[Music]
emotionally evocative symbols chief
among them tears the saddest house and
money itself occur repeatedly throughout
Great Expectations Charles Dickens uses
tears to represent passionate emotions
like gratefulness love and shame in
great expectations tears have a
benevolent clarifying effect when pip
cries he feels better after word after
pip cries tears of shame from Astellas
insults he is able to continue in his
daily life when pip cries tears of
remorse about his treatment of Joe he
can more fully sense how wrongly he
treated his friend the only tears that
do not have a positive effect are the
crocodile tears shed by mrs. Camilla
because they represent false emotions
another important symbol is the saddest
house the saddest house represents a
lack of growth or death Miss Havisham is
hateful and bitter attitude creates a
structure in which time seems to stand
still literally as all the clocks have
stopped at the time her wedding was to
have taken place nothing significant
changes in satis house the furniture
remains in the same position without
being dusted for years the wedding cake
remains on the table covered in cobwebs
Miss Havisham has created her own
mausoleum that will house her corpse
saddest is Latin for enough the title
could be ironic Estella suggests the
term satis implies that a person who
owns this house
has enough of everything however Miss
Havisham doesn't have enough love in
fact she does not have enough of
anything except money and bitterness
money is another key symbol in great
expectations money represents the value
that society places on someone many
characters value themselves and their
own personal worth as human beings
around their economic money possessing
value Charles Dickens uses money in the
novel to represent power or control over
people
for example Miss Havisham uses money
like a
but master to make a Stella do exactly
what the recluse wants her to do in
London also Magwitch oozes money to
control pip and make him into what
Magwitch wants namely a gentleman but
Miss Havisham and magwitch's use of
money to control people backfires
Estella becomes cold toward Miss
Havisham pip becomes miserable as a
gentleman but doesn't tell this to
Magwitch instead wishing he'd never come
and he'd never become a gentleman in the
first place
you