Not So Great Expectations

[changeling67]

I have come to the end of my study of Great Expectations for the time being. I must admit to skimming it and I think if it is a book I will be studying, then I will revisit and take notes with the exact essay title in mind. No spoilers, but every Gothic novel has its sinister setting and Satis House is no exception.  Throw in a token mad woman and her brainwashed mini me and bingo - Gothic Central.  Some critics would say that both lead females eventually become sympathetic characters in their own way.  Sometimes I wonder what I am missing, because I think they are both monsters.

There's Mrs Joe, the sadistic husband/nephew beater; Havisham as the rotting Rapunzel, with her virago-in-waiting Estella (another automaton - what IS it with this specific Dickens archetypes?) honed to drive men to make masochistic fools of themselves.  Lots of themes here - social class, sexual inequality and Dickens own deep psyche needs exploring.  Or does it? I think he was a product of his time and he reflects the prejudices and presumptions across the scale.

I am preferring Brick Lane, which is quite a thick book to get through - I am chipping away with it night after night before I go to sleep.  A review on that book another time.

Comments

[koshien.livejournal.com]

I can't really sympathise with the Miss H and Estella either. Miss H is nasty, but Estella is aware of what she is doing and is no mindless tool even though some argue she does keep putting Pip off and discourages him.

Been a while since I read the book though. I was always confused with Pip's obsession with gaining rank/wealth, but then again poverty vs wealth is a big theme in Dickens so I guess it is this books manifestation of that.

How many books do you have to read for your fda this year? Is the workload heavy for coursework and write-ups?

[calico-pye.livejournal.com]

My modules next year are as follows:

Integrative Applied Study - haven't figured out what that entails yet.

The Victorians - Self-explanatory really, hence the Dickens list.

Contextual Study of Film - I have had some media experience, some of this is about tearing apart the filming process and other observations.

Integrative Literary Study - Again, I haven't the foggiest re the criteria - I presume it is the same as Introduction to Literature level 5.

Romanticism - Blake, Keats, Byron et al.

New Technology & Writing - Basically, understanding where the market is going re literature, writing for Kindle etc.

I think they are all project based and will be 5,000-7,000 words per project.

Book List:

Arthur Conan-Doyle: The Lost World; The Poison World
Charles Dickens: Bleak House; Hard Times; Great Expectations; Little Dorrit.
George Eliot: Middlemarch
H.G.Wells: The Time Machine
Hardy: Jude the Obscure
Tennyson: Charge of the Light Brigade; Maud
Evelyn Waugh: Brideshead Revisited

Brontes - Jane Eyre (read it last academic year); Wuthering Heights (read that the year before that)

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Because we are studying The Victorians, it will be all about rank/social class, Marxism, Sexism etc - more of a history/anthropology lesson than purely English.