrated and angry parent has found that behaviour of her daughter towards her does not meet her expectations. The daughter explains that she has been brought up to have a cold and cruel heart and this she applies to everyone, without exception including her mother. What else should her mother expect? Happiness? A sense of justice? Vindication? Estella also warns Pip.
Previously I incorrectly suggested that because Pip was told he was to share accommodation with one Herbert Pocket this meant he knew in advance that this was the same individual who when a boy they had fought at the home of Miss Haversham. The text confirms that it is only on their meeting again at the rooms that Pip appreciated who Mr Pocket is. Mr Pocket had been to the market for fruit and was out when Pip arrives at the accommodation
This accommodation is close to the office of Jaggers who hires the furniture which Pip subsequently says he wishes to buy and also expand.
Pip then spend much time at the family home of the Pockets of Hammersmith, in part because it is on the way to Richmond further along the Thames where Estella is lodged. It here he makes the acquaintance with Mr Drummle and another young man lodging with the Pockets and their many children. In the recent series he encounters Drummle at a gentleman’s club. In the films he learns to dance, to fence and box and other gentleman pursuits but not to ride which was still considered an essential accomplishment for a gentleman of the period. In the book there is reference to being educated as gentleman but no detailed description of activities.
Drummle does not come across as the important aristo in the book as he does in the recent series although he is a mirror for Pip to see the difference between the gentleman from birth and the nouveaux arrivé. In the series Herbert explains his present being disinherited because of his relationship with a young woman disapproved by his family. My understand from the book is that he just has no means and is therefore concerned without a job how he will be able to marry and provide home and future for his wife and any family. Pip does use his resources to help Herbert get a position. Herbert does also leave to work abroad but this is before and not after the arrival back in England of Magwitch.
There is also some accuracy in the recent series and the film regarding their finances. I did not find reference in the text to Pip being allowed £250 a year until reaching majority where there is reference to the sum being increased to £500 and drawn quarterly. Jaggers does use the occasion of the majority to warn Pip about living well beyond his means and in the book Pip and Herbert have already undertaken an exercise of working out the extent of their unpaid bills with Herbert owing over £150 rounded to £200 and he more than three times as great which is also rounded up for the purpose of continuing to amass debt and to raise the margins if necessary. This he continues because of his need to keep up with the life now led by Estella who has become the interest of Drummle.
When I went to work as a clerk in central London in 1957 nearly one hundred years later my initial income was £260 a year and three years later as a result of passing a clerical division examination and other improvements my income had reached £500. Therefore the allowance given Pip was indeed a handsome one
However Pips life is shattered with the arrival of Magwitch to his rooms and the former convict is his benefactor. While to the first time watcher of film or recent series without prior knowledge of the story this may have come as a surprise, it is not so in the text in the sense that Dickens prepares his reader. There are references to convicts on their way to transportation. Pip while waiting for Estella to arrive in London encounters the chief clerk of Jaggers and undertakes a visit to Newgate where he learns of the high position his guardian holds among the prison staff and the high reputation in which the clients hold him. He has already viewed the death masks kept in the office of the firm and the Chief Clerk has told Pip to look out for the housekeeper. Jaggers against the repeated wishes of the housekeeper insists that she displays her wrists to Pip and other dinner guest on one occasion to make the point that the woman wrist stronger than any male. Who this woman is and what other links and relationships remain to be disclosed in the third part.
The BBC has also created a two part two hour film on the Mystery of Edwin Drood. This is the dark and unfinished novel by Charles Dickens which has led to much speculation and attempts to provide an ending which would be in keeping with the other works of Dickens. The BBC film keeps the main points of the text story in tact but havening determined the outcome introduces new elements into the first part of the story. .
The film begins with the cathedral choirmaster late for service. We are introduced to John Jasper who from the outset is wracked by an opium/laudanum induced dream that he has murdered his nephew Edwin Drood. Jasper apologises to the unmarried vicar Mr Crisparkle kindly Vicar who is cared for by his mother. Mr Crisparkle is sponsoring the arrival of Neville and Helena Landless twins and perhaps from Ceylon. While the book is unclear about their ethnic origin the BBC has them as indigenous which adds a contemporary aspect to an important part of the story.
The twenty year old Edwin Drood is a young man who consults his guardian over a long standing engagement arranged by their respective families with Rosa Bud aged 17 years . She resides in a residential establishment for young ladies in the city arranged by her guardian played by the great Alun Armstrong who also played a lawyer in the recent other BBC series about Victorian England Garrows Law.
When Edwin visits Rosa she is cold towards him and soon she is consulting her lawyer guardian that if she chooses not to marry it will affect her inheritance. She is reassured that her father would have only wanted her happiness and that if does not continue with the engagement she will still inherit when she is twenty one less says married beforehand when the inheritance becomes her dowry
When the Landless twins arrive in the city for their education, the Rev Crisparkle and his mother find communication hard going so they have the idea of inviting Rosa and Edwin to a social evening at which Rosa sings while Jasper plays he piano. When Edwin appears to press Rosa about a matter Neville intervenes and the two young men get off on the wrong foot. This is something which Jasper exploits using it to blacken the character of the new arrival. When his sister shares a room with Rosa at the residential education establishment she suggests that Jasper is in love with her and the talk about the nature of love While Rosa has doubts about the depth of her affect for Edwin she is horrified by the interest of Jasper. She tells Helena that she cannot stand the man who is her music teacher. Both newcomers appear more intelligent and thoughtful than their years and all those immediately around them with perhaps the exception being the lawyer.
As he reaches his 21st birthday, Rosa’s guardian gives him her mother’s ting which is for Rosa but only if he is certain she is for him, otherwise he must return the ring. When he is about to give the ring to Rosa she admits that she regards him as a brother rather than a lover and he willing accept the situation and the two become closer and more relaxed through their agreement. Jasper observers at a distance and misunderstands the situation.
It is time to introduce two further characters. Durdles (Stony) is a stonemason handyman at the Cathedral and her shares his lunch with a young scamp who appears to be a street kid living by his wits. He throws objects at Durdles and at anyone he catches and in one instance in the Cathedral grounds Jasper and the boy clash Jasper taking the boy by the throat.
Jasper persuades Durdles to show him around crypt of the Cathedral where there are a number of family tombs each gates with separate keys. Jasper has bribed Durdles to make the tour at night with drink and which appears to be spiked as soon after taking a couple of wigs Durdles passes out and Jasper takes one of the keys to explore one of the tomb areas. Durdles has said that while he had not encountered a ghost he has heard a great cry.
It is at this point that the BBC production takes on a life of its own. The young Edwin Drood disappears and Jasper claims the culprit must be the newcomer. The newcomer is question but with no body he is released into the care of the Rev Crisparkle. Jasper begins to pursue Rosa who makes it plain she is not interested but her rejection is ignored.
When the lawyer advises Jasper that the relationship between the young couple ended amicably he becomes distressed. A young lawyer/investigator arrives on the scene puzzled by the fact that although Drood’s father was supposed to have died in Egypt nine years before his pension has continued to be paid and he becomes to the city and questions the Mayor. Eventually the focus of attention centres on the crypt and the Rev Crisparkle and others accompany Durdle as they open the tomb of the wife of the Major where the missing key is till in its lock. The body is that of the former Mayoress. It is then that the young boy draws attention to another key, a smaller one which has been found among the possessions of Jasper. This leads to the Drood family vault and where the body inside appear to have only to have been there for no more than a year and not the nine that are recorded. It is then that the young Edwin Drood reappears have been out of the city after the break up of his engagement and has not heard of the claims that he is missing presumed murdered. So the mystery deepens.
We learn that Jasper is not Edwin’s uncle but his older half brother and that he was rejected by his father throughout his life. For a reason not explained their father had chosen to remain out of the country giving the family the official impression that he had died abroad. He has now returned to see his young son reach maturity and marry his childhood betrothed. Encountering Jasper in the Cathedral he rejects his son and Jasper in rage kills his father in the same way he subsequently has dreams killing his younger brother. He has been haunted by his action since. He commits suicide by falling from a position high up in the cathedral to its floor. The film ends with Neville going off on an expedition abroad. I am not sure if Edwin accompanies him but the two have become friends. Helena has developed an understanding with the Rev Crisparkle much to the delight of his mother and Rosa. It will be interesting to learn how the Dickensian fans greet this latest of several attempts to finish the novel.
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