 The novel, Great Expectations, is arguably one of Charles Dickens' most popular classic novels. It is a mix of lots of tragic elements, but also lots of really positive elements to do with love. Now, this novel centres around the journey of Pip from childhood all the way to adulthood, hence it could be argued that it's a Bill Dunsraman. A Bill Dunsraman is a genre of novel or story which essentially follows a protagonist throughout the life's journey from infancy or from a very young age all the way through to adulthood. Another example of Bill Dunsraman is the novel Jane Eyre. Now, the novel itself, Great Expectations, is a very epic story, indeed it definitely is seen by many as one of Charles Dickens' greatest feats and accomplishments. If you are studying this novel as part of your course of career exams, it is very easy to get lost in the detail and to get overwhelmed by all the different elements of this story. Therefore, what I decided to create was a mind map as you can see behind me, charting all the major events that happen in the story. Now, this mind map is really useful if you're studying this novel as part of your course of career exams, you're a little bit restricted on time, or you've studied and read through the novel which I would definitely recommend, however you want to be able to take a step back and just generally assess what happens in general, okay? So this video is for you if you just want to kind of get a general broad view of all the events that happen in this story. So as you can see, I chart in 13 steps everything that happens in Great Expectations. So let's begin with the opening of the story. So we meet Pip, who's an orphan, and he lives in Kent with his abusive older sister called Mrs. Joe. So we never really learned her real name, but she's referred to as Mrs. Joe. And he also lives with her husband, Joe Godry. Do bear in mind that Mrs. Joe also abuses her husband, both Pip and her husband, Joe Godry, are really scared of her. Now, Pip as a young orphan meets an escaped convict named Magwitch. He helps Magwitch. However, we learned that Magwitch is later caught and then he disappears from the story for some time. Now, Pip then goes with Joe to visit Miss Havisham, who's a wealthy recluse. Recluse, remember, is somebody that has totally separated themselves away from society. Now, Miss Havisham is a wealthy recluse. And the major reason why she shut herself off from society and away from society is because she was jilted on her wedding day. Jilted means when somebody is waiting to be married. So they go walk down the altar on the wedding day and they are stood up by the person who's meant to be marrying them. Now, in Miss Havisham's case, she was meant to be married many, many, many years ago to a man who later learned his real identity. However, this man never showed up and she becomes a recluse as a result of this crushing, embarrassing day. Then in the story, we learned that Pip, he is working for Miss Havisham and he meets and falls in love with her adopted daughter called Estella. We learned that Pip falls so in love with Estella, her beauty. He's so entranced by her. And remember that, of course, Miss Havisham and Estella are in a completely different class to Pip. So Pip is working class whilst Estella is upper class. And of course, she is the adopted daughter of Miss Havisham. Therefore, Pip vows and decides to become a wealthy gentleman so that he can one day marry Estella. And he works under Joe for Miss Havisham during this period. And he tries to self educate because he does not have access to formal education. Remember his working class and during the Victorian era, lots of people who were working class, their parents could not afford to send them to school. So he decides that he is so in love with Estella. He's so inspired. He wants to do anything for her. And he decides that he wants to become a gentleman. And part of being a gentleman is being very well educated. So he decides to self educate whilst he's working for Miss Havisham so that one day, hopefully he can be worthy enough for Estella's affections and to marry her. Then separately, Pip receives a mysterious fortune several years later. And he decides to move to London in order to become an ideal gentleman. Don't forget one of the aspects of being a gentleman during Victorian society with somebody in addition to, you know, dressing up a class with a top hat, long tail coat and so on. They were very, very well educated and they had certain manners. So Pip decides to move to London, which is a capital city even then. And he decides to teach himself to become an ideal gentleman because he now has this big fortune too. He also mistakenly, however, believes that this fortune that he has received is from Miss Havisham. He is naive, he thinks Miss Havisham has very good intentions and he believes that Miss Havisham maybe wants to support his love and his relationship between him and Estella. Therefore, he thinks that this mysterious fortune that he has received is from Miss Havisham and she gave him this money. Now, when he is in London, Pip be friends Herbert pocket and he learns that Magwitch is his benefactor. OK, so the person that Pip met when he was young and he was terrified into helping him, Magwitch now reappears. So Pip is now a young adult and he realizes that this person who has given him this huge fortune is not Miss Havisham. Actually, it's this escaped convict, which is a major plot twist. OK, so Magwitch is his benefactor. Then Magwitch, we learn about his story. He tells Pip that he built himself a fortune in order to help Pip one day, the way that Pip had helped him when he was in need as a convict. Then Magwitch, we learn, is on the run from his former accomplice. Remember accomplice is somebody who you work together with to do usually bad deeds. OK, so Magwitch is on the run, trying to run away from his former accomplice compassing as well as the London police. So we also learned that, you know, Magwitch did make a fortune, but this fortune is under very murky circumstances. And we get the sense that Pip is benefitting from maybe Magwitch's illegal activities. Now, Magwitch is on the run. So he's on the run from Compassion and the London police. And we actually learned that Magwitch is Estella's father. OK, so he is Estella's father. And Compassion, this man who is a accomplice, is the man who jilted Miss Havisham at the altar several years ago. Then Pip realises. So this is now when he goes from being naive to actually learning the world for what it really truly is. He learns and realises that Estella's affections towards him, they were all just a ruse. They were just a game encouraged by Miss Havisham, who of course we learn is very, very bitter towards men. So this is her way, him being played around with Estella and her manipulating Estella in order to mistreat Pip. This is just her way of getting back at what she sees as a slight by men towards her. OK, now Havisham does this and of course encourages Estella to act affectionate. However, Pip is devastated to later learn that Estella meets another man and she marries him. OK, so Estella never had the intention no matter how hard Pip worked. She never had the intention to marry him. Don't forget she is from an upper class Pip, even if he's now received a fortune, she is still part of new money, which was looked down in Victorian society by the old aristocratic elite and the old money. Now Estella marries another man who's more alongside her own class. However, we find that Miss Havisham now feels very, very sad about how she mistreated Pip all those years ago. And of course, also how she manipulated Estella because Estella then became a really terrible individual. And Miss Havisham feels really sad. She feels guilty, she's recriminatory and she asks Pip for his forgiveness. Separately, we learn that Pip and Herbert help Magwitch escape because don't forget he's on the run. He's trying to leave the city. And even if they help him escape, they are blocked and obstructed by Oralig and Compecen and Magwitch is unfortunately caught. So this is one of the tragic elements of this story. He is unfortunately caught and executed. So he meets his bloody end. Then Pip falls really, really ill. So, of course, all of these revelations, all of these terrible things that happen. He ends up falling ill and he's nursed to health by Joe Gargery. OK, Joe Gargery, who is the husband of his sister. So Joe nurses him to hell, but we learn that he had neglected Joe in his aspirations to build wealth and become an ideal gentleman. So even if Pip had neglected him, Joe still was very loyal to him. Was a genuine friend and family member to him. And he's the person that steps in and helps Pip get back to health. Pip then decides to return to Kent. This is his home country or rather the hometown, OK, outside of London. So then he returns to Kent, finds Joe, asks for his forgiveness. And he also decides in addition to going back to Kent, trying to find Joe, asking for his forgiveness, he also decides that he is going to marry his childhood friend called Biddy, who he had completely neglected when he was so focused on winning the affections of Estella. However, when Pip does return to Kent, he finds that life is actually very different. He learns that Joe and Biddy are actually getting married. OK, remember that Pip's sister passed away and he learns that actually Biddy has not been waiting for him to return and Joe and Biddy's lives have moved on and they're going to get married. Finally, the story ends 11 years later when Pip encounters Estella. OK, so Pip later encounters Estella and he learns that she's no longer manipulative. In fact, the man that she married, the man who was part of the same social class as her was a very abusive husband towards her. And we learned that as a result of this, she's actually very melancholic and separately, we learned that she has become really polite and she's learned all the wrong things that she has done. She seems that she wishes to change and she's also seemed separately to actually have fallen for Pip. The novel thus ends as Pip and Estella holds hands and we get the sense that maybe there's some kind of promise and some kind of positivity that will result as a result of both Pip and Estella reuniting after 11 years. So that's it when it comes to understanding the key events that happen in great expectations. As I mentioned, this is seen as arguably one of Charles Dickens's greatest novels. I would suggest definitely reading it. Do not use this video as a substitute for reading. However, this video is really useful if you just want to be able to take a step back, reflect on all the key events that have happened and revise, especially on a last minute basis, either for your coursework or exams. So thank you so much for listening and make sure you do return for the videos that I will go over or the key characters within the novel starting with Pip, as well as all the key quotations. Remember, the word love analysis to do if you're writing about them or indeed any themes from the novel. Thanks so much for listening.