Great Expectations & Great Adaptation
A Study of the Classic Novel's Notions of Identity
as they Pertain to the Concept of Adaptation
Part Two
by Timothy Lutz
Since 1917 there have been numerous film adaptations of
Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations.
The
directors and writers of these various films each have their own different way
of interpreting the novel and showing the novel’s themes and characters through
the medium of film. The director of each movie version has made decisions about
what type of adaptation they will do and which themes or characters will get
emphasized, altered, or cut.
One of the themes Dickens explores most in Great
expectations is the question of what makes a gentle man. Is it riches or
character? Many of the people of upper-class stature are often portrayed in
Dickens’s novels to be quite cold and their world although full of rich comfort
can be cruel.
In the beginning of the novel the character of Joe is a
simple blacksmith and a true Gentle-man even though he does not have riches. He
is comfortably content with his station in life and treats the people around him
with courtesy and respect.
Another important theme to be considered in the novel is
to what extent Pip is in control of his destiny and the shaping of his
character. To what exten are these shaped by Pip himself and how are they shaped
by the other people around him especially his guardians and benefactors?
In
the story the first shapers of Pip’s life, his parents, are already dead but
their influence can still be seen in the way Pip visits their graves and traces
out their names. The second shapers of his life are his sister, who adopts him
after their parents’ death, and her husband Joe. Pips relationship to them is an
interesting one because his sister becomes more like a mother to him. She indeed
has a very commanding presence in his life and takes primary charge of his
discipline. Her husband Joe is actually more like a brother or a friend to Pip
than like his father. And of course there is Uncle Publechook who claims a role
as Pip’s first benefactor.
He
strongly pushes Pip’s life and it is at his suggestion Pip is apprenticed
hurriedly to Joe.
Pip’s life is completely turned upside down though when he
is hired or asked for by a strange rich older woman Ms. Havisham to come and
play at her house for her amusement. At her Home Statis house he meets Estella
who has been adopted by Ms. Havisham.
Ms. Havisham uses her role as Estella’s Guardian
and benefactor to groom Estella to be a heartbreaker out of a desire for
vicarious vengeance for her own broken heart after she had been jilted at the
altar as a bride to be. After his exposure to the upper class side of society
and to Estella Pip feels ashamed of his common background and longs to be a
gentleman largely so he can impress Estella He confides this wish to his friend
Biddy and it continues to pain him. He loves Joe and appreciates what he has
given him but his meeting with Estella has him longing for more than the common
life Joe can provide him.
Then he gets a surprise, a benefactor of his own who has
chosen to remain nameless for a time, trusting his business to the Lawyer
Jaggers and his clerk Wemmick. This mysterious benefactor gives Pip access to a
substantial amount of money. Joe releases Pip from his blacksmithing
apprenticeship. Pip then goes to London to learn the ways of a gentleman. In
London he lives with and befriends Herbert Pocket who was someone he fought with
at Statis house when he was a boy as Estella looked on. Herbert tells him he was
once involved in Ms Havisham's plan to break men’s hearts using Estella but he
did not care for her as Pip does as he has someone of his own. He tells Pip to
forget her and enjoy life, but Pip Just can't do that he has been molded and
shaped by Estella and is lost in his delusion that he is being prepared for the
purpose of marrying her. Meanwhile Estella is fulfilling Ms Havisham’s
heartbreaking plan by flirting with many other guys in addition to Pip, but she
tells him that he is not just one of those other guys. He is also under the
delusion that Miss Havisham is his Guardian.
After
all Jaggers visits her as well (though the true reason for this is revealed
later). Then one cold and rainy night, Pip’s true benefactor makes himself
known. His name is Abel Magwich and he is the convict Pip fed on the marsh at
the beginning of the story. The Prisoner Magwich is Pips benefactor and he has
motives of his own he was not a gentleman so he hoped he could make Pip a
gentleman partly to repay him for his kindness, but also to show himself a good
creator and benefactor of a gentleman and it gratifies his ego to know that he
can do it. Pip is confused that his benefactor has nothing to do with Miss
Havisham or Estella (though it turns out in the end he is Estella's father and
that is the relationship Jaggers has with Ms Havisham who adopted her. He does
however feel grateful to his benefactor and gets caught up in a plot to help him
escape abroad and makes up his mind to join him partly out of gratitude for
being his benefactor and because he is heartbroken over Estella. The Plan fails
and they are captured by the authorities.
In
the end Pip realizes that a man does not have to live in upper class society to
be a true gentle-man. He
returns home to the Forge and to Joe only to find life there has moved on
without him since he left. In Dickens’s revised ending he returns to Statis
house to find Estella there he learns that Estella has realized that she can
have feelings of her own apart from Miss Havisham's plan.
She and Pip go off together at last although it is
still ambiguous what exactly happens to them.
David Lean’s version of Great expectations stays pretty
true to the main themes of the novel but does rush things along some.
Particularly the death of Joe’s wife right away
instead of having her linger.
This may be due to the elimination of the character
of Orlich. Biddy is another character cut short by this film although it does
include the important discussion with her of Pip's desire to be a gentleman. It
also diminishes Pips time spent with Biddy and any notion of his wishing he
could fall in love with her.
Lean's choice of actress to play her is
substantially older than the actor who Plays Pip this makes her role more
motherly than that of a friend or sort of sister. The end chosen in the film is
Dickens’s second ending but Lean chose to emphasize the romantic feelings
between Pip and Estella at the end instead of leaving the exact happenings
between them after the novel ends to the viewer's imagination.
They kiss in the end like they do in most movies of
the time. People wanted an optimistic fairytale ending and he gave it to them.
The South Park version is written along the lines of
satire and takes quite an artistic license especially toward the end Robot
Monkeys "Let’s go kick Miss Havisham's ass!” etc. However for a show that is
often thought of as crude and unsophisticated South Park has actually become
very good at satire of many things, Wal-Mart, Bono, World of Warcraft, and
Guitar hero to name a few. This adaptation of Great Expectations is no
exception. The writers actually do their research. This adaptation is very
intelligently written and though it speeds through the story, as a television
show often has to do to in order to cater to the fast paced audience, it adheres
to many of the themes in the actual novel especially the notion of what makes a
Gentle-man which is specifically quoted in the show. The scene where Herbert
Pocket is teaching him table manners is very close to the novel and Dickens’s
sense of humor is expanded by the writers to include other quite hilarious
things not to do at the dinner table. Even some of the diversions from the novel
emphasize actual themes from it. "Steve is seventeen and he has a car"
emphasizes Estella's flirtations with other men using a common modern teenage
romantic dramatic occurrence. In the novel to Pip’s dismay she seems to gets
serious with men like Drummel, but its all part of the plan she tells Pip.
The
Genesis device is borrowed from Star Trek but it actually portrays Miss
Havisham's desire to live her revenge vicariously through Estella in a far more
literal manner. Finally, the killing of Herbert’s many bunnies is a humorous way
to portray the coldness Estella has been brought up to show.
Then there is the movie adaptation directed by Alfonso
Curion which came out at the end of the 90s The Curion version changes the
setting of the novel from Victorian England to modern day Florida and New York
City. This film version eliminates certain Characters completely and changes the
nature of others. Pip’s name is changed to Finn. Ms Havisham becomes Ms.
Dinsmore, and the lawyer Jaggers becomes Mr. Ragno which actually was his
nickname in the novel, “the Spider”, albeit in English rather than Italian.
Uncle Pumlechook is absent. Woplse is nowhere to be seen. Poor Orlich is
eliminated completely in yet another movie.
Biddy was reduced in Lean’s adaptation she is now
completely gone except for her brief representation by a woman who answers Joes
door at the end. Wemmick is gone and with him his aged P. Wemmick’s themes about
the value of portable property and separating professional and personal life are
not considered important enough to include him. Herbert Pocket is also
eliminated. When Finn goes to New York he lives by himself. Characters and
events not eliminated are reinterpreted and changed. Pip in addition to his name
change is an aspiring artist.
The Prisoner he gets food for also gets a name
change to Arthur Lustig and his profession in the movie has something to do with
organized crime as it is perceived today. Joe keeps his name but changes his
occupation. In Curion’s version he is a fisherman. His character is rougher
around the edges than Joe in the novel more like a modern day redneck. Pip’s
sister is altered in the opposite direction. She is portrayed as Joe’s live-in
girlfriend rather than his wife.
She gets a name Maggie, and her mannerisms are more
reserved and calm than the strict disciplinarian in the novel.
In the movie she does not get beaten up or die she
just leaves one night.
The circumstances of Pips rise to fortune are much the
same as in the novel. Except that as an artist he actually works for some of the
money he gets.
He goes to Peridiso Perduto (Paradise Lost) the
movies name for the novel’s Statis House. There he meets Estella and the crazy
old woman Ms Dinsmore. Her name may have been changed, but she is a lot like Ms.
Havisham in the novel. She asks Finn similar questions about Estella.
Estella keeps her name and Curion, through Gwyneth
Paltrow, emphasizes her cold detached mannerisms quite well.
Perhaps the biggest elemental change in this adaptation is
the addition of sex into the plot.
He has Finn and Estella have sex in order to
express the deep emotional connection of love to the modern audience of the film
which is more used to sexual content in entertainment than a Victorian audience.
He uses sex and much more sexual imagery (for example the scene where Finn
paints Estella) than Dickens ever did.
The death scene of Lustig (Magwich) in the movie has a
style more reminiscent of the Godfather than having him die sick in prison as he
does in the novel.
Instead he is stabbed by a hit man and dies in
Finn’s arms giving him the sketchbook he dropped in the water when he startled
him. This ending although different, is very well done and quite emotional. The
connection of Magwich’s character being Estella’s father is gone though.
Curion’s ending holds truer to the novel than many of the other parts of the
story he portrayed in the film both a return to Joe and Dickens’s second ending
where Finn finds Estella at Paradiso Perduto
are portrayed in the modern setting of the movie
but theme wise are very similar to the novel.
Bibliography :
Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. London:
Peguin, 2001.
Lean’s GE
Great Expectations. Dir. David Lean. 1946. DVD. Image
Entertainment, 1999.
Southpark Version
"Pip." South Park. Comedy Central. 29 Nov. 2000.
Curions GE
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