5th week... Victorian Era!

So, this week we have been studing the Victorian era and yes, I have enjoyed it but I would have to say that the Romantic has been my favorite! I do have to say that I was pretty stressed about reading Great Expectations, but it was not bad at all! I actually enjoyed it. I would have to say that my favorite charature was actually Estella, I know they may seem weird because she was so mean but I think that she was interesting! Estella is Pip's unattainable dream throughout the novel. He loves her passionately, but, though she sometimes seems to consider him a friend, she is usually mean and uninterested in him. As they grow up together, she repeatedly warns him that she has no heart. Though she represents Pip’s first longed-for ideal of life among the upper classes, Estella is actually even lower-born than Pip; as Pip learns near the end of the novel, she is the daughter of Magwitch. Despite her cold behavior and the damaging influences in her life, Dickens nevertheless ensures that Estella is still a sympathetic character. By giving the reader a sense of her inner struggle to discover and act on her own feelings rather than on the imposed motives of her upbringing, Dickens gives the reader a glimpse of Estella’s inner life, which helps to explain what Pip might love about her. Estella does not seem able to stop herself from hurting Pip, but she also seems not to want to hurt him; she repeatedly warns him that she has “no heart” and seems to urge him as strongly as she can to find happiness by leaving her behind. Finally, Estella’s long, painful marriage to Drummle causes her to develop along the same lines as Pip—that is, she learns, through experience, to rely on and trust her inner feelings. In the final scene of the novel, she has become her own woman for the first time in the book. As she says to Pip, “Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching. . . . I have been bent and broken, but—I hope—into a better shape.”