Great Expectations: Analytical Response Plan

Activity 
Plan your ideas by:

· Reading Great Expectations and related texts(of your own choosing).
· Researching how meaning is created through textual features in each text.
· For each question come up with:

a) an introduction
b) a conclusion
c) at least six main topic sentences
d) your main ideas in point form underneath each topic sentence
e) key quotes that support your points
f) written body paragraphs for each paragraph
g) reference to at least ONE related text of your own choosing.

HSC-style question
Despite an individual’s desire to belong to a group or community, this is not always possible.

How do the texts you have studied represent the processes and results of belonging?

Discuss this statement, focusing on how composers of texts represent the concept of belonging.

Activity
Before you begin writing, brainstorm ideas about the question and your possible approach to the question.

Thesis (introduction) ideas: Introduction
Belonging to a community or group is essential to how we live in society. We all strive to belonging. At times, the desire to belong to a social class that is beyond us is so strong that it alters our conscience to the point where we lose our integrity. Pip’s determination to become a gentleman according to high society’s standards in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens provides the conditions in which he learns to value people themselves over the perception of people’s worth. (Add your ideas about the related text here.)

Conclusion
A change in an individual’s perception is necessary in order to achieve a sense of lasting belonging in society. The ability to appreciate people as they are and judge their behaviour as opposed to their position in society are crucial to Pip’s acceptance of himself and others in Great Expectations. It is this awareness that leads to him becoming the gentleman he aspired to be. (Add ideas about related texts here.)

First body paragraph

Topic sentence
Pip comes to accept the mentorship of Magwitch, leading to a greater awareness of what it truly means to be a gentleman and belong with integrity in society.

Main points
Symbolism of the marshes represents Pip’s lowly past and where he grew up.
Pip perceives being a gentleman as being determined by the class system – you are either a ‘gentleman’ or ‘common’.
Pip realises he treated Joe and Biddy unpleasantly, just as Miss Havisham treated him.
Pip thinks Magwitch’s money is less pure than Miss Havisham’s money.
Pip’s awareness of Magwitch’s love.
Pip’s idealisation of Estella symbolises his perception of what is ideal in life.
Ironic that Estella is more closely related to a criminal than Pip is.

Key quotes
‘gentleman’, ‘common’
“I only saw in him a much better man than I had been to Joe”

Body paragraph
Pip comes to accept the mentorship of Magwitch, leading to a greater awareness of what it truly means to be a gentleman and belong with integrity in society. Pip originally associates the marshes, where he meets Magwitch the convict who later becomes his benefactor, as a symbol of his lowly past and where he grew up. When Pip first realises Magwitch is a common criminal, his initial reaction is disgust that his ‘great expectations’ were all a sham. Pip originally bases his judgment on what it means to be a gentleman through his perception of the class system, determined by ideas of being a ‘gentleman’ or being ‘common’. At first he becomes angry with Miss Havisham for leading him to believe that she was in fact his benefactor, but he realises that he treated Joe and Biddy just as unpleasantly, having avoided their company because he considered them to be ‘common’. At first, Pip thinks he is ruined because he is linked to a convict, even though the convict has been very altruistic in his treatment of Pip. Pip perceives the money which brought him ‘great expectations’ is somehow less pure than money from Miss Havisham. Yet the convict has shown Pip more generosity and care than Miss Havisham as he behaves like Pip’s ‘second father’. Pip comes to appreciate Magwitch’s love as shown through Pip’s thoughts about him as he held his hand before his death: I only saw in him a much better man than I had been to Joe. Pip's idea of all that is desirable in life is symbolised through his idealisation of Estella – she is wealthy, beautiful and uncommon. It is ironic that what he adores is more closely related to the world of criminals and convicts than he. Pip has been blindly headed towards what he thought he was running away from in the first place.

Second body paragraph (write your own ideas)
Topic sentence
Main points
Key quotes

Third body paragraph
Topic sentence
Main points
Key quotes

Fourth body paragraph
Topic sentence
Main points
Key quotes

Fifth paragraph
Topic sentence
Main points
Key quotes

Sixth paragraph
Topic sentence
Main points
Key quotes

Great Expectations: Key Scene Analysis

To gain a better understanding of how language techniques work together to create meaning, it is a good idea to analyse a few key scenes from the text.

Activity
Make notes about a key scene in Great Expectations, taking into account:
• language techniques
• examples (quotes) of the techniques from the text
• analysis of how these examples relate to belonging.

Then write a full analysis of the scene and its techniques, and its relation to belonging.
An example of a scene has been included in the following modelled response. After you have read the modelled response, choose a different scene to analyse.

Modelled response
Key scene: Pip’s first visit to Satis House

Techniques and examples:
Decrepit imagery of Miss Havisham - ‘grave-clothes’, veil like a ‘shroud’
Lack of light in Miss Havisham’s house
Metaphor of cruel- hearted Estella

Analysis:
Miss Havisham is an old woman who has given up on life.
Decayed wedding dress represents Miss Havisham’s abandoned love and the decaying effect this has had on her perception of life.
Miss Havisham blocks out the light, highlighting her loneliness and withdrawal from society.
Estella bought up to break men’s hearts echoes Miss Havishams desire to spurn love.

Full analysis of how the techniques and examples represent belonging:Pip's visits to Miss Havisham’s house changes him, as he develops a determination to become a gentleman. Miss Havisham is an old woman who was abandoned on her weddind day and has, as a result, given up on life. Dickens describes her through decrepit imagery. Her yellowed wedding gown, ‘grave-clothes’, and the veil like a ‘shroud’, represents an abandoned love and the decaying effect this has had on her perception of life. She refuses to exit the house, blocking out the light further highlighting her loneliness and withdrawal from society. Pip imagines that if the light did strike Miss Havisham that it would turn her to dust. Her only companion is Estella, her beautiful adopted daughter, whom Pip develops a strong affection for, which turns into love as he grows older. But it is unrequited love, as Miss Havisham has made it her dark life's project to raise Estella as a cruel-hearted girl who will break men's hearts, metaphorically representing Miss Havisham's own desire to spurn love. The imagery in this scene is one of crumbling decay, just like Miss Havisham, sitting ‘corpse-like’ as she watched Estella and Pip play. It is unnatural as is the relationship between Estella and Miss Havisahm. Despite this, Pip aspires to belong to the high society the house symbolises. Although Pip feels uncomfortable visiting Satis House, he concludes that his ‘uncommonness’ is the cause of his distress and determines to become a gentleman. Pip is unable to see that the bitterness of the ‘cold wind’ echoes the bitterness of Miss Havisham and Estella.