Great Expectations Lesson Plan - Lesson Plan

eNotes Lesson Plan

Introductory Lecture and Objectives

Great Expectations eNotes Lesson Plan content

Introductory Lecture

Great Expectations is among the last novels written by Charles Dickens, the most famous and widely read English author of the Victorian era (1837–1901). Dickens released the novel as a series of weekly segments of two chapters each, and he considered the work to be among his best. At the time of Great Expectations’ serial publication in 1860–1861, Dickens’s writing already drew a large popular following. Readers eagerly awaited the story’s suspenseful installments published in the author’s own literary magazine, All the Year Round, and in Harper’s Weekly, an American magazine.

The novel is narrated by the character Pip and tells the story of his coming of age. A young orphan, Pip seeks to become a gentleman to win the heart of the beautiful but cold-hearted Estella. With the help of a surprise fortune bestowed by a mysterious benefactor, Pip travels from his country home to London, distancing himself from the coarse upbringing of which Estella has made him ashamed.

The original ending of Great Expectations gives Pip and Estella a subdued final meeting that leaves no possibility of future romance between them. After the novel’s initial serial publication, Dickens revised the ending on the advice of his friend, novelist Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who felt it would be a disappointment for readers. The second ending, which appears in modern editions of the novel, is ambiguously hopeful about a romantic future for a humbled Pip and a softened Estella. Some scholars argue that the original conclusion remains truer to the novel’s theme of hopes raised and then disappointed; critics who like the revised ending find it more powerfully written. Dickens preferred his revision, stating in a letter, “I have put in as pretty a little piece of writing as I could, and I have no doubt that the story will be more acceptable through the alteration.”

The vivid characters of Great Expectations have helped it endure as one of the most popular novels of a still-beloved author. Dickens deftly conveys Pip’s guilt and yearning, Joe’s jolly fidelity, Estella’s brittle contempt, Mr. Jaggers’s oppressive air of incrimination, and Wemmick’s two faces. Perhaps the most memorable character in the novel is the reclusive Miss Havisham, who invites working-class Pip to her grand but decaying home for her idle entertainment. Spite has desecrated Miss Havisham’s soul, and her rotting surroundings echo her internal ruin. A living ghost in a yellowing wedding dress, Miss Havisham represents a lasting literary portrait of the perils of bitterness.

In addition to striking characters and a page-turning narrative, Dickens uses Pip’s story to explore themes that were important to him throughout his life. As a child, Dickens worked in a factory and lived on his own for a brief period while his father was confined in a debtors’ prison. In his adulthood as a successful writer, he claimed to still suffer nightmares of childhood hunger and loneliness. Memories of these struggles informed his social activism and writing on the issues of his time. Among the author’s favorite causes was reforming prisons and schools; he conveys the need for both in Pip’s story. These themes and the others of Great Expectations—wealth and social mobility, crime and punishment, loyalty, love, forgiveness, and the fears and dreams of childhood—are universal to human society. Great Expectations achieves its status as an enduring classic thanks to Dickens’s ability to embed these deeply felt social concerns into a story that is at turns moving, comic, and riveting in its gloomy suspense.


1. Describe Pip’s friendships with Joe, Herbert, Wemmick, and Magwitch.

2. Identify the ways conscience and shame influence Pip’s decisions.

3. Explain the significance of crime and punishment in Pip’s narrative.

4. Describe Miss Havisham and her house.

5. Identify Miss Havisham’s influence on Estella.

6. Compare the influence of unrequited love on the lives of Pip and Miss Havisham.

7. Explain how Miss Havisham, Magwitch, and Pip are morally redeemed.

8. Describe the novel’s settings and their significance in Pip’s moral journey.

9. Describe the novel’s elements of suspense, and explain how they are resolved.

Instructional Focus: Teaching With an eNotes Lesson Plan


Student Lesson Guide



• Before Lesson Guide pages are assigned, questions may be selected from them to use as short quizzes to assess reading...

(The entire section is 508 words.)

Essay and Discussion Questions

1. When Estella comes to London and Pip drops her at Richmond, he reflects, “And still I stood looking at the house, thinking how happy I should be if I lived there with her, and knowing that I never was happy with her, but always miserable.” How can Pip both imagine that Estella will make him happy and know that she will not?

2. Miss Havisham tells Pip that real love is “blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the whole world, giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter.” Does her definition of love apply to Pip’s devotion to Estella? Why or why not?

3. Consider the character of...

(The entire section is 601 words.)

Chapters 1–5


ague: a malarial fever marked by chills, fever, and sweating that recur at regular intervals

battery: a strategic grouping of military weaponry

blithe: happy, lighthearted

bolting: eating quickly or without chewing

confounded: confused, perplexed

connubial: relating to marriage

contumaciously: rebelliously

Crusaders: participants in any of the military expeditions undertaken by Christian powers in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries to win the Holy Land from Muslims

disconsolately: unhappily

gibbet: an upright post with a projecting arm for hanging the bodies of executed criminals as a warning

imbruing: staining,...

(The entire section is 1204 words.)

Chapters 6–10


ablutions: bathing rituals

aversion: a feeling of strong dislike for something and a desire to avoid it

capricious: impulsive; unpredictable

discomfited: thwarted

dregs: last remaining parts

epistle: a letter

exonerated: cleared from accusation or blame

felicitous: delightful

genteel: relating to the gentry or upper class; refined, free from vulgarity

insolently: insultingly contemptuous in speech or conduct

metaphysics: a division of philosophy that is concerned with the fundamental nature of reality and being

ophthalmic: relating to the eye

penitence: regret for sins or faults

pilfering: stealing a small...

(The entire section is 1157 words.)

Chapters 11–15


augur: to predict from signs or omens

benefactor: one that gives a benefit, usually money or a gift

construe: to interpret in a specified way

countenance: face; facial expression

denuded: stripped of covering or surface layers

depreciatory: tending to lower in esteem

dexterous: skillful with the hands


ghastly: horrible to the senses; frightening

humbug: a willfully false, deceptive, or insincere person

indentures: a contract binding one person to work for another for a given period of time

inefficacy: lack of power to produce a desired...

(The entire section is 1139 words.)

Chapters 16–20


audacious: recklessly bold

clemency: mercy; leniency in moderating the severity of punishment

collation: a light meal

conciliate: to gain goodwill by acts that encourage good feeling

corroborated: supported with evidence or authority; made more certain

divest: to remove from someone a position, a right, or a possession; to strip something of a particular quality

encumber: to burden; to hinder

exultant: filled with or expressing great joy or triumph

gallows: a frame from which criminals are hanged

latent: present and capable of emerging or developing but not now visible, obvious, or active

pervading: spreading or diffusing...

(The entire section is 1156 words.)

Chapters 21–25


asseverates: affirms or declares positively or earnestly

avaricious: greedy for wealth

baronetcy: the rank of a baronet

bereavements: losses, especially of loved ones

billeted: assigned lodging (usually used for soldiers)

cupidity: desire for wealth; greed

egress: a place or means of going out; an exit

frowsy: musty; stale

guillotine: a machine for beheading by means of a heavy blade that slides down in vertical guides

inveigled: enticed

inveterate: habitual; long established and unlikely to change

languor: weakness or weariness of body or mind

magnanimous: generous in feeling or conduct

mitre: a hat worn by...

(The entire section is 1126 words.)

Chapters 26–30


bludgeon: a short stick that usually has one thick or loaded end and is used as a weapon

capacious: able to hold much

chaff: grain husks separated from the grain

choleric: excessively angry; irate

dispositions: natural tendencies; temperaments

gaoler: British jailer

gird: to prepare for action

goaded: urged or stimulated by some mental pain or annoyance

laving: washing

miscreant: one who behaves criminally or viciously

obtuseness: lacking sharpness or quickness of sensibility or intellect

pretences (pretenses): claims made or implied, especially ones not supported by fact

rankled: caused...

(The entire section is 1114 words.)

Chapters 31–35


chary: hesitant; cautious

cogent: convincing

conflagration: blazing fire

droll: having a humorous, whimsical, or odd quality

ecclesiastical: of or relating to a church

edifying: providing moral instruction or improvement

fetters: chains or shackles for the feet

hardihood: boldness

infallible: incapable of error

interment: burying a body in the earth or in a tomb

jocose: joking; playful

languidly: weakly; sluggishly

magnates: persons of rank, power, influence, or distinction

malignity: ill will; viciousness

meritorious: deserving of honor or esteem

obsequious: showing a fawning attentiveness


(The entire section is 1168 words.)

Chapters 36–40


auspicious: suggesting future success or fortune

blight: something that impairs or destroys

cestus: a woman’s belt

enthralling: fascinating, spellbinding

expatriated: banished from one’s country

frivolity: the state or quality of being unserious

impudence: marked by contemptuous boldness and disrespect

ingenuity: skill at inventing; cleverness

jorum: a large drinking vessel

pannikins: British small pans or cups

physiognomy: facial features, especially those which are said to reveal inner qualities

placid: serene; calm

powder-mill: a mill for making gunpowder

prolix: marked by or...

(The entire section is 1206 words.)

Chapters 41–45


abyss: an immeasurably deep gulf or great space

conjectures: conclusions drawn from appearances or indications

despotic: tyrannical; in the manner of a ruler exercising absolute power

doleful: causing grief

fealty: loyalty, especially to a king or lord

feign: to pretend

haggard: having a worn or emaciated appearance

hob: a level place at the back or side of a fireplace on which pots and pans may be kept warm

incredulous: skeptical; disbelieving

incursion: a sudden entrance or invasion

staving: keeping something away; repelling

stocks: a device for publicly punishing offenders consisting of a wooden frame with holes in which...

(The entire section is 921 words.)

Chapters 46–50


animosity: hostility

antipodes: the place on the earth directly opposite to one’s own place

barbed: furnished with a point, such as on an arrow or a fishhook, with a sharp projection extending backward to prevent easy removal

bay window: a window that projects out from the wall in which it is set in a rectangular or polygonal form

boatswain: a naval warrant officer in charge of the hull of a ship

bow window: a window that curves out from the wall in which it is set

chandler: a retail dealer in provisions, supplies, or groceries

confute: to overwhelm in argument

consigned: given over to another’s care

depose: to testify to under...

(The entire section is 849 words.)

Chapters 51–55


abeyance: temporary inactivity

ascertain: to make certain, exact, or precise

complied: conformed; obeyed

exordium: a beginning or introduction especially to a discourse or composition

gunwale: the upper edge of a boat’s sides

irresolute: undecided, uncertain, vacillating

magisterially: authoritatively; domineeringly

obdurate: hardened in feelings

opportune: occurring at an appropriate time

pollards: trees pruned to promote growth on top

portentous: overstated, pompous

proffered: presented for acceptance; offered

querulous: expressing complaint

recompense: compensation; payback


(The entire section is 937 words.)

Chapters 56–59


allotted: assigned as a portion

bilious: marked by or suffering from liver dysfunction and especially excessive secretion of bile

contrite: feeling or showing remorse for a sin or shortcoming

debilitating: weakening

indelible: that cannot be removed, washed away, or erased

indite: to compose; to write

interminable: having or seeming to have no end

malefactors: criminals

nigher: nearer

nosegays: small, fragrant bouquets of flowers

orthographical: relating to the usage of letters and spelling

propensities: intense natural tendencies

proscribed: condemned, prohibited

sauntered: walked in a slow, relaxed...

(The entire section is 931 words.)

Multiple-Choice Test and Answer Key

1. Whom does young Pip meet in the churchyard?

A. a convict

B. a vicar

C. Estella

D. a group of soldiers

E. Trabb’s boy

2. Joe Gargery embodies the traits of

A. intellect and learning.

B. bitterness and regret.

C. wealth and fortune.

D. coldness and contempt.

E. humility and friendliness.

3. Pip feels his sister’s treatment of him is

A. generous and...

(The entire section is 821 words.)

Essay Exam Questions With Answers

1. Discuss Pip’s friendships with Joe, Herbert, and Magwitch. What is the nature of each relationship, and how does it influence Pip? Support your discussion with examples from the novel.

Dickens portrays several ideas of friendship in Pip’s coming-of-age tale. Joe’s early example of loyalty and humility forms Pip’s moral conscience. Pip and Herbert are true peers, supporting each other through trials and mistakes in London. Magwitch’s initially unwelcome love gives Pip an opportunity to grow into an adult with empathy, as he moves from repulsion to genuine care for his unlikely benefactor.

Joe is part father and part friend to Pip; he bestows on young Pip a simple, unconditional love. Joe...

(The entire section is 4051 words.)