The horror stories Pip was told throughout his childhood are threaded into the texture of the novel through various images, and at this point in the book, Miss Havisham represents the witch, but she is also fulfilling the role of the fairy Godmother.
Another witchlike character in the book is Mrs. Joe.
Estella is another character ‘type’ that you would find in a fairy tale.
She comes across as the princess of the story.
When we first meet Estella she comes across as mean, and cold hearted which is due to being brought up by Miss Havisham. As we get further into the story we begin too fell sorry for Estella, as she has lived all her life with a ‘witch’. She now seems to be the doomed princess; however, in chapter 29, it seems as if Estella will no lunge be the doomed princess.
”… in short, do all the shining deeds of the young Knight of romance, and marry the princess.”
This chapter shows that Pip believes he can rescue Estella from Miss Havisham and live a happy life with her.
Orlick and Magwitch represent the ogre type character that you would find in a fairy tale.
In chapter fifteen we learn how Pip feels that Orlick dislikes him fro some unknown reason. “…Drew out a red-hot bar, made at me with it as if he were going to run it through my body,”
In Great Expectations, Joe comes across as the loyal, servant type character that will always be faithful.
In chapter thirteen, Joe invents a tale to put Mrs.Joe in a good mood, and he is also and he does not want her to fell left out.
Joe is the type of character that will put others before himself as he is always aiming to please.
Great Expectations contains many fairytale like themes, such as Pip receiving riches when he reaches a certain age.
Pip believes that Miss Havisham has given his riches to him, however later on in his life he realises that they actually came from Magwitch, the escaped convict that he helped.
The themes in this part of the book are the thought of a poor boy/person becoming rich and that helping others or the less fortunate you will be repaid in the future when you least expect it. Another theme in this part of the book could be the thought of there being lots of surprises and coincidences.
Pip falling in love with Estella is also another theme in Great Expectations.
This gives the impression that Pip has fallen in love with someone above and someone that it’s almost impossible for him to get with.
Miss Havisham purposely makes Pip fall in love with Estella so that she can break his heart and make him feel worthless
The first impressions of Wemick and Jaggers are also a theme in Great Expectations.
They are both made out to be mean, hard hearted people, but as we read more into the book, we soon learn that they are ordinary human beings and that they do take into consideration the thoughts of others.
The theme in this part of the book is the idea that looks can be deceiving and you shouldn’t always judge from first impressions.
Great Expectations is narrated by Pip himself as an adult looking back on life.
The book takes us through all the stages of Pip’s life, and maybe Dickens naming him Pip was supposed to be ironic, because a pip is something that grows over time and turns into something beautiful, and we get to see Pip growing and flourishing.
We are told of his everyday encounters and so by the time he has grown up, it’s almost as if you have become attached to him.
At the beginning of the book, Pip seems to spend a lot of time daydreaming and reminiscing, and it’s almost as if he was wishing he could travel back in time and change things.
Over time, we see how Pip’s expectations change. In the beginning, Pip has no expectations of life, as he wishes to do is work alongside Joe the Blacksmith.
Never the less, this all changed when he met Miss Havisham. Pip believed that he would marry Estella and become heir to Miss Havisham’s money. Although, at this point in the book, Pip did not marry Estella, he still believed that he had received her riches and it was not until he had moved and settled into the city that he learnt his riches came from Magwitch.
Throughout the book, we see Pip move from the sinister country his hometown where he had lived most his life, to the city, a dangerous rough and ready hard place to live in.
Great Expectations shows that not all stories have a need to have a happy ending to make it a good book.
Although Pip doesn’t obtain what he really wanted he gains wisdom through his suffering.
In the Charles Dickens book of Great Expectations, Pip and Estella do not get together and they both go their separate ways, however Dickens’s friend Wilkie Collins thought that Great Expectations should have a happy ending and so he helped him to write a new version of the ending in which Pip and Estella get together.
Pip and Estella also get together in the 1948 film version of Great Expectations.
The ways in which I think Great Expectations resembles are fairy tale are due to, the moral, themes, characteristics and names of the characters, such as Jaggers, - hard sounding name, which fits in with his character.
Conversely, there are ways in which it doesn’t resemble a fairy tale, for instance the length and structure of the novel and it has been written in a more sophisticated manner than a fairy tale would be.