远大前程读后感

Plot summary: Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens

Philip Pirrip, who is known as Pip because, not surprisingly, he finds it difficult to pronounce his name, has a terrifying childhood experience in a graveyard on the Kent marshes. A prisoner, who has escaped from a nearby prison ship, grabs hold of Pip and demands that he fetch food and a file to remove his manacles.

Pip is an orphan, and he lives with his older sister and her husband, Joe Gargery, a village blacksmith. Soldiers come to the forge to repair some manacles, and then set off to search for the convict, whose name is Abel Magwitch. The latter allows himself to be caught, because the same fate then awaits his fellow escapee, the hated Compeyson.

Pip is invited to Satis House, ostensibly to be the playmate of Estella, who is the ward of Miss Havisham, a recluse who, many years previously, had been jilted at the altar. For Miss Havisham, time stood still on that day, so the clocks are never wound, the wedding cake stands where it always did, now covered in cobwebs, and she still wears her wedding dress. She has sworn to revenge herself on men, and she is bringing Estella up to think the same way.

However, Pip falls in love with Estella, and at Satis House he also meets a boy of his own age who is playing in the grounds. This is Herbert Pocket.

Jaggers, who is Miss Havisham's lawyer, comes to the forge, where Pip is apprenticed to Joe, to tell Pip that he has "great expectations" that will come to him from an unknown benefactor, whom Pip assumes must be Miss Havisham.

Joe releases Pip from his apprenticeship and he travels to London, where he is befriended by Wemmick, Jaggers's clerk, and Herbert Pocket. Meanwhile, his sister, Mrs Joe, is brutally murdered at the forge.

Pip has a hard time of it in London, including financial difficulties caused by his belief in those "great expectations" coming to fruition, and the knowledge that Estella has rejected him in favour of Bentley Drummle. The worst shock is the reappearance of Magwitch, who has escaped from the penal colony in Australia to which he had been transported. Magwitch tells him that it is he, and not Miss Havisham, who is his mysterious benefactor. However, this horrifies the somewhat snobbish Pip, and he determines to help Magwitch to get out of the country.

Returning to Satis House, Pip asks Miss Havisham for help to set Herbert Pocket up in business. However, she gets too close to the open fire and her dress catches light. Pip is able to douse the flames, but Miss Havisham dies from her burns. Before she does so, she implores Pip's forgiveness and gives him clues that Estella is the daughter of Magwitch and Jaggers's housekeeper.

Pip gets a mysterious message that calls him back to the Kent marshes. There he is nearly killed by Orlick, who works with Joe and who is revealed to be the murderer of Mrs Joe. Pip is rescued by Herbert.