LA: Great Expectations

GENERAL
1. Briefly summarize the plot of the novel you read, and explain how the narrative fulfills the author's purpose (based on your well-informed interpretation of same).
A six-year-old boy named Pip lives on the English marshes with his sister and his sister’s husband, Joe. His sister is mean but his brother-in-law Joe is pretty much the best thing that’s happened to Pip.  Pip steals food from his bossy sister (Mrs. Joe Gargery) so that the convict won’t starve (and also so that the convict won’t rip his guts out). By her early teens Pip comes into fortune by means of a mysterious and undisclosed benefactor . He leaves for London to become a gentleman. Pip's life in London is busy, full of dinner parties in castles with moats, encounters with strange housekeepers, trips to the theater, etc. He spends way too much money, so his debts just keep piling up.Meanwhile, Estella is off touring the world and becoming a lady. She’s even more gorgeous than ever, and she moves to the London area so that she can be closer to eligible bachelors.Then, one night on his 23rd birthday This stranger is Pip’s benefactor. This stranger is the convict that Pip helped when he was only six years old!Just as they get ready to make their great escape, Estella goes and marries Pip’s nemesis and Pip is almost thrown into a limekiln by a hometown bully who claims to know about Magwitch. Pip tells Magwitch that Estella is his daughter. And that he's in love with Estella.A few days later, Pip returns home, intending to ask for Joe’s forgiveness and to propose marriage to his childhood friend, Biddy. Upon arriving home, however, he finds that Joe and Biddy have just married. He begs for their forgiveness at having been such a strong head, and then he moves to Cairo.
2. Succinctly describe the theme of the novel. Avoid cliches.
A Theme that I like is ambition  it take a lot for Pip to over come some struggles (social classes). He knows what he wants and will do what ever he can go get that. He is a very ambitious character and it goes right along with the theme of the whole story.
3.Describe the author's tone. Include a minimum of three excerpts that illustrate your point(s).
There is a lot of ups and down to the novel and Dickens makes sure he expressed those through pain and fear. He gets across the point to everyone and you can defiantly feel that through reading

4. Describe a minimum of ten literary elements/techniques you observed that strengthened your understanding of the author's purpose, the text's theme and/or your sense of the tone. For each, please include textual support to help illustrate the point for your readers. (Please include edition and page numbers for easy reference.)
Symbolism:
Bentley Drummle: Provides a contrast to Pip
Mosts on the Marshes: A very important setting to the novel, it sets fear into the book because any time Pip went there something terrible will happen
Miss Havisham's Wedding Dress: irony for death
Literary Elements:
euphemism -The substitution of a mild or less negative word or phrase for a harsh or blunt one
hyperbole –a deliberate, extravagant, and often outrageous exaggeration
Polysyndeton– the repetition of conjunctions in close succession for a rhetorical effect
Synecdoche – a figure of speech in which a part is used for a whole

CHARACTERIZATION
1. Describe two examples of direct characterization and two examples of indirect characterization.  Why does the author use both approaches, and to what end (i.e., what is your lasting impression of the character as a result)?
Dickens explains everyone through action yet I still felt like I knew the characters well and saw who they characters were even though there wasn't to much direct characterization.
2. Does the author's syntax and/or diction change when s/he focuses on character?  How?  Example(s)?
The author again explains the character through action so that doesn't change but when I read the characters voices in my head they sound British  but when the author is talking and explaining action I hear it with out an accent. So in my mind it does change.
3. Is the protagonist static or dynamic?  Flat or round?  Explain.
Pip is a dynamic character he formed how he thought and grew up in front of us in the novel. He became a very mature and driven man.
4. After reading the book did you come away feeling like you'd met a person or read a character?  Analyze one textual example that illustrates your reaction.
I felt like I knew Pip, but through out the book I felt kind of upset just because Dickens wrote in a dark way and I was worried about how everything would turn out.