Swathi Lekshmi

The novel, a Bildungsroman,has its reader, in its powerful tenacious grip, deeply absorbed in its plot, with speculations rife, and paints a poignant reflection of the plebeian class of the English society wrought in poverty, indebtedness which draws a stark departure from the well endowed class/rich and the pride and defiance which the latter commands. The reader is made to travel with Pip the protagonist of the novel,in his travails and quest for becoming a gentleman. Repelled by the proud and cold hearted Estella, on one hand, and engulfed in the mortal fear of Magwitch who accosts him in the latter half of the story, Pip is left in an conundrum, from which he quickly relinquishes himself when he comes to know that Magwitch more than being a benefactor, turns out to be Estella's father, the ladylove of Pip who had once spurned him. Later Dickens ends the novel with a flourishing finish and leaves his readers guessing as to whether Pip would join Estella in matrimony and thereafter lead a happy life...... The novel is indeed a masterpiece of its times and of the Victorian era....................