great expectations

so yes, this blog is about the dickens' book. i just read it. i never had.

and i had great expectations about it. i like dickens. and for the most part, i wasn't disappointed.

EXCEPT for the ending. with estelle. i found that to be completely not right and not to my liking.

so after i read it, i did as i often do when i finish books, i went to read what others thought of the book. usually, i'll read the cliffnotes, the sparknotes, wikipedia, etc.

and in the wikipedia article, i read that the way it ended was NOT the way dickens originally ended it. and that he only changed the conclusion reluctantly, on the advise of others to make it more happy and more saleable.

and i thought "damn you dickens, capitulating to popular thought is not something i would have expected from you."

what i felt didn't ring true was that estelle could change and be humbled. not that i don't think people can change. i very much believe that people can change. and for the better. but just not estelle, or people like her. and they especially don't change because they are treated ill. which she was. in fact, what i've found is that the worse people are treated, the worse they become. but particularly a person like estelle. she's not going to change if she's treated poorly. in fact, i don't even think she would change even if she'd been treated well. i just don't think she'd change.

what i pictured estelle as, is a sociopath. you know? a person who only sees the value in others for what they can do for her. a person who can come across completely charming and would give you the world IF they want or need something from you. but once they don't, or once someone stands in their way about something, they can't lose "you" quickly enough.

trust me. i've known a few sociopaths. and you can't expect anything truly good from them, ever. they are only in "it" for themselves. and they are emotionally crippled. and god forbid you ever need something from them that causes them any problems or doesn't give them a gain. so yeah, i really really do not think estelle could change. and i think dickens had it right the first time.

the only person that estelle could ever be really happy with or good to is another sociopath who had the same goals as her. well, pip. he was just too sweet to ever be like estelle. you could tell that throughout the book, but most especially when he doesn't tell magwich that his daughter turned out to be a sociopath. he was so sweet, he let poor magwich believe the happily ever after ending that he'd hoped for. and so, you certainly did not want to see pip sucked back in to her deal in the end.

apparently dickens also changed his last sentence from "I could see the shadow of no parting from her." to "I saw no shadow of another parting from her."

i think dickens' first ending and final sentence saying that he could clearly see that not parting from her would mean he could expect to live his life in a horrible shadow if he went back to her- was perfect. and in the second version of the ending and the sentence, it means to me that he thought with her x and the past out of the way, they would live happily ever after. seriously, that's much too simple and disney an ending to such a great story. it's too slapped on. and well i expect more from dickens than that.