Great Expectations summary for kids

The Convict on the Marshes

Pip, whose real name is Philip Pirrip, is a small orphan boy. He lives with his bad-tempered older sister, Mrs. Joe, who brings him up “by hand,” and her husband, Joe Gargery, a gentle giant of a blacksmith who is more like a friend to him. One Christmas Eve, while Pip is visiting his parents’ graves in the lonely churchyard on the marshes, a fierce man in a leg iron grabs him. He is a convict escaped from the hulks, old prison ships moored in the river, and he orders Pip to bring him food and a file.

Terrified, Pip steals a pork pie and brandy from the pantry and a file from Joe’s forge, and takes them out to the marshes at dawn. On Christmas Day, soldiers come to the house to have handcuffs mended, and Joe and Pip follow them on the hunt. They find the convict fighting another escaped prisoner in a ditch. Before he is rowed back to the prison ship, Pip’s convict tells the soldiers that he stole the food himself, so Pip is never blamed.

Satis House

Rich, strange Miss Havisham sends for a boy to come and play at her gloomy house, Satis House, and Joe’s pompous Uncle Pumblechook takes Pip there. Miss Havisham sits in a yellowed wedding dress, with every clock stopped at twenty minutes to nine and her rotting wedding cake still on the table. With her lives Estella, a beautiful, proud girl she has adopted. Estella scorns Pip’s coarse hands and thick boots, and for the first time he feels ashamed of his home.

Pip goes back many times. He wheels Miss Havisham around her rooms, plays cards with Estella and even fights a pale young gentleman in the garden. When Pip is old enough, Miss Havisham pays for him to be apprenticed to Joe. But Pip is now unhappy at the forge. Back home, his sister is struck down in a mysterious attack and left badly hurt, and gentle Biddy, a clever orphan girl from the village school, comes to look after her. Pip confides to Biddy that he wants to be a gentleman to win Estella, and Biddy wonders kindly whether he wouldn’t be happier as he is.

Great Expectations

In the fourth year of Pip’s apprenticeship, a London lawyer named Mr. Jaggers arrives with astonishing news. Pip has “great expectations”: an unknown person has given him a fortune and wants him brought up as a gentleman in London. He must never ask who his benefactor is. Joe refuses any money for losing his apprentice. Pip is certain that Miss Havisham is the giver and that she means him to marry Estella, and when he visits her to say goodbye, she does not tell him otherwise.

In London, Pip shares rooms with Herbert Pocket, who turns out to be the pale young gentleman he fought as a boy. Herbert cheerfully teaches him city manners, nicknames him Handel, and tells him Miss Havisham’s story: she was jilted on her wedding day by a man who only wanted her money, and she has raised Estella to break men’s hearts in revenge. Pip spends freely and runs into debt. When Joe visits in his stiff Sunday clothes, Pip is embarrassed and cold, and Joe leaves with quiet dignity.

Estella Grown Up

Estella returns from France as an elegant young lady, and Pip falls hopelessly in love with her. Miss Havisham fiercely orders him to love her, but Estella warns him again and again that she has no heart. In London she is surrounded by admirers, and to Pip’s misery she favours Bentley Drummle, a sulky, brutish young man. When Pip turns twenty-one, Mr. Jaggers tells him he will now receive five hundred pounds a year, though still not who sends it. Pip uses part of his money, in secret, to buy Herbert a start in a shipping firm.

The Stranger on the Stairs

One stormy night, a weathered, grey-haired man climbs the stairs to Pip’s rooms. It is the convict from the marshes, Abel Magwitch. He was sent to Australia for life, became rich as a sheep farmer, and he joyfully reveals that he is Pip’s benefactor. He has spent his fortune making Pip a gentleman to thank the little boy who fed him. Pip is horrified. Miss Havisham was never his patron, and he has turned away from Joe and Biddy for a convict’s money.

Worse, Magwitch is in great danger: a convict who returns from transportation can be hanged. Pip and Herbert hide him by the river under the name Provis and plan to smuggle him abroad. They learn that his old enemy is Compeyson, the very man who jilted Miss Havisham, and Pip works out a secret: Estella is Magwitch’s daughter, and her mother is the housekeeper of Mr. Jaggers, who placed the baby with Miss Havisham.

Fire and Forgiveness

Estella tells Pip she is going to marry Drummle. Pip pours out his love, and Miss Havisham, watching, at last sees the harm she has done in teaching Estella to be cold. She begs Pip’s forgiveness, and he gives it freely. She also gives him money to finish paying for Herbert’s place in the firm. As Pip turns to leave, her old dress catches fire. He throws his coat over her and beats out the flames, badly burning his hands. She is laid on the long table where her wedding feast once stood, and she dies not long afterward.

Soon after, Pip is lured to a lonely sluice house on the marshes by Orlick, Joe’s spiteful former helper, who admits he attacked Pip’s sister and means to kill Pip too. Herbert and friends arrive just in time to save him.

Down the River

Pip, Herbert and their friend Startop row Magwitch down the Thames to meet a steamer bound for the Continent. Just as it comes near, a police boat with Compeyson aboard cuts them off. Magwitch seizes Compeyson, and they go overboard together. Compeyson drowns, and Magwitch is pulled out badly injured and arrested. He is tried and sentenced to death, and everything he owns is taken by the government, so Pip’s fortune is gone.

Pip, no longer ashamed, visits Magwitch every day in the prison sick room and holds his hand. Before the sentence can be carried out, Magwitch is dying. Pip tells him that his lost daughter is alive, that she is a lady, and that Pip loves her. Magwitch kisses his hand and dies peacefully.

Home Again

Pip falls dangerously ill with a fever, and when he wakes he finds Joe caring for him. Joe nurses him back to health and quietly pays his debts. Humbled, Pip goes home meaning to ask Biddy to marry him, but he arrives on the very day she marries Joe. He asks their forgiveness, then goes abroad to work as a clerk with Herbert, and in time he becomes a partner in the firm.

Eleven years later Pip returns and finds Joe and Biddy with a little son named Pip. That evening he walks to the ruins of Satis House and finds Estella there. Her cruel husband is dead, and suffering has made her gentle. They leave the ruined garden hand in hand, and Pip says he saw no shadow of another parting from her. Dickens first wrote a sadder ending, in which they meet briefly and part, but he changed it before the book was published.