Great Expectations - Book Summary & Analysis by Thug Notes

You know I be havin' these great expectations of you hittin' SUBSCRIBE, playa!

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(violin music)

What up, G?

Welcome back to Thug Notes.

This week, we keepin' it Victorian with

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

This book tells the story of Pip,

a street kid who be shackin'

with his crooked sister

and her hubby Joe.

One day while paying his respects

at his parents' grave,

a cracked-out convict rolls up to him

and demands some food

and a nail-file to escape his chains.

Pip helps a brother out

but later sees that fool

get got by the police.

Later, an uppity cracker named Pumblechook

arranges for Pip to kick it

with a rich broad named Miss Havisham

and her adopted daughter Estella.

Now Estella may be fine

but she be acting a straight cock-tease

to my boy Pip.

Pip be thinkin' that Miss Havisham

want to prime him

to get paid like a gentleman,

but she shuts his ass down

and tells him to hustle as a blacksmith

with his poor Uncle Joe.

Then one day some lawyer named Jaggers

tells Pip that he about to get paid

and inherit a swole fortune.

So Pip kicks Joe's poor ass to the curb

and heads to London

where he gonna learn to be a player.

Pip be thinkin' that Miss Havisham gave him all that cash

so maybe she be preppin' him to marry Estella.

One night, Pip be visited

by some playa named Abel Magwitch

who turns out to be the convict

from the graveyard.

He tells Pip that it was him

who gave him all them stacks of cash.

Now Pip be wiggin' out that

he ain't bein' primed to marry Estella.

So he rolls up to that hoe Havisham's crib

and confesses his love for Estella.

But that hood rat shuts this stunner down.

Years later, Pip done f***ed up

and ends up boned out.

Uncle Joe does Pip one last solid

and pays off all his debt.

Now Pip be feeling like a fool

for dissin' him all those years ago.

So Pip decide to stop frontin' with them rich folk

and keep it real with the boy who got his back.

Then one day while

peepin' the ol' Havisham crib,

Pip runs into Estella

who be off the short leashes

of her ex-husband and Havisham

and decide she want to be cool with Pip.

At the end of the book, Pip say

he saw no shadow of another parting from her.

Now one of the main things

my boy Charlie D trying to say up in here

is if you makin' big ass assumptions

about what the future holds

you sure as hell got another thing comin', homeboy.

You can see this here disconnect

between expectations and reality

in the character of Havisham.

This broad always wearin'

a old, crusty wedding dress

even though she ain't been married!

It's like she walkin' around everyday

showin' that she was expecting way more

out of life than she actually got.

Likewise, Pip

always expecting righteous things to happen to him

like Miss H makin' him a gentleman

and getting freaky with that girl Estella

But this stunner is blind

to the peeps that actually got his back.

For example,

when Pip finds out

it was Abel that gave him those stacks of cash

and not that hag Havisham

he gets all crunk

'cause it ain't what he expected

when on the real

he should be geeked up

that he got himself a sugar daddy.

Another theme up in here

is that having mad money

corrupts your mind

and your social relations.

Before Pip becomes a rich playboy

that giddy cat Pumblechook

be disrespecting him all the time

but after Pip makes bank

Pumblechook starts treatin' him

like the man.

Also when my boy Pip gets them fat pockets

he starts dissing Joe 'cause he all poor.

On page 197,

Pip says he would even pay

to get Joe's weak ass out of his face

in spite of the fact

that on page 127

Pip straight-up calls this stunner an "angel!"

Mmm.

More money, more problems, blood.

Consider this sh*t right here.

Conflicting values in this player's life

be shown through the images of stars

and fire.

That chick Estella's name

comes from a Latin word

that means 'star'.

Whereas my man Joe

be associated with the forge and fireplace.

My hunky Dickins links that hoe with stars

'cause while all those stars may be pretty,

they straight-up unreachable,

just like Pip's romantic expectations.

But on the other hand,

fire is of the Earth

and Dickins links Joe with fire

to emphasize that down-home feeling

of life in the hood

without wackass delusions.

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