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GCSE · English Literature

GE.T-GreatExpectations Literature: Great Expectations (Charles Dickens)

AQA 8702 · Calculators not allowed · about 150 minutes

Total Marks

Name: _______________________________ Date: ____ / ____ / ______

Answer ALL questions. Show all your working.

Three short extracts from Great Expectations (Charles Dickens, first published 1860 to 1861)

Charles Dickens, Great Expectations. First published in serial form in All the Year Round, 1860 to 1861. Public domain in the UK (Dickens died in 1870).

Extract A - Chapter 8 (Estella and Pip play cards together at Satis House)

"He calls the knaves, Jacks, this boy!" said Estella with disdain, before our first game was out. "And what coarse hands he has! And what thick boots!"

I had never thought of being ashamed of my hands before; but I began to consider them a very indifferent pair. Her contempt for me was so strong, that it became infectious, and I caught it.

Extract B - Chapter 1 (Pip meets the escaped convict Magwitch among the graves on the marshes)

"Hold your noise!" cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from among the graves at the side of the church porch. "Keep still, you little devil, or I'll cut your throat!"

A fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head.

Extract C - Chapter 8 (Pip's first sight of Miss Havisham in her room at Satis House)

I saw that everything within my view which ought to be white, had been white long ago, and had lost its lustre, and was faded and yellow. I saw that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress, and like the flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes.

List four facts we learn about Pip's situation and family at the start of the novel.

(Total for Question 1 is 4 marks)

Using Extract A, identify two words or phrases Dickens uses to show Estella's scorn for Pip, and briefly explain what each suggests about her character.

(Total for Question 2 is 4 marks)

Explain how Dickens presents Magwitch in the churchyard scene in Extract B and in the opening chapters of the novel.

(Total for Question 3 is 6 marks)

Explain how Dickens presents Miss Havisham's character when Pip first meets her, using Extract C and Chapter 8 more broadly.

(Total for Question 4 is 6 marks)

Explain how Dickens presents Estella as cold and unattainable across the novel.

(Total for Question 5 is 8 marks)

Explain how Dickens presents ideas about social class and ambition through Pip's shame about his hands and boots and his wish to become a gentleman.

(Total for Question 6 is 8 marks)

Analyse how Dickens uses setting, particularly the marshes and Satis House, to create atmosphere and reflect the novel's themes.

(Total for Question 7 is 8 marks)

Analyse how Dickens presents the changing relationship between Pip and Joe across the novel.

(Total for Question 8 is 10 marks)

Analyse how Dickens presents guilt and conscience through Pip's first-person narration.

(Total for Question 9 is 10 marks)

Write about how Dickens presents the theme of ambition and social class across the novel.

(Total for Question 10 is 12 marks)

Write about how Dickens presents Magwitch as both a frightening and a sympathetic character across the novel.

(Total for Question 11 is 12 marks)

Write about how Dickens creates a Gothic, unsettling atmosphere in his presentation of Miss Havisham and Satis House, and comment on why Victorian readers may have found this particularly effective.

(Total for Question 12 is 15 marks)

Write about how Dickens presents the theme of guilt through Pip's relationship with Magwitch, and comment on the significance of the novel's settings on the Kent marshes and in London.

(Total for Question 13 is 15 marks)

Write about the narrative significance of the novel's ending, and comment on why this ending would have been especially notable to the novel's original 1860s serial readers.

(Total for Question 14 is 15 marks)

'Great Expectations shows that true worth has nothing to do with social class.'

Using this statement as a starting point, write about how far you agree, referring to the novel as a whole.

(Total for Question 15 is 20 marks)

Starting with Extract C, in which Pip first sees Miss Havisham, write about how Dickens presents ideas about time, decay and the past across the novel as a whole, and evaluate how far a modern reader might respond differently to Miss Havisham than a reader in the 1860s.

In your response you should discuss:
- how Dickens presents time and decay in this extract and across the novel
- the methods Dickens uses to build his presentation of Miss Havisham
- how far a modern reader's response might differ from a reader in the 1860s

(Total for Question 16 is 30 marks)

Mark scheme · GE.T-GreatExpectations Literature: Great Expectations (Charles Dickens)

Question 1

B1 he is an orphan, raised "by hand" by his older sister, Mrs Joe Gargery (oe)
B1 he lives with his sister and her husband, the kind blacksmith Joe Gargery
B1 he meets and is threatened by the escaped convict Magwitch among the graves on the marshes, and is forced to steal food and a file for him
B1 any other valid fact, e.g. his parents and several infant siblings are already dead, shown by the gravestones he studies / he lives in a marsh village in Kent / he is later summoned to play at Miss Havisham's house, Satis House
Answer: Any four of: Pip is an orphan raised "by hand" by his short-tempered older sister; he lives with his sister and her kind husband, the blacksmith Joe Gargery; he meets and is threatened by the escaped convict Magwitch in the marshland churchyard; he is forced to steal food and a file to help Magwitch; his parents and several infant siblings are already dead, shown by the gravestones he studies; he is later summoned to play at Miss Havisham's house, Satis House.

Question 2

B1 identifies a valid quotation showing scorn, e.g. "with disdain"
B1 explains what it suggests (that Estella feels instinctive superiority over Pip, oe)
B1 identifies a second, different valid quotation, e.g. "coarse hands", "thick boots", or "contempt for me was so strong"
B1 explains what it suggests (that she judges Pip by physical signs of his working-class background, or that her contempt is deliberate and powerful enough to make him ashamed, oe)
Answer: e.g. "with disdain" suggests Estella feels immediate, instinctive superiority over Pip; "coarse hands" and "thick boots" show she judges him by physical signs of his working-class background, and that her contempt is so strong it makes Pip ashamed of himself.

Question 3

Level 3 (5-6): Clear, relevant explanation: identifies specific details of Magwitch's early presentation (his violent threats, his animalistic and wretched appearance, the great iron on his leg) and explains a clear effect, supported by reference to Extract B and the text.
Level 2 (3-4): Some explanation: identifies a relevant detail about Magwitch's early presentation with a generally appropriate comment, with some reference to the text.
Level 1 (1-2): Simple, limited explanation: makes a simple or general comment about Magwitch with little development or textual reference.
Indicative content:
- Magwitch is introduced through violent, threatening dialogue ("Keep still, you little devil, or I'll cut your throat!"), immediately presenting him as dangerous
- his physical description, "all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg", marks him out clearly as an escaped convict and gives the reader an unmistakable sense of threat
- details such as his lack of a hat, his broken shoes and the rag tied round his head hint at real suffering and desperation beneath the frightening surface
- Dickens uses Pip's frightened, child's-eye narration to present Magwitch as a fearsome figure, while these small ragged details plant the first seeds of the sympathy the adult narrator later encourages the reader to feel

Question 4

Level 3 (5-6): Clear, relevant explanation: identifies specific details of Miss Havisham's early presentation (the faded, yellowed white of her surroundings, her withered appearance, her sunken eyes) and explains a clear effect, supported by reference to Extract C.
Level 2 (3-4): Some explanation: identifies a relevant detail about Miss Havisham's early presentation with a generally appropriate comment, with some reference to the text.
Level 1 (1-2): Simple, limited explanation: makes a simple or general comment about Miss Havisham with little development or textual reference.
Indicative content:
- the description of everything that "ought to be white" as instead "faded and yellow" presents Miss Havisham's world, and by extension her, as decayed and arrested in time
- the image of the bride "withered like the dress" links her physical appearance directly to the ruin of the wedding preparations, suggesting she has not moved on emotionally since being jilted
- her "sunken eyes" being the only remaining "brightness" suggests a person reduced almost to a shell, kept alive only by her obsession with the past
- Dickens uses Pip's bewildered first-person narration to present her as an unsettling, almost supernatural figure to a young child encountering her for the first time

Question 5

Level 4 (7-8): Clear, well-supported explanation: analyses how Dickens presents Estella's coldness through her dialogue, her deliberate upbringing by Miss Havisham, and the dramatic irony of her later revealed parentage, with well-chosen textual reference.
Level 3 (5-6): Clear explanation: explains at least two relevant methods with relevant textual reference.
Level 2 (3-4): Some explanation: identifies one relevant method with some textual reference.
Level 1 (1-2): Simple, limited explanation: makes a simple or general comment with little development.
Indicative content:
- Estella's contemptuous dialogue towards Pip ("coarse hands", "thick boots") presents her coldness as instinctive and cutting from her very first appearance
- Miss Havisham is later shown to have deliberately raised Estella to have no heart for men, revealing that her coldness is a taught weapon rather than a natural flaw
- Estella repeatedly warns Pip directly that she cannot love him, showing a kind of honesty within her coldness that makes her a complex rather than simply cruel figure
- the dramatic irony of Estella's true parentage, as Magwitch's daughter, complicates the class-based judgement she makes of Pip in Extract A, since her own origins are far from the refined background she is raised to display
- by the novel's end, her own suffering in an unhappy marriage suggests some capacity for feeling has developed, softening the earlier presentation of total coldness

Question 6

Level 4 (7-8): Clear, well-supported explanation: analyses how Pip's shame at Satis House develops into a wider ambition to rise in class, and how this ambition is undercut by the true source of his fortune, with well-chosen textual reference and clear understanding of context.
Level 3 (5-6): Clear explanation: explains how Pip's shame and ambition are connected, with relevant textual reference and some understanding of context.
Level 2 (3-4): Some explanation: identifies a relevant point about Pip's shame or ambition with some textual reference.
Level 1 (1-2): Simple, limited explanation: makes a simple or general comment with little development.
Indicative content:
- Estella's mockery of Pip's "coarse hands" and "thick boots" in Extract A directly triggers his first feelings of shame about his working-class background
- Pip's growing embarrassment about Joe's trade and manners once he begins to associate with Satis House shows ambition beginning to distort his sense of loyalty and gratitude
- the anonymous funding of Pip's "great expectations" allows him to abandon the forge and become an idle London gentleman, presenting gentility as something that can be bought rather than earned
- the eventual revelation that Pip's fortune comes from Magwitch, a convict, rather than Miss Havisham, undercuts the class assumptions on which Pip has built his ambitions
- Dickens uses Joe's quiet dignity, unaffected by lack of wealth or education, to suggest that true worth is unrelated to social class or manners, reflecting Victorian debates about the meaning of being a true "gentleman"

Question 7

Level 4 (7-8): Convincing, well-supported analysis: analyses more than one setting (the marshes and Satis House) and their combined effect on atmosphere and theme, with precise reference and subject terminology.
Level 3 (5-6): Clear analysis: explains how at least one setting creates atmosphere and reflects theme, with relevant reference.
Level 2 (3-4): Some analysis: identifies a relevant feature of a setting with a generally appropriate comment.
Level 1 (1-2): Simple, limited analysis: makes a simple or general comment on setting with little development.
Indicative content:
- the bleak, mist-covered marshes, with their gibbet and scattered graves, establish an atmosphere of danger and mortality from the opening chapter
- the marshes are closely associated with Pip's honest, humble early life with Joe, and with the guilt and fear surrounding his encounter with Magwitch
- Satis House, decayed and frozen at "twenty to nine", reflects Miss Havisham's arrested emotional state and gives the setting a Gothic, unsettling quality
- the contrast between the marshes' natural bleakness and Satis House's man-made decay reflects a wider contrast in the novel between honest hardship and the false glamour of inherited wealth
- key emotional turning points, such as Magwitch's recapture and Pip's early humiliation by Estella, are staged in these settings, so that place and theme are closely bound together throughout the novel

Question 8

Level 4 (9-10): Convincing, well-structured analysis: tracks the relationship from early warmth through Pip's growing shame to eventual reconciliation, with judicious textual reference and confident subject terminology.
Level 3 (6-8): Clear analysis: explains at least two stages of the relationship with relevant textual reference.
Level 2 (3-5): Some analysis: identifies a relevant stage of the relationship with some textual reference.
Level 1 (1-2): Simple, limited analysis: makes a simple, undeveloped point about Pip and Joe with little textual reference.
Indicative content:
- in the early chapters, Joe is presented as a source of warmth, loyalty and safety for Pip, shown through their private jokes and Joe's gentle protection of Pip from Mrs Joe's temper
- once Pip begins to associate with Satis House, he grows ashamed of Joe's trade and manners, and Dickens shows this shift through Pip's changing internal narration rather than any change in Joe himself
- when Pip becomes a gentleman in London, his embarrassment about Joe's visit, and his cold, distant treatment of him, present the corrupting effect of Pip's new ambitions at its most damaging
- Joe's continued kindness and lack of resentment, even as Pip drifts away and later falls into debt and illness, present him as a figure of constant, unconditional loyalty against which Pip's behaviour can be judged
- the eventual reconciliation between Pip and Joe, and Pip's shame at how he behaved, allows Dickens to present growth and redemption as possible once ambition is tempered by self-knowledge

Question 9

Level 4 (9-10): Convincing, well-structured analysis: tracks guilt from Pip's childhood theft through his treatment of Joe and Biddy to his eventual loyalty to Magwitch, with judicious textual reference and confident subject terminology.
Level 3 (6-8): Clear analysis: explains at least two stages or examples of guilt with relevant textual reference.
Level 2 (3-5): Some analysis: identifies a relevant example of guilt with some textual reference.
Level 1 (1-2): Simple, limited analysis: makes a simple, undeveloped point about guilt with little textual reference.
Indicative content:
- Pip's theft of food and a file for Magwitch establishes guilt as a defining feature of his character from early childhood, shown through his fear of discovery and his belief that the very cattle on the marsh are accusing him
- Dickens uses the retrospective, adult narrator to comment critically on his younger self's snobbery and ingratitude, creating a doubled perspective in which guilt is both experienced by young Pip and judged by the older narrating Pip
- guilt over his treatment of Joe and Biddy motivates several of Pip's later actions, including his secret, anonymous funding of Herbert Pocket's career, suggesting conscience as a quiet, ongoing corrective force beneath his ambition
- the return of Magwitch forces Pip to confront the guilt-laden origins of his fortune directly, and his growing loyalty and tenderness towards Magwitch in the later chapters shows conscience finally overriding the class-based shame he once felt
- the first-person narrative form allows the reader privileged access to Pip's private guilt in a way that a more detached, third-person narrative could not achieve

Question 10

Level 4 (10-12): Convincing, well-structured response: sustained analysis of how ambition and social class are presented through several characters/methods across the whole novel, with judicious quotation and confident subject terminology.
Level 3 (7-9): Clear response: explains how ambition and social class are presented through at least two characters/methods, with relevant quotation.
Level 2 (4-6): Some response: identifies relevant moments relating to ambition and social class with some supporting quotation.
Level 1 (1-3): Simple, limited response: makes a simple, undeveloped point about ambition and social class with little or no quotation.
Indicative content:
- Pip's shame about his coarse hands and thick boots, triggered by Estella's mockery, marks the beginning of an ambition to rise above his working-class origins
- the mysterious arrival of his "great expectations" allows Pip to abandon Joe's forge for a life of idle gentility in London, presenting social advancement as something that can be bought rather than earned through virtue
- Pip's increasingly cold treatment of Joe and Biddy as a young gentleman shows ambition actively damaging his most loyal relationships
- the revelation that his fortune comes from Magwitch, a convict rather than the aristocratic Miss Havisham, structurally undermines the class assumptions on which Pip's ambitions were built
- by contrast, Joe's quiet dignity and Biddy's contentment without wealth or status suggest Dickens's own critique of a society that measures worth by class rather than character
- Pip's later humility, gratitude towards Magwitch and reconciliation with Joe present ambition as something that can ultimately be outgrown once its costs are properly understood

Question 11

Level 4 (10-12): Convincing, well-structured response: sustained analysis of the shift from fear to sympathy in Magwitch's presentation through several methods, with judicious quotation and confident subject terminology.
Level 3 (7-9): Clear response: explains Magwitch's presentation through at least two methods, with relevant quotation.
Level 2 (4-6): Some response: identifies relevant moments relating to Magwitch with some supporting quotation.
Level 1 (1-3): Simple, limited response: makes a simple, undeveloped point about Magwitch with little or no quotation.
Indicative content:
- Magwitch's violent threats and wretched, convict appearance in the marshland churchyard (Extract B) establish him as an object of fear from Pip's earliest encounter
- small early details, such as his broken shoes, missing hat and improvised rag headwear, hint at real suffering and desperation that complicate the purely frightening first impression
- his transportation and harsh treatment by the legal system, revealed later in the novel, invite the reader to reconsider him as a victim of an unforgiving penal system as much as a criminal
- his secret, devoted funding of Pip's fortune, and the personal risk he takes in returning illegally to England to see Pip, present him as capable of deep loyalty and love
- Pip's own growing tenderness towards Magwitch in the later chapters, once he learns the truth of his devotion, structurally guides the reader's sympathy to shift alongside Pip's, from fear towards compassion

Question 12

Level 4 (12-15): Convincing, critical response: sustained, perceptive analysis of Gothic method across Miss Havisham's presentation with judicious quotation and confident terminology; contextual point about Victorian readers integrated fully into the argument.
Level 3 (8-11): Clear, relevant response: explains Gothic method through several details with relevant quotation; makes a clear, appropriate contextual point.
Level 2 (4-7): Some, generic response: identifies relevant Gothic details with some quotation; makes a generic or partly relevant contextual comment.
Level 1 (1-3): Simple, limited response: makes a simple, undeveloped point with little or no quotation; little or no contextual comment.
Indicative content:
- the description of the wedding dress as "faded and yellow" and the bride figure as "withered" presents Miss Havisham's body itself as part of the house's decay, blurring the line between person and setting
- the stopped clocks, all fixed at "twenty to nine", create an uncanny sense of time frozen at the moment of trauma, a recognisably Gothic device used to unsettle the reader
- the wider description of Satis House, with its darkness, cobwebs and rotting wedding feast, builds a Gothic atmosphere of death-in-life around a house that has not moved forward since Miss Havisham's jilting
- Pip's frightened, uncomprehending child's-eye narration heightens the unsettling effect for the reader, who shares his confusion and fear on first encountering Miss Havisham
- context: Great Expectations was first published as a weekly serial in 1860 to 1861, when Gothic and sensation fiction were highly popular with Victorian magazine readers, so an unsettling, mysterious figure like Miss Havisham, revealed gradually across instalments, would have been a compelling device to keep readers buying each new part
- context: Victorian anxieties about unmarried women, inheritance and social respectability give Miss Havisham's arrested, decaying existence a further layer of contemporary resonance beyond its Gothic surface

Question 13

Level 4 (12-15): Convincing, critical response: sustained, perceptive analysis of guilt across Pip's relationship with Magwitch, with judicious quotation and confident terminology; contextual point about setting integrated fully.
Level 3 (8-11): Clear, relevant response: explains guilt through at least two moments/methods, with relevant quotation and a clear contextual point.
Level 2 (4-7): Some, generic response: identifies relevant moments relating to guilt with some quotation; makes a generic or partly relevant contextual comment.
Level 1 (1-3): Simple, limited response: makes a simple, undeveloped point with little or no quotation; little or no contextual comment.
Indicative content:
- Pip's theft of food and a file for Magwitch as a frightened child establishes an early, direct connection between Magwitch and guilt that lasts throughout the novel
- Pip's later shame at his own snobbish reaction to Magwitch's return, once he learns the convict is his true benefactor, extends this guilt into an adult reckoning with how he has judged people by class rather than character
- the marshes, where Pip's guilt originates, and where Magwitch is later recaptured, structurally frame the novel's beginning and its turning point, tying setting directly to the theme of guilt and consequence
- London, by contrast, is presented as a place of moral confusion and false gentility, where Pip's ambitions temporarily bury his conscience beneath debt, idleness and embarrassment about his origins
- Pip's eventual willingness to help Magwitch escape, at real personal risk, shows guilt finally translated into loyal action, resolving the tension set up between the marshes and London as competing moral settings
- context: the Kent marshes closely resemble the area around Chatham and Rochester where Dickens spent part of his own childhood, suggesting the setting carries some personal, autobiographical weight for the author

Question 14

Level 4 (12-15): Convincing, critical response: sustained, perceptive analysis of the closing chapter's narrative significance, with judicious quotation and confident terminology; contextual point about 1860s serial readers integrated fully.
Level 3 (8-11): Clear, relevant response: explains the significance of the ending through at least two methods, with relevant quotation and a clear contextual point.
Level 2 (4-7): Some, generic response: identifies relevant features of the ending with some quotation; makes a generic or partly relevant contextual comment.
Level 1 (1-3): Simple, limited response: makes a simple, undeveloped point with little or no quotation; little or no contextual comment.
Indicative content:
- the ending brings Pip back to the grounds where Satis House once stood, now cleared of the old, decayed building, symbolically suggesting that the destructive influence of the past has finally been cleared away
- Pip's final meeting with Estella, humbled by her own unhappy marriage, allows Dickens to bring the novel's exploration of class, suffering and personal growth to a quiet, understated close rather than a dramatic conclusion
- the restrained, ambiguous final lines leave open exactly how much hope Pip and Estella's future holds, structurally rewarding a novel that has consistently avoided simple, easy resolutions
- context: Dickens is known to have altered his original, more clearly unhappy ending after his friend and fellow novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton urged him to soften it, resulting in the more open, gently hopeful ending published in the 1861 volume edition
- context: readers following the novel in weekly instalments in All the Year Round would have followed Pip's fortunes over many months, making a quiet, reflective ending that rewards patient, attentive reading feel especially fitting after such a long, serialised acquaintance with the character

Question 15

Level 4 (16-20): Compelling, critical response: sustained, sophisticated engagement with the statement across the whole novel; judicious, precisely selected quotation including embedded quotation; perceptive analysis of language, form and structure with consistently precise subject terminology; contextual understanding woven fully into the argument.
Level 3 (11-15): Clear, well-structured response: sustained, clear engagement with the statement; well-chosen quotation; explains effects of language and structure with accurate subject terminology; relevant context clearly shown.
Level 2 (6-10): Some, generic response: attempts to engage with the statement with some relevant quotation; comments on language/structure with limited subject terminology; some awareness of context.
Level 1 (1-5): Simple, limited response: simple or narrative response with limited textual reference; simple or no comment on language/structure; little or no awareness of context.
Indicative content:
- agree: Joe's quiet dignity, skill and loyalty, entirely unconnected to wealth or polish, present true worth as independent of social class throughout the novel
- agree: the revelation that Pip's fortune comes from Magwitch, a convict, rather than the well-born Miss Havisham, structurally dismantles the idea that gentility and true worth belong naturally to the upper classes
- agree: Miss Havisham's wealth brings her no happiness, and her eventual remorse for the damage her obsession has caused suggests that social position offers no protection from moral or emotional failure
- qualify: Pip's own journey shows that recognising this truth takes most of the novel, suggesting Dickens presents it as a hard-won realisation rather than something the reader is simply told is obviously true from the outset
- qualify: Estella's more privileged presentation and behaviour, despite her own hidden working-class and criminal parentage, could be read as complicating a simple "class does not matter" reading, since her manner is still shaped by the genteel upbringing Miss Havisham buys for her
- context: Dickens's own experience of childhood poverty and his father's imprisonment for debt is widely thought to inform his sympathetic treatment of characters whose worth is unconnected to their social standing, such as Joe and Magwitch

Question 16

Level 4 (25-30): Compelling, critical evaluation: sustained, sophisticated evaluation of time and decay across the whole novel; judicious, precisely selected references including embedded quotation; perceptive analysis of language, form and structure with consistently precise subject terminology; contextual understanding of 1860s versus modern reception woven seamlessly into the argument.
Level 3 (17-24): Critical, exploratory evaluation: exploratory, critical response with a clear line of argument sustained across the novel; judicious range of references; analyses effects of language, form and structure with precise subject terminology; contextual factors integrated fully where relevant.
Level 2 (9-16): Detailed, well-structured evaluation: consistently clear, detailed evaluation of time and decay; well-chosen range of references; explains effects of language, form and structure with subject terminology used accurately; understanding of relevant context clearly shown.
Level 1 (1-8): Simple or clear evaluation: simple or clear response with some relevant reference; some comment on language/structure with limited or accurate use of subject terminology; some or little awareness of context.
Indicative content:
- Extract C's description of everything "which ought to be white" as instead "faded and yellow" introduces time and decay as inseparable from Miss Havisham's presentation from Pip's very first sight of her
- the detail that the bride figure has "withered like the dress, and like the flowers" fuses Miss Havisham's body with the decaying objects around her, establishing decay as both a physical and psychological condition from this first encounter
- across the wider novel, the stopped clocks fixed at "twenty to nine" and the untouched, rotting wedding feast extend this arrested moment across the whole of Satis House, showing a household organised entirely around resisting the passage of time
- Miss Havisham's raising of Estella as an instrument of revenge shows her attempt to make the past actively shape the future, rather than simply preserving it, extending the theme of time beyond her own person into her manipulation of others
- Miss Havisham's later remorse, and her plea to Pip for forgiveness once she recognises the damage caused to both Estella and Pip, present a late, partial thaw in the frozen time she has maintained, suggesting decay is not presented as entirely irreversible
- methods: Dickens's use of vivid, sensory detail (faded colour, sunken eyes, withered flowers) creates an image of living decay that is more unsettling than a simple description of an old house, blurring the boundary between person and setting
- methods: the retrospective first-person narration allows the adult Pip to frame Miss Havisham's decay with hindsight and understanding that the frightened child in Extract C could not have had, adding a layer of reflective judgement to the description
- evaluation: a reader in the 1860s, encountering the novel across many weekly instalments and familiar with the sensational, Gothic tradition of the period, may have responded to Miss Havisham chiefly as a thrilling, mysterious figure whose secrets were gradually and satisfyingly revealed
- evaluation: a modern reader, more familiar with psychological interpretations of trauma and grief, might instead read Miss Havisham's arrested state as a study of complicated, unresolved trauma following her jilting, responding with more clinical sympathy than Gothic fascination
- evaluation, counter-view: despite this difference in emphasis, the novel's core image, a wealthy woman destroyed by dwelling obsessively on a single moment of betrayal, arguably remains just as resonant and recognisable to modern readers as it was to Dickens's original serial audience, even if the vocabulary used to explain her condition has changed

Literature: Great Expectations (Charles Dickens) - Worksheets, Questions and Revision