Great Expectations

Chapter 1: The story opens with the narrator, Pip, who introduces himself and describes an image of himself as a boy, standing alone and crying in a churchyard near some marshes. Young Pip is staring at the gravestones of his parents, who died soon after his birth. This tiny, shivering bundle of a boy is suddenly terrified by the voice of large, bedraggled man who threatens to cut Pip's throat if he doesn't stop crying. The man, dressed in a prison uniform with a great iron shackle around his leg, grabs the boy and shakes him upside down, emptying his pockets. The man devours a piece of bread which falls from the boy, then barks questions at him. Pip tells him that yes, he is an orphan and that he lives with his sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, the wife of a blacksmith, about a mile from the church. The man tells Pip that if he wants to live, he'll go down to his house and bring him back some food and a file for the shackle on his leg. Pip agrees to meet him early the next morning and the man walks back into the marshes.

2: Pip runs home to his sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, and his adoptive father, Joe Gargery. Mrs. Joe is a loud, angry, nagging woman who constantly reminds Pip and her husband Joe of the difficulties she has gone through to raise Pip and take care of the house. Pip finds solace from these rages in Joe, who is more his equal than a paternal figure, and they are united under a common oppression. During the dinner, Pip nervously steals a piece of bread. Early the next morning, Pip steals food and a pork pie from the pantry shelf and a file from Joe's forge and runs back to the marshes.

Chapter 3: The next morning, Pip sneaks out of the house and back to the marshes. He finds a man, wet and cold and dressed like a convict, but he turns out to be a different convict from the man who had threatened him the night before. This man has a badly bruised face and wears a broad-brimmed hat. He runs away from Pip without speaking to him. Pip finally finds his man and gives him the food. The man reacts with anger when Pip tells him about the other convict. Pip leaves him filing at his shackle and returns home.

Chapter 4: Pip returns home to find Mrs. Joe preparing the house for Christmas dinner. She has invited Mr. Wopsle, the church clerk, Mr. Hubble the wheelwright and Mrs. Hubble and Uncle Pumblechook who was a "well to do corn-chandler" who "drove his own chaise-cart." The discussion over dinner was how fortunate Pip should feel about being raised "by hand" by Mrs. Joe and how much trouble she has gone through in that endeavor, though Pip's opinion was never requested. Mr. Pumblechook nearly chokes on some brandy after the meal and Pip realizes that he poured tar water in the brandy bottle when he stole some for the convict. Mrs. Joe becomes too busy in the kitchen to afford a full investigation, but then announces that she is going to present the pork pie. Sure that he is going to get caught, Pip jumps up from the table and runs to the door, only to meet face to face with a group of soldiers who appear to be there to arrest him.

Chapter 5: The soldiers do not want to arrest Pip but they do need a pair of handcuffs fixed by Joe. They are invited in, Mr. Pumblechook offers up Mrs. Joe's sherry and port, and Joe gets to work on the handcuffs in the forge. They are, in fact, hunting two convicts who were seen recently in the marshes. After Joe fixes the handcuffs, he, Pip, and Mr. Wopsle are allowed to follow the soldiers into the marshes. They soon find the two convicts wrestling each other in the mud. The one with the hat accuses the other, Pip's convict, of trying to kill him, but the other replies that he would have done it if he really wanted to. Instead, he had been the one who had called for the soldiers and was willing to sacrifice himself just so the one with the hat would get caught again. The bring the two back to a boathouse where Pip's convict, eyeing Pip, admits to stealing Mrs. Joe's pork pie by himself, thus getting Pip off the hook. Joe and Pip watch as the two convicts are brought back to the prison ship.

Chapter 6: Joe, Pip, and Mr. Wopsle walk back home. Pop decides not to tell Joe the truth about his file and the pork pie -- he is afraid of losing his respect. When they return, the topic of discussion is the question of how the convict managed to get into the locked house. Through his bombastic overbearance, Mr. Pumblechook's argument wins: the convict crawled down the chimney. Mrs. Joe sends Pip to bed.

Chapter 7: Pip describes a little of his education with Mr. Wopsle's great aunt, a "ridiculous old lady" who had started a small school in her cottage. The education, as Pip describes it, is less than satisfactory, but Pip does learn some basics from Biddy, an orphan girl who works for Mrs. Wopsle. While doing his homework